A great loss for the “Blue Bloods” family: Steve Schirripa has passed away
When creators and showrunners Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier came up with the idea to create a new police drama featuring a law enforcement family set in Boston, CBS suggested to them that they add Blue Bloods’ Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) to the mix to give the show a legacy to live up to. The two Brandons jumped at the idea, and Boston Blue was born.
The only issue was how to do it. Danny was firmly ensconced with the NYPD, loved his job, was surrounded by family, and so it would take a really good reason for him to chuck it all and head to Boston. They came up with it in the form of his son Sean (Mika Amonsen), who has joined the Boston PD because there’s a hiring freeze in NYC, and is injured and needs his father. But then what?
“One of the great struggles for us producers and for the writers was figuring out what is enough reason to make him stay?” Wahlberg tells Parade. “And I think at the end of the day, being a dad and knowing the lengths I would go to for my sons, I don’t think we had to reach that far to find the truth, which is faced with a similar situation, what would I do for one of my sons, right? It’s easy for people on the outside who watch the show to say, ‘Oh, well, Danny would never leave his family in New York, he would never leave New York.’ I think if anyone knew Danny as a dad and knew that his son was the reason he was leaving, I think that would be very plausible.”
It also helps when Danny meets the Silver family, which very much reminds him of his own. In tracking down the person responsible for Sean’s injury, Danny partners with Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green), a Boston PD detective, and then meets her family.
Mom is Boston District Attorney Mae Silver (Gloria Reuben), Lena’s sister is Police Superintendent Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson), her brother is rookie cop Jonah Silver (Marcus Scribner), and her grandfather is renowned Baptist pastor Reverend Edwin Peters (Ernie Hudson).
“Meeting a family like the Silver family, and a partner like Lena, who is a detective somewhat cut from the same cloth, very dedicated, very highly respected, I think it creates an environment for him to have a welcome place,” Wahlberg continues. “This is a family that took his son in before Danny got there and takes him in when he gets there, and again, the Reagans are only three and a half hours away, so there’s that.”
Despite the similarities between Blue Bloods and Boston Blue, the reality is that the new show is based on Sonnier’s family.
“It would be easy to say, ‘Wow, how does a guy find a family similar to his in another city, in law enforcement?’” Wahlberg says, “But the reality is, they exist everywhere. I’ve played Danny Reagan for 14 years, and I’ve toured with the New Kids on the Block for those 14 years, and I’ve met law enforcement families in every city I’ve been to who come to New Kids concerts now because they love Blue Bloods. And they say, ‘Thank you, that’s like my family.’ And these officers and service people come from all walks of life, they’re not just Irish Catholic.”
Even as generational law enforcement families are a part of the fabric of America, for Wahlberg, Boston Blue offered him the opportunity to keep telling stories about the Reagan family, something he fought hard for when he tried to convince CBS to keep Blue Bloods on the air.
“I thought I’d be doing Blue Bloods for the next 35 years,” he says. “I thought I’d be Frank [Tom Selleck] one day, or Jamie [Will Estes] would be the commissioner, one of us, right? But it wasn’t meant to be. This is a unique and incredible opportunity to carry Blue Bloods forward and tell more stories of law enforcement families, tell more stories of the Reagans, even in this new world, and to heal some broken hearts. Mine was one of them.”
Boston Blue takes over the Blue Bloods timeslot tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Streams next day on Paramount+.