What To Know
- Will Estes was terrified to reprise Jamie Reagan in Boston Blue‘s second season.
- In Episode 5, Jamie and Danny confront longstanding tensions, and new details are revealed about Jamie’s life in New York.
- Estes explains how his scenes with Donnie Wahlberg gave them Blue Bloods closure.
When Will Estes read the script for Jamie Reagan’s return on Boston Blue, he says it “literally felt right from top to bottom.” Even with a script he loved, however, Estes admits he was “terrified” to return to the world of Blue Bloods alongside Donnie Wahlberg‘s Danny Reagan.
It did not feel like riding a bike, Estes tells TV Insider, but it did let him and Wahlberg resolve character conflicts they always assumed they would address on Blue Bloods, but “it was a stone left unturned” when the show ended in December 2024 after 14 seasons.
Estes made his Boston Blue debut in Season 2 Episode 5 on November 6 on CBS, and he feels the show’s creators honored “what we built on Blue Bloods.”
“I didn’t want to change anything. Sometimes as an actor, you were like, ‘If I could just change that one thing, it would all make more sense,’ but there was none of that, so we just fell right in and hit the ground running,” Estes says. He unpacks the episode in the interview below. Warning: Boston Blue Season 2 spoilers ahead.
Seacia Pavao/CBS
In Boston Blue Season 2 Episode 5, “Blood Diamonds,” Jamie’s visit took an unexpected turn when he and Danny were drawn into a case about a diamond heist linked to a violent family feud. Two brothers were seeking vengeance for their sister. The protective nature of the crimes made Jamie and Danny reflect on their own bond, which was frequently tense in Blue Bloods and was worsened by Danny’s departure. As sister Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan) told him, someone in the family was upset that Danny moved to Boston. That someone was Jamie.
The case led to a high-stakes scuffle on a roof involving an explosive that Jamie threw off its intended course. In two moving scenes, the Reagan siblings confessed how they admire and love each other, even when they struggle to show it.
The episode also revealed that Jamie has been promoted to a lieutenant in the NYPD since Blue Bloods ended, which means he outranks his big brother, Danny, who’s now a sergeant detective. Sean (Mika Amonsen) loved seeing his dad get orders from his little brother.
Here, Estes breaks down the episode with TV Insider, calling the storyline a “great progression” and “evolution” of their Blue Bloods characters. And yes, he would “100%” return if asked, despite his nerves leading up to filming.
Did Boston Blue creators Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis ask you for any input on Jamie for the script?
Will Estes: Not specifically, but they both felt really collaborative, which is an awesome thing. It’s an awesome thing when you’ve done a character for so long, because if you try to change it, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s like putting on shoes that are too small or something because you want to honor the through-line and the truth of that character, but there was no bumps for me there.
The conflict felt genuine. It felt real. The tension was there and all the crime-solving stuff was just fun. We’ve done that before and there are crimes to be solved, but the tension was a great progression, evolution, I think, of what we built on Blue Bloods. It was there. It wasn’t really resolved, and it’s met head-on in this episode. It’s talked about. These two characters open up to each other and face it in a way that they never had. That was really cool and really fun to do as an actor.
Does Danny’s ability to do that signal to Jamie that Boston has been good for him?
Sure, yeah. Although I do have a line, “I see Boston hasn’t changed him very much” before the resolutions [laughs]. I love Boston. Boston was so fun. The characters connect in a way that they hadn’t before, I think. And so that was welcomed.
When did you learn about baby Joey Francis, Jamie and Eddie’s [Vanessa Ray] baby who was revealed in Season 1?
When I read the script, about a week before we shot it [laughs]. I was like, “I have a child. Oh, that’s his name. OK, got it.” As an actor, sometimes you’re the last one to know. Everyone thinks you’re the first, but you’re kind of the last sometimes.
Seacia Pavao/CBS
We learned that Jamie has been promoted to a lieutenant. Do you think this is something that would’ve happened on Blue Bloods had the show continued?
There’s sort of two routes to take as an NYPD officer. You can become detective and go that route and rise the ranks to detective first grade, or you can be a boss and you can become sergeant and lieutenant and rise up through the ranks. Jamie made the decision early on to be a boss, essentially. [It’s] what they call it.
It’s a tough decision to take back because what happens is as you take the career path of detective or as a boss, your pay increases. If you try to change, you go back to the beginning, so ideally you make that decision as a police officer early on. Jamie decided to be a boss, so I think that he would’ve continued to rise through the ranks. As a Reagan, he would’ve almost had to on some level.
How does Jamie feel that Danny has finally made the decision to move up the ranks? That was something he was resistant to on Blue Bloods.
It just speaks to the evolution of the character and the show. It’s so cool that it’s part of the Blue Bloods world, but the show is its own beast, if you will. And you have to have evolution. You can’t do the same thing forever. A show has to grow just like anything else, so I think it’s a cool growth point.
Did it feel like riding a bike, being back on set with Donnie?
No.
Really?
Yeah, I was terrified [laughs].
Why?
Because I hadn’t done it and I knew I was out of shape for acting for a little bit. I don’t know where that muscle’s located inside your brain or your body or both, but yeah, I was like, “Oh, I got to do this,” because they wrote real stuff for us, so I had to be ready. I was fine as soon as we shot the first scene, but it was rough for me getting there.
Donnie Wahlberg/Instagram
What helped you get back into it?
A million little things and just not sleeping at night, basically.
Just running the lines constantly?
Yeah, nothing interesting. Nothing I want to talk about [laughs], but just worrying about it and sometimes a lot of dark chocolate.
Understood. Acting is a very heady thing. It’s weird to have to talk about it because it’s such an emotional thing that feels personal, right?
Some of it is, yeah. How you get from A to B is sometimes personal, but yeah.
Jamie meets Danny’s new partner on the force. His former partner, Detective Maria Baez [Marisa Ramirez], obviously plays a huge role in Danny’s life. What is Jamie’s impression of Detective Lena Silver [Sonequa Martin-Green] at the end of the episode? Does he feel his brother is in good hands?
Absolutely. We had a great time shooting it. Their chemistry onscreen speaks for itself. Jamie, I think he was too worried about his brother not showing up for him to worry about that too much, or to think about it too much. But yeah, their chemistry onscreen is obvious and great, and I sure had a great time working with her, too.
Danny has been living in Boston for a while now. Why do you think Jamie waited so long to tell Danny he was upset that he moved?
Because that’s how boys fight [laughs]. They just get mad and sit on it until they stroke out.
When you’re mad, you hold onto stuff sometimes, and so I think it was a conversation they didn’t have. Sometimes you’re mad because you feel like somebody doesn’t care or doesn’t understand, and so then that shuts you down. That all made sense, and I didn’t think about it because that all tracked for me. When you’re mad, you don’t want to talk about it sometimes. Healthy people probably don’t feel that way; they do want to talk about it. That wasn’t a question that came up for me.
Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
There are two quite emotional scenes while Danny and Jamie are working this case. In the one in the hospital, Jamie talked through coded language about how much his brother means to him. Later, on that rooftop, Danny says they were always doing the best they could as brothers. What was it like for you two to film those scenes?
All that stuff was so well written, and so the conflict and the procedural elements of the show are completely interwoven with the character stuff between Jamie and Danny. That scene in the hospital was cool. I’m trying to reach for the words that aren’t cliche at this point, but it was powerful and it was cathartic, and it was really cool to do.
These characters, Jamie and Danny, they locked horns a lot for a long time on Blue Bloods. And in some ways, when you’re doing a one-hour drama, you don’t want to resolve certain conflicts because the show lives on the conflicts, and it’s one that never got resolved. In this episode, it feels like there’s a lot of resolution with the conflict between Jamie and Danny.
To tell someone that you fought so much with that you respect them is wild. It’s awesome. It was just technicolor. It was really fun to do, and it really built off, I think, what we did for 14 years on Blue Bloods. It was a resolution to a conflict that didn’t play out towards the end of Blue Bloods, which I sort of wanted it to.
As an actor, I thought, “Oh, let’s resolve this.” For years, I thought that at times. It was a stone left unturned on Blue Bloods, so to do it now was so cool.
I’m glad you guys got to have that closure, but just by nature of you being in this episode, it reopens possibility as well. Would you be interested in coming back?
Sure, 100%.
Boston Blue, Fridays, 10/9c, CBS