Blue Bloods Season 8 Finale Explained

Let’s take a look back at the season 8 finale of CBS’s long-running police family drama Blue Bloods. The series revolves around the Reagans, a New York City family who all work in law enforcement. The clan is headed by patriarch and police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck, Magnum PI) and also includes his sons Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) and Jamie (Will Estes) – an NYPD detective and sergeant, respectively – and his district attorney daughter Erin (Bridget Moynahan).

Blue Bloods aired its first season in 2010 and is still going strong nearly a decade later, with its recently renewed tenth season set to air in late September 2019. The show is a blend of the police procedural genre and family drama and over its nine seasons, viewers have seen the Reagan brood tackle not only New York City crime but also issues within their personal lives too.

The Blue Bloods season 8 finale “My Aim Is True” was a mix of those two elements. On the police procedural side of things, the episode took inspiration from the real-life case of the Central Park Five, who were wrongfully imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit and spent years behind bars until they were exonerated more than a decade later. But unlike the real Central Park Five who went on to advocate for criminal justice following their release, a member of Blue Bloods’ fictional version – the Prospect Park Six – decides to exact revenge by hiring a hitman to kill family members of the police officers and prosecutors responsible for their arrest and wrongful imprisonment.

This leads to the fatal drive-by shooting of Erin’s boss Monica Graham (Tamara Tunie) alongside other victims. Things get more personal for the Reagan clan when they realize that as Frank was police commissioner when the Prospect Park Six were jailed, one of his family is sure to be on the hitman’s list. That family member turns out to be his youngest son Jamie, but luckily his partner Eddie (Vanessa Ray, Pretty Little Liars) manages to intercept the hitman and shoots him dead, saving Jamie’s life.

That, in turn, led to one of the Blue Bloods season finale’s much lighter moments. Since Eddie’s introduction in season 4 of Blue Bloods, she and Jamie have had a flirtatious relationship and her saving his life was the impetus for them finally getting together. The Blue Bloods season 8 finale ends with Jamie and Eddie showing up at a family dinner and announcing their engagement with Eddie being officially welcomed into the Reagan family fold.