This opinion piece was originally about continuity issues in TV shows and movies, but it very unexpectedly grew to be so much more. 14,000 words more. So, strap yourselves in because it’s quite a ride.

 

***Added to May 24, 2024, to talk about a deleted scene from S12/E12 “The Reagan Way”. It’s in orange down below and makes this piece 15,000 words.

***Added to June 21, 2024, to talk about The Legacy of Joe Reagan, on the S13 DVD boxset. It’s in purple down below and now makes this piece 16,000 words.

 

First, we’ll start with some pretty bad continuity issues concerning his age.

After watching Season 14, Episode 4, of Blue Bloods, I had to search for proof of life for continuity issues concerning ages. And that’s why we come to Joseph Conor Reagan, and his son, Joseph Hill.

In S10/E19 “Family Secrets”, the character of Joe Hill was introduced as the long-lost grandson. At the age of 24, he was the youngest detective in the firearms unit of the NYPD and had no clue who his father, or his father’s family, was.

For the sake of this argument, if we go by that age in late 2020, then he’s going to be 28 this year, which means he was born in 1996.

In S14/E4, “Past is Present”, we find out that the son of Sonny Malevsky, the detective partner and killer of Joe Reagan, is a cop in the NYPD but goes by the name Mike McFadden. Weirdly, maybe this is brought about by what Junior said in S13/E9 “Nothing Sacred”, about his father’s grave and the son of Sonny Malevsky.

At the end of S14/E4, Frank introduces Mike to Joe and they ask each other questions of each other. Joe asks him how old he was. Mike says 14, Joe says he was a few years younger.

Not if we go by your age in 2020. At 24 you would have been 12/13 in May 2009 when Joe Reagan died. And yes, I went back over old episodes to find out, and whenever you see the family standing in front of the gravestone you see that Joe Reagan, currently, was born January 4^th 1977 (although it started as June 6^th 1977 for at least 5 seasons that I’ve seen), and died May 15^th 2009, making him 32 at the time of his death, and 18 when he hooked up with Paula, and 19 when she had Joe Junior. So no, Joe wasn’t a few years younger than 14, he was one to two years younger at most in 2009 when his father died. Although I’m being pedantic about the years and timelines because timelines are important.

Another continuity issue happens in the same conversation, seven sentences later, when they say this…

Joe: Must’ve been really hard growing up with that inheritance.

Mike: Likewise, with you, I bet.

Joe never grew up with it. He found out he was a Reagan three and a half years ago when he was 24 so how was it hard for him growing up with that inheritance? Do the writers not realise they screwed up in one conversation?

On a side note, Joe Reagan is 47 this year, if going by his gravestone.

Now, with ages, the show has had issues at other times when deciding if Joe was the eldest, but many claim he was the third child, after Erin and Danny, and Jamie looks to be 5-8 years younger than him, especially in S13/E9 “Nothing Sacred”, when Frank shows Junior old videos of his father.

However, back in S10/E19 “Family Secrets”, when the family discover Junior exists, Erin asks Frank, “This makes him what, 25, 26?” That would have made Joe Reagan 17-18. But, again, Junior is 24, making Senior 19 when he would have been born. Does Erin’s comment make Joe Senior older than her?

Just like with soap operas, ages, and birthdays, are rarely mentioned and no one really ages. But, characters are born and suddenly accelerated to an older age, and many die off if they’re already old. You can’t bypass those two parts of life. The beginning and the end. We all have them.

 

But now, we move on to the main topic this piece grew into, and I’m going to take umbrage with the treatment of Joe Hill and the mindfuckery of his character.

 

His mother’s treachery is the first mindfuck. Finding out who his father was is the second. Dealing with his father’s side of the family and their treatment is the third and fourth.

 

The definition of mindfuck.

We’ll deal with Paula’s mindfuckery first because she’s done and dusted and started this whole mess before he was born.

Paula kept his family from him for 24 years until he came into the show, and the family, as a fully formed 24-year-old adult in S10/E19 “Family Secrets”. Her excuse for keeping him away from them was, “She didn’t want the name Reagan to be a burden”, and she dropped that bomb on Frank.

She had no interest in being in a “relationship” with Joe at the time even though she had no problem fucking him, she dropped out of the academy because she was pregnant, and kept it from him. “We were just kids, I didn’t want a serious commitment, didn’t tell him I was pregnant because he would insist on getting married or want to be involved in raising him.”

She felt that for all Joe Senior would talk about walking in his father and grandfather’s footsteps he’d also be walking in their shadows, something Frank reiterates to Junior in S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, and she wanted her son to make his own choices. It was just a short fling, according to her. But Joe Senior seemed to do a hell of a lot of talking during this short fling. When they weren’t fucking, of course. Or maybe during.

And all of this permits you to not tell a man he’s going to be a father? Or to keep your child from his father and his side of the family?

Fucking seriously?

He’s twenty-fucking-four and doing a DNA test to find his father who he’s been asking about for years.

In S10/E19 she has two conversations with Frank. In the second conversation she says, “But this week has forced my hand in ways I did not see coming.” She told Joe everything, and he reacted with a thousand questions and laughed when looking back at his interaction with Frank. There was something he couldn’t put his finger on, now he knew.

She wants her adult son to not be in the position that led to his father’s death. She wants him to have a safer job in Brooklyn or Queens so he’ll be out of harm’s way. No, Paula, you don’t get to decide that. Neither does Frank. And throwing a tantrum because you don’t get your way shows how goddamn selfish you are.

Because when she doesn’t get her way their conversation ends on this note.

Paula: So, when you’re done thinking about it, you can let me know. Until then, I would rather you didn’t contact us.

Frank: I’m sorry you feel that way.

Paula: I’m sorry he ever found out about you.

You selfish fucking bitch!

She fucked up. Royally! Fucked her son every which way. Joe went twenty-four years not knowing who his father was, and going without him, because of her selfish need to keep him to herself. He was born in 1996, you didn’t need to get married, regardless of what Joe Senior wanted.

And let me tell ya, Paula, you claimed you tried to tell Joe about his father, but only spent a small amount of time with Senior and only knew so much, yet you knew exactly who he was, what his name was, and who his family was when you were fucking him, and thought enough of him to take his St Jude medal and then hand it, along with his name, down to your son. But didn’t think enough of Senior, or your son, to tell either of them so your son could have his father growing up? To claim you only knew so much about his father was absolute fucking bullshit.

Your son went without a father. Joe died not knowing he was a father and had a son. And both could have been in each other’s lives but weren’t because of you.

Onto S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, the bitch barges into Frank’s office, and when Frank says family are the exception, she says “I’m not your family. We’re not your family. Yes, my son may be related to you by blood—”

Yes, Paula, Joe is his family. The grandson you kept from him.

She wants him to stay Joe Hill, but now she’s pissed that he’ll become Joe Reagan, the new poster boy for the NYPD and it’ll get out that he’s a Reagan, and asks Frank if he’s going to claim him as one of theirs. He’s all she has, and he’s a Hill, of the Warwick Rhode Island Hills, and that’s important to us.

US!

Not his father’s side of the family? You know, Paula, The Reagans.

And then she has the gall to say, “If you tell him to keep it a secret, he will.” When Frank disagrees, the gall continues and she says, “Please don’t deny me, again.”

Frank says, “I can’t deny you something that was never in my power to withhold in the first place.”

God, fucking seriously! He didn’t deny you the first time. Your son is a grown-ass man who made the decision to find out who his father and his family are.

And an odd thing this episode brought about. When Frank tells them someone got to someone in the Suffolk County offices about a certain birth certificate and it was going to be on the websites that night, they know who Joe is. If his father’s name is on his birth certificate, why was he doing DNA testing? How did he not know who his father was? Do Americans not need their birth certificate to obtain a driver’s licence, rental agreement, or bank account?

Back to Paula, who loves to play the victim.

An episode later, S11/E3 “Atonement”, she’s whining again, this time at the Reagan dinner table. She says, “I feel like this is some sort of karma, like I just brought this on from worrying, selfishly worrying.”

Selfish? Fuck yes! But karma’s not why this is happening, Paula. It happened because you fucked up and didn’t tell your ex he had a son and didn’t tell your son he had a father. This is about your son learning who his father was and who his family is, and you’re STILL making it about you. Just because you didn’t want anything with Joe Senior doesn’t mean you get to deny your son the other side of his family for the rest of his life.

You’re just a cunt, Paula. Period!

I don’t know how Frank didn’t tear strips off her during their first conversation for keeping his grandson from him for twenty-four years. How goddamn dare she keep Joe from his family and keep the family from knowing him, and then demand that Frank change his job while dropping that bomb on him. Frank should have said as much and demanded to know how she could be so goddamn selfish, hurtful and vengeful.

 

Now we move on to the Grande Dame of mindfuckery by the family and we’ll dissect this by season.

Let’s get the kicker out of the way right now, which is the fourth complete and utter mindfuck.

If you want to do absolute emotional and psychological damage to a young man finding out his father is dead and he’ll never know him, just tell him this, you’re just like your father. But then, when you’re pissed at him, you spit this out instead, you’re nothing like your father.

Way to fuck up the emotional growth of a young man in desperate search of his father.

Joe was a fully formed 24-year-old adult in S10/E19 “Family Secrets” before the Reagans got a hold of him. He came into the show as a wee little Woobie and only had two scenes. First with Frank when he’s asked into the office so Frank can see who and what he is. The second is at the end when Sean goes and gets him for family dinner, even though Jamie told Eddie in the scene right after the family found out about him that he and his mother were coming to family dinner even though they hadn’t even been invited yet and they didn’t know where he lived!

Little Woobie’s all “Hi everybody” and the family goes into shock. They see nephew Joe, looking like brother Joe, and aren’t sure how to react. They’re just as curious as him, and you see it in all of their faces.

Hell, I don’t know if I’d be able to walk into a room full of people I never grew up with and be all, Hi everybody. Oi, just no.

And why the hell is he wearing old man clothing? He’s 24, not 64. 24-year-olds are not wearing check shirts with t-shirts underneath.

We see Joe again in the first episode of the next season, S11/E1 “Triumph over Trauma”, when Danny and Baez go missing. Joe joins in the search and calls himself a family friend when introduced to Anthony, and Jamie has no issue with that. Joe sticks to Jamie, who’s pretty good to him, and they have a conversation about Joe Senior where Joe Junior says, “I don’t know the first thing about him.”

Why not? Why has no one told him about his father yet? Why has he not googled his father? And that’s not a dirty euphemism. At the end, Jamie asks if he’s coming to Sunday dinner, Joe says he has plans, and Jamie seems okay with that.

Or is he?

A few months into the family, Joe’s still feeling his way and living his normal life. And Jamie is yet to be an ass to him.

So far, so good.

In the next episode, S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, Joe’s third outing, he gets to show off his BDE (big dick energy) by chasing after a perp who kidnaps a little girl. He becomes the “NYPD’s Top Gun” for his selfless act, but soon realises it’s not as great as he thought it was going to be. His boss is calling his three days off “Kardashian Duty”, and he just wants to get back to work because reporters are sniffing around asking about his background and whether he has a history of NYPD in his family. He wants to keep it to himself, even though he and Frank have this conversation after his heroic actions at the beginning of the show.

Joe: In those blockbuster franchises they call that your origin story. What it is in your past that determines your destiny.

Frank: Yeah, not something that you can take back.

Joe: Why would I want to?

Why? Oh, so many reasons why! Let me count the ways, Joseph.

He and Paula come to family dinner at the end of the episode, and it’s discovered by the press that Joe Hill is half Reagan and it will be on the websites by morning. This scene and episode move right into S11/E3 “Atonement”. After it’s revealed again at the beginning, Henry says, “As the most ancient of this clan, you’re welcome here anytime. But we’ll also respect what distance you want to keep, and I say that with love.”

Which is great, telling him they’ll respect his choice to take his time getting his head around it. But do they actually respect that?

They seem to. For now.

In this episode, they’re especially caring after he fights with other detectives after it comes out that he’s a Reagan. He says, “Some of the guys were pissed that I was hiding a connection to 1PP this whole time, made it out like I was pulling a fast one on them, and then they started going in on you guys and, I lost it.” And says this about the family, “being the like Kennedy of cops, doesn’t make it any easier.”

Which they are and it’s another burden to bear.

Hell, even Jamie tells him, “There’s gonna be more crap to take, but it’ll get easier.” Ah, really? Considering you’re the one giving him the most crap by Season 14.

Why would you get into a fight over a family you’ve only known for a few months? Especially a family that can look after themselves. Although I’m surprised the detectives tried it with the PC’s new grandson. That was ballsy!

By the end of the episode, Joe’s calling himself grandson. When Frank lets him in to deliver the food for Sunday dinner and asks, “Friend or foe?”, Joe says, “Grandson.”

But, with everything that’s happened to him, it’s no wonder he decides to take time off and files for a leave to get the hell out of Dodge and away from the family so he can get his head on straight, missing the chance to meet Nikki and Jack. He’s so mindfucked by everything he’s suffering emotionally and physically.

So far, in four episodes, they’ve taken him in as a half Reagan. They got to know him with card games, and chatted with him as an equal. He is the “new” Joe. They trod lightly, not pushing or rushing into it, but he’s still an adult, not a child. Not a child nephew, an adult nephew. But maybe they also kind of treated him as if he was their brother.

We move onto another two-parter in S11/E15 “The End”, and E16 “Justifies the Means” at the end of the season. Joe’s been undercover with the ATF for six months but is in Manhattan when he shouldn’t be with a head of thick luscious curls, something I’m most definitely a sucker for. Danny comes close to him when he and Baez take down a few crims, and reams his father out for it. Joe calls Jamie to check in and says, “Man, it is good to hear your voice.” Joe still regards Jamie highly, and Jamie still cares and has no issues at this stage. Danny then tells the rest of the family at dinner that Joe’s undercover and is pissed at Jamie because Jamie’s been his NYPD handler for the entire time.

But, as it goes, things go wrong, and Joe is found out. He may have been murdered at the end of E15, and they’re doing a DNA test on the corpse at the beginning of E16. It’s not him, he’s alive, and smart, and doing what he can. His uncles are caring and worried about Junior because they don’t want their brother’s son going the same way as his father, as Danny mentions in E16. They follow him wherever he goes as he leads them across the state to another firearms buy. Something’s going down and he’s shot in the knee, but just fine.

By the way, Joe, don’t close your eyes when shooting a gun. That’s so problematic.

At the end of E16, Joe’s at family dinner, for the third time in a year, and they bought the food from Razzano’s in Glen Cove because they didn’t know his favourite food. “That time when you didn’t show up for dinner, when you bailed on us, stood us up.” He apologises for running out the way he did six months previous, regardless of Henry saying no apologies necessary, but then that comes after Henry told him in S11/E3 “Atonement”, “But we’ll also respect what distance you want to keep, and I say that with love.”

But did they really respect it? And is, “That time when you didn’t show up for dinner, when you bailed on us, stood us up”, the start of how they really feel?

Because at the end of that episode, this three-sentence conversation happens.

Frank: But Joe is something special here. He is truly his father’s son.

Joe: And that’s a good thing?

Frank: There is no better thing.

It’s potentially this comment that more than likely made all of this worse, if not set it off to begin with because the look on Jamie’s face… He’s all, whatchu talkin’ ’bout Willis?

 

I piss myself laughing when I see this.

And that comment goes against everything Jamie says when he throws his shit fits in later seasons.

There’s also another issue I have with this episode.

Joe Senior’s St Jude medal that Joe Junior has. When he gets it back at the end of S11/E16 after losing it, he tells them, “You know this was my dad’s, right?”

They tell him they know, they all got one at their first holy communion. But how did they know it was his medal to save in the first place? It’s never been mentioned, and it could’ve belonged to any of the other two men in the car.

Plus, how did Junior get it if Paula’s short fling with Senior didn’t last long? How and why did Junior not ask Paula how she had it? And if he did, why do we not know? And why would Senior give it to her if it was just a short fling? And how did the family not know Senior had given it away? He had at least another 13 years to be alive, why did no one ask, and why did Senior never say? And why did they not ask how Junior got it?

So many goddamn questions not being answered! *Pounds fist on desk

And by the way, writers, St Jude is the patron saint of hope and impossible causes, NOT hopeless cases as Joe says. A three-second Google search would have told you that.

Joe’s first outing for S12 is E6 “Be Smart or Be Dead”. He’s been beaten up by a crook he once put away. Little Woobie gets a few ribs and his left arm broken, and he looks so small and lost on the bed, and in the whole episode, you just want to hug him. Joe’s lost his big dick energy and has become the broken and orphaned waif, good at playing Oliver. “Please sir, may I have some more?” With the attitude he gives, it’s clear he’s embarrassed by the fact it happened, and this line tells that, “And be the dumbass cop who got jumped by a street thug and then had his ass handed to him on a platter.” That’s more than likely why he refuses his grandfather’s suggestions. Does he think he’s getting preferential treatment because he’s the new grandson? Frank is just telling him to do it by the book, but Woobie wants to do it his way.

And Joe, don’t give me ideas about your ass. I may use it in a novel… Oh wait, I already did…

It’s also a year and a half after he joined the family, and he still doesn’t have a photo of his father, even though, again, he could have googled him and downloaded some, or asked Frank or Henry for some, and I’m assuming they are yet to have any of him.

When Frank goes to see him at his apartment the first time, Joe points out the photos on his shelf and says, “I don’t have any photos of my dad, so…”

Frank: But you are like him in so many ways.

Joe: Yeah, I wouldn’t know.

Why? Why is this taking so goddamn fucking long? Why have you not told him everything about his father by this point in time?

Later in the episode, this scene makes me cringe when I hear it and I can’t watch it. When Frank calls him into the office to reprimand him for not doing his duty, Joe automatically goes to sit and Frank tells him, “I didn’t ask you to sit.” Yet in S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, he tells him he doesn’t have to do any of that. It’s cruel emotional punishment, no matter which way you cut it.

At the end of the episode, Frank gives him Joe Senior’s graduation photo (because there seems to be no other photo of Joe Senior in existence!) and tells Junior his father would be proud of him. Joe then asks if he can come to dinner. But that begs the question, if he’s family, why does he need to ask, or wait to be invited? Was there not an open invitation? Did Eddie lie at the table when she told Joe and Paula that dinner every week was mandatory? The way the family went on about dinner in that episode makes a lie out of Joe needing an invitation or needing to ask.

Something else in this episode that annoys me. It was evident from his first episode that Joe wasn’t much shorter than Frank, and he’s the same height as Erin, Danny, and Jamie, but every time they film him, especially with his grandfather, he looks so tiny, fragile, and vulnerable, especially in this episode and he was clearly filmed that way on purpose.

And it’s amazing how a broken arm can heal and be fine in six weeks because Joe’s back in S12/E12 “The Reagan Way”. The poor orphaned waif is long gone and he’s sporting MDE (massive dick energy), which is obviously down to the new haircut, and oh, wait, Jamie gets pissed at him for the very first time when things don’t go Jamie’s way.

Joe is working with the FBI and they need Jamie’s help, but Jamie wants them to do things his way. Joe’s FBI boss gets pissed, then Joe gets pissed and wants an answer.

Joe: Jamie what the hell are you doing? I just started on this task force you’re blowing my first case out of the water.

Jamie: We don’t threaten people’s lives to get ’em to co-operate.

Joe: We?

Jamie: We don’t purposely withhold a receipt from a drug crew knowing they’ll put a price on his head.

Joe: You can’t be… We…we… Ja, I’m not a part of you.

You’d think, considering Joe Senior entered the academy as Joe Conor, that Jamie may have learned a thing or two and understood what Joe was talking about.

Later, this exchange happens.

Joe: And now I know why Danny calls you a boy scout.

Jamie: Hey, before you said you’re not one of us. Right, well I think you’re absolutely right. You’re not. You’re nothing like your father.

That tells me Jamie’s intentionally saying it to hurt him and put him in his place. But to what end? For what reason? The look on Joe’s face when he says it… WHY torment him and rip his heart out? Especially with the same old conflicted, contradictory argument that Jamie seems to use when he’s having a tantrum and wants to specifically hurt Joe and put him in his place. Is Jamie now having a hard time seeing Joe as his nephew and not his brother? That’s Jamie’s problem, not Joe’s, but he’s made it his problem while denying responsibility for his part.

But, back to the episode. Joe didn’t say he wasn’t one of them, that he wasn’t a Reagan, he just said, “I’m not a part of you.” It could also depend on how Jamie meant we. The Cop We, the Royal We, or the Reagan We. Joe could have meant Jamie personally; he could have meant in the cop sense. He’s not one with Jamie and Jamie’s rules and Jamie’s world, he’s Joe Hill, he has his own world and his own rules, and is currently under the FBI’s world. He’s not part of the symbiotic parasite that is Jamie Reagan.

Jamie has no right to be pissed, and clearly, took it the wrong way. Yet Jamie doesn’t understand what’s going on, and bitches to the family at dinner.

Jamie: Not everybody feels that way. Some Reagans don’t even wanna be Reagans.

Frank: You gotta be talking ‘bout Joe.

Jamie: Yeah, we’re working the same case, and ah, he’s keeping the secret that we’re related.

Henry: No.

Jamie: Maybe he wants to keep it a secret cause he’s not sure he wants to be a part of this particular club.

Frank: Well, don’t count him out.

He wasn’t keeping it a secret; he just wasn’t telling anyone and that’s his choice. There actually is a difference. Imagine introducing “Uncle Jamie”, a Reagan, part of the “Kennedy of cops”, to your FBI boss. Especially if it goes south, as it did. No thanks! That would have set off a whole load of questions Joe didn’t need from the FBI. But as it was, Jamie had to fuck shit right up and create an issue even though Joe thought enough of him to tell his boss Jamie was okay and they could work with him. Did Jamie not think he was good enough to work with Joe and the FBI? Joe did. And what does Jamie do? Instead of seeing it as a win, that Joe thought enough of him to bring him in on the case, he sees Joe’s comment as a refusal of family. Get a goddamn life, Jamie, you little parasitic worm!

I’m going to repeat myself; Joe was already an adult when they met him. Frank should have told Jamie to grow up, and he’d already reminded them that Joe was an adult at dinner when they found out he was undercover in S11/E15 “The End”. Joe’s a cop finding his way up the NYPD food chain and trying to earn his stripes the best way he knows how, as a Hill, which he’s been all his life. He wants to earn his stripes without the help of the Reagan name that he’s never had all his life, and without the torture it came with in S11/E3 “Atonement”.

Many people milk their family name for all it’s worth, others want to run from it and change their name so they’re not condemned by it. Joe’s not running from the name, and no longer running from the family like in S11 when he needed to get his head around it, he just doesn’t need to embrace the name as his own because he was never named it. You can be proud of who you’re related to and have great relationships with those people, but it doesn’t mean you need to change yourself, or your name, especially if you think it’s going to be a hindrance. And there is nothing wrong with that.

This scene comes next in S12/E12. Jamie still has a problem with Joe and they have this exchange.

Jamie: You know what your problem is?

Joe: Right now, it’s you, man.

Jamie: You haven’t learned yet that only thinking about collars and not thinking things through is gonna get you or someone else killed.

Joe: Great then, I’ll be just like my dad, huh.

While they continue working together to find the missing woman and child, at the end of the show they’re back at the house for a card game so Jamie can battle it out with Joe in front of the adult male members of the family. It’s obvious Jamie’s told the family about their arguments, even though we don’t see that, because they all get words of wisdom in and you can tell it’s for Joe’s benefit.

***Added May 24th to talk about the deleted scene from S12/E12 “The Reagan Way”.

There are a couple of reasons scenes are deleted. Usually, it’s to cut the fat to keep the time limit for the episode, or because it doesn’t fit into the overall storytelling of the episode.

In this case, it could have been either, or both. I can see them cutting it to keep future storylines open for antagonism between Jamie and Joe, which they again showed in S14/E2/E3.

This scene would’ve come between Jamie and Joe rescuing the woman and child, and Frank’s home where Jamie calls the rest of the males in to teach Joe his lesson.

The deleted scene is this: It’s nighttime, and the end of Jamie and Joe’s time working together when the crims who kidnapped the woman and child are arrested and being put into the cop cars. Jeff is talking to Joe and Jamie and tells Joe it was a risky move.

Jamie takes the blame for said risky move, possibly to save Joe from getting booted from the team. In which case, okay Jamie, I’ll give this round to you, but it doesn’t stop you from being the parasitic worm who hurt him to put him in his place by telling him, “You’re nothing like your father” at the beginning of the show.

Jamie walks away to talk to another officer and Joe seems to be somewhat impressed with the parasite, but also puzzled, as you can tell by the look on his face. It’s a cross between “What the fuck did he just do?” and “Did he just do that for me?”. You can see his mind ticking over as to why Jamie would say it.

Jeff and Joe then have this conversation.

Jeff: Okay this your first case with us, so I’m gonna give you a pass. That is not how we do things. (My thought: There’s that word ‘we’ again.)

Joe: gives a huffy laugh.

Jeff: What?

Joe looks at Jamie: Actually, that is how we do things. (My thought: He’s now using the ‘we’ he said earlier in a different context.)

Jeff: Who’s we?

Joe: I should have told you this earlier, but um, he’s my uncle. (My thought: He looks somewhat proud.)

Jeff: You’re kidding me? You’re a Reagan?

Joe: Yeah, I’m a Reagan.

Jeff mumbles and walks away.

Joe looks from him to Jamie and nods, Jamie nods back. There’s some vague recognition of respect on both parts.

Yeah, he is a Reagan. By blood. And…?

That’s how Jeff knew about Joe being a Reagan in S13/E13 “Past History” without it being made clear how he knew. Clearly, Joe telling him he’s a Reagan didn’t put Jeff off from working with him, because he did it again in S13/E13, and regardless of Joe’s attitude in that episode, again in S14/E2/E3.

I’m not sure what to make of this scene. It feels off somehow, feels like something he wouldn’t say yet, like telling Frank in S11/E15 “The End”, “I love you, Grandpa.” It’s only a year and a half since he came along, and he hasn’t spent much time with the family in general. Hell, he spent most of S11 gone. It feels like they rushed him into it, and that could be a reason why it was cut. It was too soon for him to say it regardless of him telling Jamie, “I’m not a part of you”, which he’s technically not.

Another reason could be, if this is the only time he has said it, because he doesn’t technically say it in S12/E20, he just says, “You got three Reagans, someone’s gotta hold the phone. What? You wanna film and defuse at the same time?” they could have cut it because they wanted the room to explore more complexities within the relationship of nephew and uncle, which they have in later episodes.

Joe seemed to be exploring something by saying it, seeing what it felt like to say it. Maybe he’s proud of it, and you can sort of see that on his face, but that’s in this episode, and it seems to have changed by later seasons. He’s always feeling his way with Jamie, you see that when they work together. He’s feeling his way through the relationship he should be having with him. They can work together and still piss each other off. But it’s high time Jamie got his shit off his chest and revealed the real reason so he can move forward to having a healthy relationship with his nephew. Because, again, that’s what Joe is, he’s your nephew, NOT your brother.

Something I also remembered thanks to this scene, and I really wish Frank would scorch earth Jamie with this information, Frank told Joe in S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, that he doesn’t have to make the same choice his father made in owning up to the name. I’d say that’s why he’s still a Hill, why he still says he’s a Hill. Because he is. He’s a Reagan by blood only, but a Hill by birth, by upbringing, and by every way legally. He didn’t grow up a Reagan, he didn’t get the name because Paula didn’t want to “burden him” with it.

And jumping ahead of myself, in S14/E9, as talked about towards the end of this piece, he says it again, he’s a Hill. He seems to have a lack of emotional attachment by now. He has no feelings about the car, nor for his grandmother whom he didn’t know. Maybe by S14, he’s realised that having an emotional attachment to something, or someone who’s dead, isn’t worth the energy. Because, guess what, it’s just not.

***

As a brief intermission, let’s reflect on S12/E14 “Allegiance”…

Back to what I’m writing about, in S12/E20 “Silver Linings”, only eight episodes after his first beef with Jamie, things have calmed down long enough for them to be on speaking terms and working together again. And while Joe doesn’t look happy about Jamie wanting to help the woman look for her sex trafficked daughter, he’s man enough to offer his help to Jamie because Jamie’s going to need a detective.

During the investigation, they have this conversation about Junior’s parents.

Joe: I got a question for ya. My mom says she didn’t tell my dad because he would have insisted on getting married. Is that true?

Jamie: Without a doubt.

Joe: I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if he knew, you know, if I knew him.

Jamie: Sometimes I wonder if he knew, would he have handled himself differently on the job?

Joe: What do you mean? Like would he have been more careful if he knew he had a son? Would he still be alive?

Jamie: Guess we’ll never know.

I’m a woman, but fuck, I can really hate women and the shit decisions they make sometimes.

Near the end of the episode, an important moment happens when he calls himself a Reagan in a roundabout way. He, Danny, and Jamie are looking for the young girl who’s been sex trafficked, and when they find her with a bomb strapped on, he refuses to leave. Danny says to the bomb expert, “You’ve got two Reagans here.” Joe says, “You got three Reagans, someone’s gotta hold the phone. What? You wanna film and defuse at the same time?”

While not technically saying, “I’m a Reagan”, and not yet changing his name, he hasn’t said it since.

After that, Joe’s at dinner, and thanks Frank for having him. AGAIN, he’s family, he shouldn’t have to be invited or thank them for having him. Jesus! And he and Jamie are all smiley at each other. 

Is Jamie smiling because Joe finally, in a roundabout way, called himself a Reagan? Finally admitted to being in the family in front of other people? Something he complained about back in S12/E12 “The Reagan Way”, when he said this about Joe, “Some Reagans don’t even wanna be Reagans”, and “Yeah, we’re working the same case, and ah, he’s keeping the secret that we’re related.”

Either way, it looks like we’re back to playing happy families.

For now.

We next see Joe bringing back his big dick energy in, S13/E1 “Keeping the Faith”. He’s working with Danny and then Jamie to catch a murderer, and Jamie is shot. Joe goes to the hospital with Danny, and Erin, Eddie, and Henry turn up. He sees the dynamic of how they cope with a potential death and later has a conversation with Danny, who also calls him nephew, about his father and how it must be eerie with Jamie in the hospital. They have a sweet conversation, something you rarely see, about Joe Senior.

When they finally find the perp, Joe beats him up and Danny asks, “What are ya doin’?”

Joe: What are you doin’?

Danny: We do it by the book, okay?

Joe: Why?

Danny: What do ya mean why? Because that’s what Jamie would do, that’s what your old man would do, so that’s what we do.

A rare, but very important lesson taught by Uncle Danny. Take heed, young Joe.

Danny, for all of his hot-headedness, is pretty cool with Joe. It hasn’t been stated if they’ve grabbed a beer, or hung out, but he’s neither here nor there with his feelings. His concern in S11/E2 “In the Name of The Father”, makes him want to go and beat up the detectives who beat up Joe, and is later added to in S11/E15 “The End” and E16 “Justifies the Means”. He’s being the protective uncle, and in his case, he’s far more mature when it comes to Joe than Jamie. Maybe because Junior is so much like Senior but is still his own man finding his way, and Danny’s cool with that and clearly understands it better than Jamie who doesn’t seem to understand at all. Maybe it’s because he has kids and Jamie doesn’t.

Onto S13/E6 “On Dangerous Ground”, when Joe works with Erin and Anthony, he becomes hot-headed as things don’t go his way and pisses Erin off. Remind you of anyone? At the end of the episode, when Erin wants to speak to Joe, even though she knows where he lives in S12/E14 “Allegiance” because she turns up unannounced on his doorstep, she has to ask Jamie where Joe would be that night. How would Jamie know where Joe played basketball when Jamie’s the one that gets pissed off most? Unless he knew that from S11/E15 “The End”, when he was Joe’s handler and pretending to be his brother because he’s rarely, if ever, spent time with him one-on-one outside of work.

But even Erin has to get a variant of “the kicker” in. After telling him she wanted to thank him because he was right about her ignoring the behaviour of another attorney, she tells him, “Just don’t forget that your father was my brother, and he would be ashamed of the way you spoke to me.”

It’s heartbreaking. When they go bowling after working together on a case at the end of S12/E14 “Allegiance”, she builds him up with, “You remind me of him, so much. I miss him, every day.” Just to rip him down with, “He would be ashamed of the way you spoke to me.” In other words, he would be ashamed of you.

And the look on his face…

MINDFUCKERY!!!

Moving onto S13/E9 “Nothing Sacred”, when he visits his father’s grave for Senior’s birthday and finds that it’s been destroyed, he becomes emotional at the site of the broken gravestone. He clears it off and tries lifting it while crying. When Frank says he wants to delegate a team to track down who did it, he says, “You’re gonna delegate this? This is my dad”, and before walking away says, “Sorry Dad.” Naw, the poor little Woobie is coming in strong and it breaks your heart. Two years in he’s emotionally invested in a dead man he will never know, and only knows of and hears about on a very rare occasion. After two years he should know everything and have photos and videos. The mindfuckery is digging deep.

And Joe, stop with the head bobbing. It just looks weird from behind.

In that same episode, after he’s invited to Sunday dinner, he finds out Frank didn’t tell them about the gravestone and says, “I’m sorry, I don’t get you guys. Like half the time, you swear each other to secrecy just long enough to blab to everyone else, and the other half, you say everything is on the table except no one ever hears a whisper about it.”

Later, when Frank goes to see Paula to try and figure Joe out, this happens.

Paula: My son likes you Reagans, really, he does, he admires you. But the one person in your family that he loves, is his dad.

Frank: Who he never knew. And to see his dad’s grave like that and then be forbidden from finding out who did it.

Paula: Honestly Frank, what did you expect him to do?

However, two seasons earlier in S11/E15 “The End”, Joe told Frank, “I love you, Grandpa.” So that goes against what Paula says. And it irked me when I heard it in S11/E15 because I thought, you’ve known him how long? Six or eight months, a year at the very most? Sorry, how do you come to love someone, as in a grandfather you never knew, and have barely spent time with, in such a short time when you haven’t been raised with them?

Maybe it’s different for me, I only knew my maternal grandfather and he was an arsehole who was unlovable. But then, if I’d had Magnum for a grandfather, things would’ve been very different.

At the end of S13/E9, Senior’s gravestone has been replaced and Frank is talking to Joe for the unveiling. He’s realised he didn’t navigate the learning curve well when it comes to knowing his grandson. Joe agrees, and Frank follows up with, “I’d say it won’t happen again, but God knows it probably will.”

So, again, why have you not spent time together talking about Senior, or learning about Junior?

Instead, four episodes later, you complain about his attitude and punish him for it in S13/E13 “Past History”. An FBI sting goes wrong and Joe’s boss, the one he worked with in S12/E12 “The Reagan Way”, is complaining to Frank about him. He now knows Joe is Frank’s grandson, something Joe never mentioned in S12/E12. *Which I’ve now discovered he was told by Joe in the deleted scene from S12/E12. 

Joe: I don’t know what that guy’s problem is.

Frank: I do. It’s you. It’s pretty clear you don’t listen and you can’t take direction.

Then this comes up.

Frank: You ever notice, how when you got a beef with someone, it’s always that other person who’s always dead wrong?

Joe: I hadn’t. No.

Joe’s bringing the curls and the attitude, and not the big dick variety. At this point, three years in, he’s trying to prove something and maybe it’s how far to push his grandfather. Maybe, it’s to see how far he can push himself. Or maybe he’s just becoming Danny. Later, when talking about Joe to his team, Frank says, “Yeah, with a chip on his shoulder the size of a Buick.” Frank knows something’s wrong, and says, “He’s not dumb and he’s not shallow, but he is trouble.”

And we’re about to find out how much.

Their next interaction is a fight in Frank’s office after Joe’s been transferred to 1PP and the Chief of D’s office for a week as punishment. And that’s Chief of Detectives, not Dicks, as I first thought, even though dick is slang for detective. I write adult romances full of sex; my brain goes there. But back to the show. Joe’s pissed, Frank’s pissed, we’re all pissed.

Joe: You transferred me to the Chief of D’s office. Why?

Frank: When you commit an error in the field you’re generally taken off the field.

Joe: I didn’t do anything wrong. I followed the letter of the law.

Frank: There is a chain of command, last time I looked you weren’t at the top of it.

Joe: So, this is how I’m just, what like, a timeout, like I’m not playing well with others. (My thought: No, bitch, you’re not!)

Frank: My hope is, that you will use it as a time to reflect.

Joe: On my short comings?

Frank: On your potential, and what the obstacles may be to achieving it.

Joe: You describe my old man as a hard charger, first one in kind of guy, right? So maybe what this is actually about is you trying to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Maybe reflect on that!

Frank: Hold on! I have reflected on just that, many times, often in the middle of the night and I can tell you one thing for certain, whatever this thing of ours is, it ain’t that. Just sos you know.

Later in the episode, this conversation happens between them. It explains everything, but, as usual, doesn’t change anything.

After the beginning of the conversation, comes this…

Joe: I never know where I stand with you. Half the time I feel like I’m competing with a ghost.

Frank: Whose ghost?

Joe: Come on.

Frank: Did you walk by a big bronze statue of him on your way in here?

Joe: Not literally.

Frank: Not anything….

A few moments later comes…

Joe: The dynamic that I have with you, that I have with your family didn’t come out of a vacuum. I’m being measured against something here, and if you tell me that it’s not against my father, then I’ll believe you.

Frank: It’s not.

Joe: Then tell me what it is.

Frank: I can’t.

Joe: You mean you won’t.

Frank: No, I mean I can’t right now. I don’t know which one of us has the answer to that.

Joe: Well, if you figure it out you know where to find me.

Joe’s line, “I’m being measured against something here”, is extremely accurate. He is being measured and has been the entire time. He’s been measured against his dead father from the moment they met him, and probably from the moment they found out he existed, because they keep telling him he’s either just like him or nothing like him. And by Season 14 Jamie’s treating him like a nobody and still using Joe’s death as the excuse.

The truth is, they were hoping for the reincarnation of Joe Reagan, but all they got was Joe Hill.

At the end of the episode, Frank confesses it’s probably true.

Frank: Of course, you feel compared to your father, we knew him, you never even met him, we lost him, he was never really yours to lose, and then we found you, and I’m sure you felt like you were kind of being x-rayed sometime like we figured some sort of shadow or shape in you would bring him back to us for a moment. So, I’m sorry for that.

Joe: Not necessary, you put it that way.

The apology is extremely necessary. They wanted something out of him, wanted Joe Senior back and expected Junior to be him. Danny not so much, he’s laid back with his nephew, treating him somewhere between an adult equal and a teenager. Erin wanted her brother to be alive in him, but that isn’t going to happen. And as for Jamie… *Insert fifty million eye rolls

And he finally sees videos of his father. Jesus fucking Christ!

In Joe’s case, learning to love people he didn’t grow up knowing has been a transformation. Especially when it comes to his dead father. You don’t learn to love people you don’t know overnight. At 24, it’s going to be hard to find your way into a dynamic that already exists and has done so for decades and generations. You need to find your place in it as you learn about the people you’re related to. You need to know where you stand with the other adults you never knew, as an adult, because that’s what he is. He’s not a child, he was a fully formed adult, who’s now struggling to continue finding his way while being a Hill, but also now a Reagan, and a member of the “Kennedy of cops”.

***Added June 21st to talk about the special feature from S13, The Legacy of Joe Reagan, which centres around his son, Joe Hill.

But is it the legacy of Joe Reagan? Paula Hill raised Joe, he is, in essence, her legacy. Joe Reagan didn’t even know his son existed, and vice versa, so is Junior his legacy? Can you be a legacy if you weren’t raised and known about by a parent?

During the DVD extra, one of the executive producers, Siobhan Byrne O’Connor talks about Joe’s episodes, E1 “Keeping the Faith”, E6 “On Dangerous Ground”, E9 “Nothing Sacred”, and E13 “Past History”.

In E1, after Jamie is shot, Joe explores the emotions concerning his father and the legacy of shooting deaths and what if Jamie went the same way. He sees the family’s reaction and it hits home with the potential of losing another family member. In E6, his anger gets the better of him and he pisses Erin off, and in E9, Senior’s gravestone is broken. That legacy lends even further to Junior’s frustration about a dead man he will never meet. It continues into E13 when Joe and Frank get into a conflict about Joe Senior. Siobhan said she finally realised Joe hadn’t learned much about the family and that’s why he finally gets to see a video of his father.

Well, no shit, Sherlock! Why haven’t you told him more about his father? I’ve mentioned that multiple times already in this piece. Why had he not been told about his father? Seen photos and videos. A simple sentence or two every other episode to let us know what he’d received or learned, seen or heard, or done with a member of the family would have told us he was learning about his father and his family and spending time with them. But there was bupkis. Zip, zilch, nada. Absolutely bloody nothing!

Several of the Executive Producers have their say about the character, and many of them bring up the issues I’ve mentioned in this piece. Well, you lot made the show, why didn’t you bloody do something about it?

No wonder the Woobie in Season 13 is angrier than the one we met in S10/E19 “Family Secrets”. The one we saw move into S11 for the first three episodes ended up being a very emotional Woobie. The world was finding out he was half Reagan and he was copping it from every side and on every level. That’s why he got out of Dodge. He needed time and space to decompress it all and came back in E15/16 with some balls and BDE, but you could see he still had a conflict about his father being dead and his family being new. Through S12, he’s finding his way with Erin and Jamie, getting into spats with both of them. But Woobie from S13 is angry and ready for a fight. With almost everyone.

Will Hochman gets prime talking time in this special feature, and you hear from him and Tom as they talk about their scenes in E9 and E13 as well as the ones they’re in together.

Will has more of a grasp on the character of Joe Hill than the producers and writers do. He’s articulate and insightful when it comes to what the character needs and wants, especially about the anger Joe is feeling through the season. But S13 is three years into the revelation of family, has he been angry this whole time or just this season? Or is it finally coming to a head that he knows jack shit about his blood relatives? The fact he will never know his father is one thing, and you can understand the anger about that. He had no male role model in his life, no strong paternal guidance or father figure that we know of. Unless he had Paula’s father, his maternal grandfather, to guide him. But the fact that he’s hardly spent time with the Reagan family, other than Jamie at work, says he doesn’t want to. This is why telling Frank in S11/E15 “The End”, “I love you, Grandpa” makes no sense to me.

Will lends to this when talking about Joe from his episodes. “What does it mean that this is who his dad was and what does it mean that this is who his family is now. And does he want them, does he not want them”.

Exactly.

After the way they’ve treated him, why would he? Especially Jamie, who is a huge part of this piece. And the abuse only got worse in S14. Unless he’s a sucker for punishment, or desperate for love from Daddy’s family, as I’ve also mentioned, wanting to be a part of an abusive family is not okay. Unless he feels taking it is the only way to stay close to his father. Again, whom he never met.

This is why I think come S14/E9 “Two of a Kind”, (I speak about this below) he didn’t care when he said “Your brother’s Chevelle.” And even though Jamie keeps correcting him, no amount of correction will change Joe having to put a cap on his emotions when it comes to a dead man he will never meet. The same with his grandmother. She died four years before Senior.

So, does Joe want them? It appears he does after what he says in S14/E2 “Dropping Bombs” (again, more on that below). I just hope he doesn’t regret it because when it comes to Jamie, he should.

If you’re a fan of the show, and/or Joe Hill, this special feature is worth watching. Will’s voice can lull you to sleep it’s so damn smooth, and I watched this special feature a good twenty times just to hear it. And Will, if you’re not doing narration of audio books and TV shows, you need to.

***

We don’t see Joe again until S14/E2 “Dropping Bombs” when he’s back working with the FBI in a sting to get a drug dealer and finds an undercover Jamie who then gets pissed at Joe because he could have had his cover blown.

It wasn’t blown, because Joe did his job. But Jamie’s pissed anyway when he throws his little tanty and says to Lou, “I don’t need your protection and not from someone with less time on the job than me, boss.”

He then says, “No, I don’t need to have to start worrying about him too.”

Joe: You don’t have to worry about me.

Jamie: Good, I won’t.

What the fuck is your problem, you parasite? Joe’s working with the FBI, and you’re pissed off for what reason exactly?

Now we’ve seen more of Jamie’s beef with Joe, but still don’t know exactly what it is. Usually not doing things by the book that Jamie lives, breathes, and shits by, but is somewhat stated when they have these exchanges.

Joe: No, you put him in danger, I’m trying to keep him out of it.

Jamie: Well, I don’t want your help, we got this.

Joe: Like you did when my dad died? A very long silence between these two sentences. I’m sorry I didn’t mean that, it just came out.

It pissed off Jamie even further and you could see something brewing underneath.

Later, this is said at Joe Senior’s grave.

Jamie: I came here coz I want to set the record straight.

Joe: All right about what I said before.

Jamie: Can you just shut up and listen for once? Your father asked to be on the warrant squad over my dad’s objections, over everyone’s objections. But he was a grown man and an active cop, no one could tell him what to do, he made his own decisions, so stop blaming the family for what happened.

Joe: I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.

Jamie: You have no idea what it was like for having to live through losing him, you didn’t even know him. So, get off your high horse and have some respect about it. I’m not your friend or your co-worker. But I’ve been doing this job and dealing with tragedy long before you even thought of being a cop. You don’t think each of us, at one point or another, played the blame game. Wondered if there was anything, something, that we coulda done to keep him from getting killed. And that is exactly why I will not work with you. I will not be put in the position of having to worry if I did enough to keep you from danger too. I won’t.

Jamie has his high horse so far up his butt he can’t walk straight, so it’s incredibly rich to tell Joe he needs to get off his. Jamie has no problem preaching the rules, or circumventing them, and criticising those who don’t follow them. He may be the youngest, and if he stopped looking at Danny before making his decisions, or speaking, he might realise Joe Junior’s life is not in his hands. Neither was Senior’s as he pretty much mentioned at Senior’s grave.

The death of Joe Senior might still weigh heavily nearly fifteen years later, but Junior is not your brother and any of you could die at any time. Just as Jamie could have in S13/E1 “Keeping the Faith”, when he was shot under the vest, but the youngest Reagan sibling has forgotten all about that a season later.

At the end of the S14/E2, at family dinner, they have Joe crawling up their backsides and blowing smoke. I wouldn’t even bother at this stage if I were him.

Joe: I kind of realised the truth this week that I’d like to share with all of you.

Danny: That you’re really my illegitimate son.

Sean: Actually, it would make a lot of sense. (My thought: Yes, Sean, it actually bloody would!)

Joe: No, but Uncle Jamie did set me straight about a few things this week… It occurred to me that literally everyone at the table at one point or another has done that.  (My thought: Since when did he go from plain old Jamie to Uncle Jamie…? Ugh! Just…No!)

Henry: Straightened you out.

Joe: Tried to. I don’t listen, I’m hot-headed, I’m ungrateful…

Danny: Keep going.

Frank: Please do.

Erin: Yeah, we’ll tell you when to stop.

Joe: You guys are brutal.

Sean: Welcome to my world.

Joe: I spent so much time unpacking who my dad was and how he died, that I never really told all of you how much this means that you’ve accepted me as a part of this crazy family…  I’m really grateful for all of this, for all of you. (My thought: But are you? Really?)

Frank: Back atchya.

Jamie agrees, but his face says something different.

What the actual goddamn fuck?

This needs to be reprised from earlier and added to extensively. “Please sir, Kennedy of cops, may I have some more? More affirmation, more pats on the head, more attaboys, more abuse from this family, especially that asshole Jamie, because I’m desperate and needy for acceptance from my dead father’s family since he’s not here to give it to me.”

Because that’s all he’s getting.

At 28, what does he have to prove after four years? He has nothing to prove to any of you, or is it that he has to prove he’s a Reagan by your standards and not the ones he was raised with? Which you don’t seem interested in.

Is it that he doesn’t do what you want him to? Is it that he’s become a little careless and uses his father as an excuse the same way you Reagans do? I can see that. He was an exemplary detective with a good record Frank mentioned in his first few episodes. Yet in four years he’s turned into Danny 2.0, being hot-headed, impulsive, and spitting one-liners and comebacks to his superiors. And after four years he’s still trying to find his way up the ladder of the NYPD and the family and doesn’t need you lot on his back about how he needs to be as a cop. He’s clearly taken on the bad habits of the Reagans around him instead of staying on his steady track as Joe Hill. He needs to get back to that, not be another version of them which is no doubt going to ruin the good record he had.

The problem between Joe and Jamie continues as S14/E2 moves into S14/E3 “Fear No Evil”. They’re still working the case from different ends, and getting along at the beginning, have a couple of neutral interactions until Joe shoots the dude he’s after. Then they work together, with the FBI, to get the sex trafficked girls out of the safe house and Jamie gets dragged out by his “boss”. Joe follows and shoots that dude. Two in one show, go Joe! Then we have this moment where Joe says to Jamie, “The family thinks I’m the crazy one”, and Jamie says, “I guess we’re related after all.”

You sure about that?

Because this conversation happens later.

Joe: Hey listen, I’m sorry that I didn’t always follow your lead.

Jamie: Yeah, whatever.

Joe: No, I’m serious.

Jamie: You can apologise all you want, but from what I’ve seen, you’re never gonna change.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK!

Change what, change who, change how, change why, change what the fuck now?????

Joe, why the fuck are you apologising for not following his lead? And what lead was that? Did I miss something? Every time I hear that I’m confused as to what the fuck he’s talking about because it’s the parasitic worm Jamie who needs to change his fucking attitude. Joe is not you, Jamie. He does things his way. He had a boss on this job and it wasn’t you, and what lead of yours did he have to follow that you’re attacking him over? You were working the case from different sides because there were two crims involved that you were both after. And why should Joe change to suit you? He does need to go back to being who he was before your family got their talons into him, but not for you, and sure as hell not because you tell him to.

But then Jamie always needs to be right and the smartest one in the room, so he’s all pissed up the wall over his nephew.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK!

The look on poor Joe’s face after that comment is utterly heart-breaking, and you feel for the poor little Woobie because they emotionally pummelled him in these two episodes as they’ve done previously.

The things they say to him cut deep, and the expressions he gets on his face make me want to punch everyone’s lights out. But goddamn, Will Hochman does a damn good job of looking hurt.

And fuck you, Jamie!

The last scene of the episode is dinner, and when Sean asks about the extra table setting, Jamie says, “Yeah, is a Joe comin’?”

Why? Why the fuck would Joe turn up to dinner after the way you treated him?

Jamie, you have issues with Joe. You also have no issue hurting Joe, and think you put him in his place when you say what you do to him. And you still think he’s coming to dinner?

Fuck no! I’m with Joe. I wouldn’t want to come to dinner after being mindfucked, either. Especially after the arse crawling he did in the previous episode.

Joe’s tried hard to be in the family, to be something, and someone, while trying to figure out his feelings concerning his father, while trying to still be the cop he wants to be. But he’s no longer being himself because the family are too busy telling him he is or isn’t like his father, and his father wouldn’t do this, that, and the other. Sadly, the ghost of his father is stopping his emotional and professional growth. So are the family.

He’s become the verbal punching bag, mainly Jamie’s, so it’s no wonder the kid doesn’t know who the hell he is. Arthur, Martha, Hill or Reagan, and he’s no longer any old Tom, Dick, or Harry. He’s Joseph ‘Big Dick Energy’ Hill. Stop making him desperate for approval because he’s clearly not getting it from Jamie. And stop making him the second fucking coming of Joe fucking Reagan.

Joe Junior is not his father. He never has been. Joe is your nephew. That’s it. Joe is his own man who grew up independent of his father, who was doing fine until you Reagans got a hold of him and completely mindfucked him to the point he’s saying, after four years, that he’s still unpacking who his father was and how he died. And that finding out who his family is has been a trip.

Although, surprisingly, in S14/E6 “Shadowland”, he’s not yet considered a member of the family, or a Reagan, by Sean, even though he was all gung-ho at the beginning when finding out he had another cousin. He’s drawn his family for the final presentation of his graphic arts class, and it shows everyone on the Reagan side except Joe Senior and Joe Junior, regardless of Junior having been around for four years. His mother Linda, a nurse, didn’t make it into the drawing either, even though Eddie, as an in-law, did. So, Sean only sees the Reagan side, and not even the full side at that, as superheroes.

After watching these episodes with Jamie being an arsehole, I’m having a lot of thoughts about their dynamic and what Jamie’s real issue is. Jamie runs hot and cold with Joe, and I think he’s threatened by him.

The “reincarnation” of his brother is his adult son who’s also a detective. Jamie is no longer the youngest adult cop in the family. Is Joe a threat to Jamie? To a degree, he could be as his father’s son. He is Joe Junior. But Joe Senior, Jamie’s best friend, is dead, and Jamie is still the baby of the siblings, going from being the baby lawyer to the baby cop, which he no longer is. Danny gave him shit for seasons, and now Jamie’s giving it to Joe. Does Jamie think that he can turn around and treat Joe the way Danny treated him to make him a better cop? Or, is he getting back at Junior for Senior dying in some weird distorted and fucked up way?

He may have started out all caring towards his nephew in S11/E15 “The End” when he tells Danny his reasons for being Joe’s handler had to do with Senior’s death. He said, “I felt like it was my chance to make amends”, and “I can do something to protect his son.” Yet the tables turned over the next year. And while he keeps saying it’s about not wanting Junior to go the way Senior did, there’s something else, something more than what was said in S12/E12 and then S14/E2/E3. After watching those last two episodes specifically, maybe Jamie foretold all of his anger and hatred for Joe in S10/E19 “Family Secrets” when having lunch with Eddie.

Jamie: Just don’t want to see my dad get hurt.

Eddie: Why do you think your dad might get hurt?

Jamie: All I know is this guy’s a complete stranger and how do you make up for all that lost time?

Yes, how do you? The best way Joe Hill knows how, and that’s one day, one dinner, one year at a time. By the way, how many dinners has he actually had with the family in four years?

And here’s another thought. Joe Hill came into the family, and by his third episode, S11/E2 “In the Name of the Father”, he’s showing off his BDE (big dick energy) and became the “NYPD’s Top Gun” for his selfless act. Does this mean Jamie suddenly got an attack of SDS (small dick syndrome), or was he already feeling that because of having Danny and Joe Senior as older brothers? Danny went to war and Senior was an adrenaline junkie, so I’d say so. Jamie’s feeling emotionally, and probably physically, inferior, pushing his gruff superiority at work to compensate. Whatever’s going on in Jamie’s head, I’d say it has less to do with his brother or his nephew, and more to do with where his position in the family now lies.

Nikki, Jack, and Sean aren’t in the family business, so out of the four grandkids, Joe is it. And yes, he is just like his father and that’s pissing Jamie off exponentially, which is probably why he keeps throwing tantrums and treating Joe the way he does.

 

Onto the last Jamie & Joe episode before the hiatus.

As I post this on May 13^th, everything that I have written and re-written until now after falling down this goddamn rabbit hole has come after what I saw and heard in S14/E4 “Past Is Present” when it aired on March 15^th. Two months of rewatching Joe’s episodes, letting my brain explore the dynamics and personalities, and then getting those thoughts down to create the opinion piece this is.

But when I saw that S14/E9 “Two of a Kind” was coming, and what one of the storylines was going to be about, I was all, fuck yeah, it’s gonna be the knock-down drag-out penultimate showdown between Jamie ‘Parasitic Worm’ Reagan, and Joe ‘Big Dick Energy’ Hill.

My lack of money was on Joe.

But oh, what a goddamn pathetic waste of fighting that was. What a piss weak storyline that resolved fuck all where these two are concerned.

Jesus, talk about boring!

If Jamie can’t get his shit together long enough to grow the fuck up and treat Joe as an equal and not as “his brother’s son who needs protecting and saving so he doesn’t go the same way as his old man” then he needs to fuck right off.

Their first scene is up and Joe and Jamie are at a cop bar, which is surprising, as they’ve never hung out before and Jamie’s pissed in more ways than one.

An officer Jamie gets intel from is celebrating his birthday and comes over to see if the “Reagans” want to do shots. Jamie says no, Joe says, “O’Keefe, I’ll do a shot with you. I’m a Hill, for the record. Cheers.”

After a comment about Jamie being Sergeant Buzzkill, to which Joe laughs, this happens.

Jamie: You said I’m a Hill, what’s a Hill?

Joe: What, what do ya mean? What do you mean by that?  (Leans on Jamie’s shoulder which is overly familial for the extent of their relationship so far.)

Jamie: It’s a simple question, come on, get off. (Pushes Joe’s arm off his shoulder.)

Joe: Hey, watch it.

Jamie: You watch it.

Joe: All right, and what’s a Reagan? What is that, huh, what is that, you?

Jamie: Yeah, I’m a Reagan. (Shoves Joe, so instigates physical violence first.)

Joe: You wanna take this outside?

Jamie: Hell yeah I do.

Jamie STILL very clearly has an issue with Joe being a Hill and not a Reagan and saying so. Get real Jamie, he’s only biologically half and as you’ve stated at Senior’s grave, Joe never knew him, so how the hell would he know how to be a Reagan? From you and Danny? What’s he learned? That you’re a stickler for rules with a high horse so far up your ass you can’t walk straight, and Danny breaks them whenever he can. Yeah, great way of learning how to be a Reagan. *Insert massive eye roll

As for the fight, I sniggered the first time I watched it, giggled the second. Looks like Joe got in the most shots, starting with a shove in the back. There was lots of grunting, groaning, and wrestling, and all they needed was to take off their shirts and get in a mud pool, or one of those coloured ball pits. Either way, Frank ain’t thrilled, and Syd is trying not to laugh. *More sniggering.

For their second scene, they walk into Frank’s office a little worse for wear and very sheepish indeed. They go to salute, but Franks’s the boss and all, “not today.” He isn’t interested in their excuses, gives them a choice, and they have to suck it up and deal with it.

Personally, I would have torn strips of them and tried to get to the root of Jamie’s issue with Joe because someone fucking needs to.

Up next we have a scene between Frank, Henry, and Eddie.

Eddie: How is that a good idea? I mean, they already don’t really like each other.

Frank: Eddie, I don’t think that’s it.

Eddie: I know that’s it.

Frank: Why, because Jamie complains about him, rags on him?

Eddie: Jamie is not exactly a man of mystery. He says what he means…he means what he says.

Frank: Yes, but Jamie has been charged with respecting Joe, and Joe with respecting Jamie. But their bond wasn’t formed in regular family ways, it was forged by a death in the family. Joe’s and Jamie’s. They’re related by blood but also by an awful burden, and that to those two, really chafes.

It’s true, Joe Senior is the biggest issue, but Jamie has another issue with Joe and I’d bet on it. Not a lot, I’m not rich, but I’d still bet on it.

When it comes to Joe, Jamie doesn’t say what he means or means what he says. Jamie’s never stated what his real issue with Joe is, he’s very physically and emotionally enclosed with him. And it isn’t because they don’t like each other. They tolerate each other, they work well together when they bother to, but the root of Jamie’s issue has never been explored and probably won’t be as the show is finishing. Unless it’s the fact he doesn’t want Joe going the same way as his old man, or he thinks he has to protect Junior so he doesn’t go the same way as his old man, I have no freakin’ clue. But get over it and grow the fuck up because this has become boring.

Then we have them striding down the street working, and I’d definitely run towards Joe in that uniform. But let’s just cut to the chase, people. Jamie’s pissed at Joe, Joe doesn’t know much about Jamie, Jamie schools him on it, I’m not even repeating that juvenile conversation except for this part.

Joe: You cracked up a car that I’m pretty sure meant a lot to you, right? Your brother’s Chevelle.

Jamie: Cracked it up. That’s what you heard?

Joe: Yeah, had to fix up the frame and everything.

Jamie: It was line of duty, some mook cut the brake lines, and you mean your father’s Chevelle. Yeah, it broke my heart.

Joe: All right I didn’t know the part about the brakes.

Jamie: Well, it’s in that big fat file of stuff you don’t know.

He doesn’t know because you fucking bastards don’t bother telling him anything about yourselves or his father, he always has to fucking ask!!!

Once again, Jamie had to mention Joe Senior. At this point, it doesn’t matter if it was Senior’s car or not, although he probably would have left it to Junior if he’d known him. Jamie’s had it for fifteen years, Junior will never have it and it clearly doesn’t mean anything to him. It’s just a car. He’s not emotionally attached to it like Jamie. Is Jamie still feeling guilty for having it? Who fucking knows!

Then we have their ride along and Joe now schools Jamie and says this.

Joe: Yeah there’s no way anyone riding with you ever suggested it before.

Jamie: What’s that mean?

Joe: You’re a Reagan, you’re cop royalty, who’s gonna insult you by telling you how to avoid a collar.

He ain’t wrong! Who the hell goes against a Reagan except those closest to them or another Reagan?

And for continuity’s sake, when the perp throws an air fryer to his left, and to the left of the stairs, don’t have it miraculously appear by Jamie’s foot, at least five feet from where it was thrown. Jesus Christ!

Then we come to this scene.

They’re both in Frank’s office waiting for him, Joe asks about his grandma, which now begs the question, why have they not told him about his grandmother? Or is she just another dead person they don’t feel the need to tell him about?

Although, in all honesty, why do you need to learn about dead people you never knew? You don’t grow up with them and they were never in your life. You’d have no feelings for them either way, but Senior is different as he’s Junior’s immediate parent.

Frank comes in and they take a seat and only Joe apologises. Joe knows his manners. Jamie does not.

Jamie says, “We can get along.” Joe agrees, “Yeah, you won’t have any trouble from us.”

Yes, they’ve proven they can get along, when they try hard enough, even when they’re pissed at each other, but we still come back to the problem that hasn’t been resolved. Jamie’s actual problem with Joe.

It can’t just be that he says he’s a Hill. He is a Hill. He was born and raised a Hill. He doesn’t need to change his name just because he’s found out who his father is, so Jamie doesn’t get to have a problem with Joe being a Hill.

Harking back to the beginning of this piece, Joe walked into this family as a full-grown adult of 24, he’d grown up with his mother, and their life, and that was it. Regardless of asking about his father, and not finding out that information until he was 24, he is still entitled to be Joe Hill and to be proud of being a Hill. And from what I can tell, Paula’s parents may have also been cops and Frank knew them back in the day. So, Joe is more than entitled to be using Hill as a name. That’s who he is, so if this has only ever been about him being a Reagan but not changing his name, I hope Joe doesn’t change it to please the parasite. Jamie, grow the fuck up and deal with it, you’re supposed to be an adult who’s educated in the law, so you know full well Joe doesn’t need to change his name.

Going against my thought during the writing of this piece, about Joe changing his name to Reagan, or at least hyphenating it to Hill-Reagan, I now don’t want him to change it. I want him to stay who he is. Joe ‘Big Dick Energy’ Hill.

Does Jamie have a problem with Nikki being half Boyle? Or Jack and Sean being half O’Shea? If he doesn’t, then why hold it against Joe? Is it because Joe’s in law enforcement and his nephews and niece aren’t?

In S11/E3 “Atonement”, once the press has found out that he’s a Reagan, Joe tells Paula, “Mom, I’m still a Hill.” Did Jamie have a problem with that then?

No person needs to change their name when finding out that they have biological family they never knew. It takes time to assimilate into that family and get to know people, if they ever do, but they never need to change their name. Just as you don’t need to change it when you get married. Which was mentioned in S11/E3 “Atonement” when Eddie talked about taking the name. She hasn’t, or has she forgotten that she’s still Officer Janko?

There’s no apology from Jamie by the end of this episode. Why has Joe apologised to this family more than Jamie’s apologised to him?

Onto family dinner and Joe’s been… Invited??? Or did he ask???

But we learn that he’s only been bowling with Erin once. Fucking seriously?

You all say you don’t know your nephew yet you don’t bother spending time with him to get to know him. They could have been bowling every couple of weeks. He could have been drinking with Danny every couple of weeks. But no. They love to NOT hang out with their nephew and get to know him and then wonder why Jamie gets pissy at him for saying he’s a Hill.

And another continuity issue. Erin, you told Joe in S12/E14 “Allegiance” that you were the bowling champ who kicked his father’s butt every week. Yet in this episode, you said, “Well, your dad taught me well.” Which is it? Both? Neither? None of the above?

Oi, Jesus. This episode was probably great with the other storylines, but I just watched it for the Jamie/Joe showdown. A showdown that was so piss weak and left everything unresolved. What bullshit!

 

Wrapping it up until October.

After watching S14/E6, I went in search of the show on social media, for the first time in its fourteen-year history, and scrolled back through the years to the posts from when Joe joined the show. Many comments were way off base and nowhere near the issue, many were the same as what I’ve written about here, so I’m not the only one thinking these things. Maybe that’s what the writers wanted, maybe not, but that’s what came out of it.

As for all of those loose ends flying in the wind. I hate them. Each time Joe Junior is talked about there’s one more loose end, one more question to ask, and one more continuity issue to watch. As an author, we get ripped apart if we leave mistakes like that in our books, but on TV shows, it’s okay because they don’t care about timelines at all. Or mindfucking 24-year-olds with massive biological news and expecting him to deal with it.

I’ll be watching the last of the season with interest and in detail and will be editing this post and adding updates with each episode he’s in. Season 14 is the last and is divided into two, and I can’t wait to see what Junior does, and how the family treats him.

I’d also love for him to meet his father, but there are only two ways I can think of to make that happen. So, I’ll just have to wait and see along with everyone else.

And I’ll say this now so it’s etched in stone before the show finishes.

I hope Joe Senior’s not actually dead and he’s just been working undercover and overseas for 15 years. And the very last scene of the show as it finishes is Joe Junior going into the kitchen to get something and you hear a smash. When Sean opens the door, we see Junior and Senior standing there looking at each other and Senior says to the family through the doorway, “Sorry I’m late, but I’m home now.”

Or…

Maybe Junior finds a homeless man and because he’s been staring into the eyes of his father in his graduation photo for four years, he recognises him and gets him help before calling in the big guns of his grandfather and at the end everyone else finds out he’s alive.

Or…

And here’s a potential scenario for the two-part show finale for the writers of Blue Bloods, and if you want to use it, email me and we’ll do a deal.

The kids are going to meet up with Joe, finally, but Sean has to stop for a bathroom break and they end up at a convenience store. He texts Joe where they are and Joe texts back that he’ll pick them up as it’s on his way.

Two armed thugs come into the store and start shooting the place up. Sean texts Joe again. ‘Two armed thugs gunshots’. Joe texts back, ‘Hide’, and pulls to a stop at the store. He calls for backup and goes sneaking into the store. He sees one perp at the counter. “Freeze, police”. The dude shoots and Joe shoots back.

Then there are gunshots from the other end of the store and it becomes a game of cat and mouse, but Joe and the shooter shoot each other, and Joe goes down as Mike McFadden and his partner come into the store. Mike runs around the front display crates and sits atop Joe to stem the bleeding while calling for a bus and backup, and to the clerk for tape and towels or wadding.

Joe looks up at him and realises who he is. He mumbles, “Isn’t it ironic, don’tcha think?”

Mike, holding his hands over Joe’s wounds, says, “You’re quoting Alanis Morrisette at me?”

Joe replies, “A little too ironic, yeah I really do think.” He pauses and stares at the ceiling. “Do you think this is how my dad felt? Do you think this is how he felt when he knew he was dying?”

Mike, taping up his three gunshot wounds with the clerk, says, “And how’s that?”

Joe suggests, “You should become a detective and then we can partner up to do what our fathers never got to do.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Mike asks.

“Be great cops.” After a pause, Joe adds, “My cousins?”

 “Who?” Mike asks.

“Us,” Sean says as he, Jack and Nikki come around the corner of an aisle. “Oh, my God, Joe.”

They crowd around and Mike calls back to base. “How long for that bus?”

“Another fifteen minutes.”

“We can’t wait that long. We’re getting him to the hospital. It’s only five minutes away.” Mike and his partner haul Joe to his feet and help him out to the cruiser.

The kids are following behind, making calls to Frank, Danny, and Erin.

“My car,” Joe mumbles as he’s being loaded into the backseat.

“We’ll take it,” Sean says. “We’ll follow you.”

The officers take off with Joe, and the kids take off in Joe’s car.

Cut to the hospital.

Frank, Danny, Erin, and Jamie are waiting when Joe’s wheeled in on a gurney with Mike on top of him pumping his chest.

“He coded four minutes ago, I’ve been doing CPR the whole time.” He’s so busy doing his job that he doesn’t see the Reagans.

The gurney is wheeled into an ER, and he dismounts after the doctors take over and makes his way back to the hall wiping his hands on a towel a nurse gave him.

“Officer McFadden.”

Mike turns around and stands to attention. “Commissioner.”

“What happened?”

“We responded to a call at a convenience store, I found your grandson, ah, Detective Hill on the floor with three gunshot wounds and applied medical aid. When the bus was going to take too long we got him here.”

Frank nods. “All right. Thank you for your service, get cleaned up and get back to your station. I want a full report on my desk by tonight.”

“Sir.” Mike nods and walks away with his partner.

“Who was that?” Danny asks. “We should give him a medal.”

“Officer Mike McFadden,” Frank replies.

Danny is shocked. “Sonny’s kid? Sonny’s kid saved Joe’s kid?”

All three Reagan children are astounded.

“Why the hell was Joe at the store in the first place?” Jamie asks. “It’s nowhere near where he lives.”

“He was protecting us,” Sean says and they all turn around to see the three kids. “We were going to meet him for lunch and had to stop off, I texted him where we were, and he said he’d come and pick us up. I texted again when the two gunmen came in. He told us to hide.”

Jack says, “He came in with guns blazing. It was cool.”

The family huddles around for hours and cut to Joe’s surgery where he goes into cardiac arrest.

Fade to black and the episode ends. Cut to the second episode with the same scene.

We see Junior standing at Senior’s grave. He says, “Dad.”

Behind him, a very sexy voice says, “Son”.

Junior turns and sees Senior beside him, gasps in shock, and moves into his arms.

Senior hugs him fiercely and kisses his temple. “Hi, Joe. Hello, my son.”

“Dad.” Wee little Woobie’s crying. Senior’s crying. We’re all crying.

“We don’t have long so you need to listen to me.” Senior holds him at arm’s length. “This is not your time, Joe. You have many, many decades of life to live. You get to marry a great girl, have great kids, and be a great dad and detective. This is not your time, Joe. Do you understand me?”

“Daddy!”

“I want you to go back, but remember this, always. Always wear my St Jude medal. It will protect you because I will protect you through it. Never take it off, always keep it on, and you will always be safe.” He kisses his forehead. “And I will see you when it is your time and we’ll talk then, okay.”

Junior nods. “I love you, daddy.”

“I love you too, Joe. I wish I’d known you when I was alive. But it didn’t work out that way. And tell Pop I’ll be here waiting for him.”

Both Joes disappear.

Woobie wakes up in his room and grabs for his medal but doesn’t find it there. “Daddy, where’s my daddy?”

Frank stands by the bed. “It’s okay, Joe. He’s here. Here’s your father’s medal. You were clinging to it when you came to, but they had to take it off for the surgery.” He hands it to his grandson with a bullet dent smashed into it.

Joe grasps it and stares at it. “My dad. I saw my dad. He said it wasn’t my time and he’d protect me through his medal. Always.”

“And he clearly did.” Frank nods at the medal. “It was burnt to your chest. It saved you.”

Henry manages to walk up to the other side of the bed and Joe turns to him. “And he said he’d be waiting for you when you get there.”

Shocked, the family are just glad that he’s alive, unlike their first Joe.

Cut to a few days later when we see Mike McFadden leaving Joe’s room.

Cut to a year later in the firearms unit.

A lieutenant shakes the hand of his new recruit although we only see the recruit’s back. “Welcome to the firearms unit, detective. We’re glad to have you.”

“Glad to be here, sir.”

“Great, say hello to your new partner, Detective Joe Hill.”

Mike turns and smiles at Joe. “Hill.”

Joe smiles back. “McFadden. Ready to do what our dads didn’t get to?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great,” the lieutenant says. “Because your first job just came in. Get to it.”

The boys grab their coats and walk out the door arguing over who’s going to drive.

For the record, Joe wins because he’s been there the longest.

THAT would be a twist no one saw coming. Unless it actually does happen and I’ve already seen it… *Arches brow and looks around at the ceiling. Why is the Twilight Zone music playing…?

Weird!

And Will, if you and George are friends in real life, that would be freakin’ hilarious.

I hope that Joe Hill is once more allowed to be the man he was when he came into the family and not Danny 2.0, or the reincarnation of his dead father. Who is hot. And apparently, just an actor they called up for the photo. If anyone has found said actor whose picture is that of Joseph Conor Reagan, let me know. I need to know if he’s still hot and what his real name is. It would be hilarious if it was Joe.

Until October…