Blue Bloods clearly wants to end Season 3 with episodes fans will remember, and this week’s “Devil’s Breath” took some devilish turns. Being one of the good guys frequently doesn’t win any favors, and sometimes the most wicked of criminals wear a dress really well!
Just as Vinny (Sebastian Sozzi) proclaims, “Nothing good happens after midnight,” he and Jamie (Will Estes) catch the call of “shots fired” at a neighborhood store. Sure enough, it’s a hold up, but it just so happens that an off-duty Officer Grasso (Zack Robidas) passes by after a retirement party, and intercedes in the nick of time, showing but never needing to fire his weapon to dispel the assailants, and potentially save several lives. The superior, Lt. Vance (Robert Kirk), observes an exchange of words and some breath mints between Grasso and Jamie, and calls for a breathalyzer test to be officially conducted, since Grasso was in possession of his weapon. The test proves Grasso was over the limit, and despite his decision to step in and save lives, he has also stepped into a potentially career ending mess. Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) and Maria (Marisa Ramirez) have their own peculiar dilemma, dealing with a young man, Robert Carter (Brian J. Smith) who claims he’s only in town from Pennsylvania to propose to his girlfriend, and doesn’t remember anything about the blood covering his shirt or how he got away from his hotel. The grisly scene awaiting in his room, his fiancée murdered with her blood soaked into every shred of bedding, seems to only implicate him, but he continues to swear to no recollection. At last, a chance meeting with a lady named Lacey comes to mind, but the devoted lover still affirms his love for Maddie, asking only that the detectives “find who did this.”
Jamie talks with his dad (Tom Selleck) about the way Lt. Vance was playing a “hard ass,” and making him a mark simply by virtue of his Reagan name, and the Commissioner concurred. Nicky (Sami Gayle) is making a name for herself at school, too, by summoning students to a sit-in to protest unfair searches. Mom, Erin (Bridget Moynahan) meets with the rather pompous principal, but gets nowhere, and urges her daughter toward restraint, until Nicky relates how suspension was threatened simply for asking for a town hall meeting. Garrett (Gregory Jbara) thinks Frank is going too far in meeting with Grasso’s wife (Penny McNamee), but her plea of her husband’s nobility going beyond his negative notoriety impresses the boss, who says his job is “supposed to be hard.” The hearing goes wrong for Grasso and Jamie, as the judge allows him to the questioned as a hostile witness after the admission of smelling alcohol on the officer’s breath, and the judge’ ultimate vote for termination. There’s not much gratitude around the dinner table, except for Pop’s appreciation for scalloped potatoes. Erin hopes to find wisdom by osmosis from sitting in her dad’s chair, but Frank reminds her that she is raising a good kid after all. Danny manages to yank Lacey from a yellow cab, in full fishnets and stilettos, after seeing her money mantra on her locker at the strip club. He also sees her palsy-walsy photo with the bartender at the hotel, and gets more than a hunch for what’s really going on. Lacey gives it up about the stabbing of her “ATM daddy” and the intended for the engagement ring she has on, but it’s the bartender who truly does the dirty deed, and slips “Devil’s breath” into Carter’s drink. As he laments not having memories of his fiancée, Danny reminds him that he held Maddie until her last breath.
Erin becomes the “cool mom” in the eyes of Nicky and her peers, reminding the principal threatening suspension with a bullhorn on the day of the protest that such action is illegal said protest is away from school grounds. The Commissioner makes a decision even more powerful, announcing that he is giving not a pardon, but a probation, to Officer Grasso, with whom he would “be proud to serve,” as cameras fade to end another Blue Bloods offering that will be hard to forget.
A two-part season finale begins May 3 at 10 PM ET on CBS.