11×05 Spilling Secrets

Eddie and her partner, Officer Rachel Witten (Lauren Patten), are heralded for their bravery for stopping an active shooter, until a civilian comes forward to accuse them of faking the incident as part of a government conspiracy. Also, Frank pries into a decades-long history of cash payments his father Henry has been making to an unknown recipient, Danny and Baez find themselves in the middle of a fierce sibling rivalry between two brothers as they investigate the murder of the men’s father, and Sean contends with his school locker being vandalized with anti-police sentiment, on BLUE BLOODS.

CBS Press Release

Initial Thoughts

These are my thoughts on the fifth episode of season 11. A lot of it is my interpretation of what is not said and may exist purely in my imagination. If you agree or disagree, please let me know as I’d still love to hear from you regardless. I just ask that you’re polite. It’d be great to debate ideas and see what interesting theories emerge.

This was very much an issue episode with a few themes shared by all of the storylines. Its title implied that it would be about the keeping of secrets, but really it was about uncovering the truth. There was also a general theme of relationships between fathers and children. Overall the episode had a somewhat slow pace with the structure comparable to that of Something Blue. Despite the potential issues; Eddie and Witten’s story still had a sensitive, emotional tone. It may be disappointing that Jamie wasn’t involved at all, but the potential alternative would have been him having to treat it as a complaint and consequently be placed in a position where he was at odds with Eddie. So in some ways, this was the better outcome.

Scene by Scene Breakdown

In case you want to remind yourself of any of the scenes, click on the headings for a link to the relevant clips on YouTube.

Significant Shot

A classic start to a patrol scene, just that little bit of conversation about their lives. (Eddie’s comment about self-control does make it likely that things moved very quickly after the embrace in My Aim is True) It’s only a short conversation, but it says a lot about the friendship that Eddie and Witten have formed. Of course, one of the purposes of this fun conversation is to heighten the change when we’re taken into the dramatic scene in the warehouse.

Using this particular warehouse as the location was visually dramatic, as there was an inability to be sure where the key people were. So different from what we’ve seen before, allowing the production team to avoid the more traditional locations for this type of scene and the complications they would have under current conditions.

Shock & Awe

This was effective in contrasting the different ways in which Witten was being overwhelmed. Rachel was being confronted with the thanks of one of the survivors whilst visibly shaken by what she’d done. Eddie is checking on Witten but not being overbearing and making sure that Witten follows the post-shooting procedure. It’s brief but it covers the key points.

Shero

Eddie is clearly enjoying that her partner is receiving the respect she thinks is deserved. Although Witten is such an unassuming character, and would probably never want to be held up for attention. Based on their actions having become relatively well known, have to think a certain amount of time has passed. When David makes his accusations he says the shooting happened “yesterday”. We know that Witten should have been on administrative duty and met with the psychologist before being allowed back on patrol. We have seen that previously with Jamie’s and Eddie’s experiences, so, it’s understandable if they’ve decided to skip over it here, but the dialogue suggests it hasn’t happened at all.

Again we’re thrown from a friendly conversation to an act of violence. It makes sense that the verbal attack was taken personally by Witten; she’s still processing the impact the shooting had on her. That’s now been dismissed by this man who denied it had even happened.

Inquisitive Eddie

Following the accusations, Eddie is following her detective instincts and wanting to find out the full details. It’s not something we generally get to appreciate as often this task will be given to Jamie when they’re working together; but it’s similar to what Eddie’s done before in Blackout, Handcuffs or Grave Errors.

It also feels like it parallels what Danny did for Jamie in Front Page News; providing some answers when someone undermines what they had to do. Eddie doesn’t say what motivated her to follow up and find out who David Bowles was, but it would make sense that she’s looking out for her partner.

Reagan Family Dinner

Another Joe anecdote, fun to hear about their childhood – and imagine a young Jamie working very hard to beat his big brothers. Although maybe that was the easy option with Erin as a big sister. Having heard about taking bribes when babysitting and terrifying everyone while trick-or-treating, this suggests Erin has always believed in tough love. The easy way Jamie talks about Frank being an only child brings a little sadness; you can imagine that this would lead to Henry thinking about Peter. 

One thing to note about this dinner scene, it’s the first time since season 8’s Tale of Two Cities that we’ve only seen Jamie at family dinner. We’ve had a couple of episodes where Eddie’s only been seen at family dinner, but thankfully even those have been rare. It’s also the first time since season 7’s In and Out that we’ve only seen Erin at family dinner.

Uncovering the Truth

Maybe it’s because Witten is still dealing with her feelings regarding the shooting, but it seems like Eddie hasn’t told her anything before they arrive at the house. Witten is still treating David’s accusations as a personal attack. This is the best explanation of why Witten wants to just confront him; although that seems unlikely to make any difference. Eddie is prepared and now reveals what she’s discovered, casting his actions in a completely different light.
The details are kept brief, so the conversation around the actions of the conspiracy group is simplified. This is a weighty topic and maybe would have benefited from a little more screen time.

Desperation & Denial

The father is such a sad figure now, all of the anger seen at the diner has ebbed away, and he’s just desperately searching for his daughter. The conspiracies have justified his need to deny what’s happened. David can avoid reporting his daughter as missing while he believes the police are part of the conspiracy; they won’t help find the ‘truth’. It makes it all that much more tragic, how long might have he repeated these actions while living in denial?

Confronting the Reality of Grief

How much time is supposed to have passed since the shooting? We can guess it’s probably more than a week due to Witten’s time on administration duty. Was he too fraught to be taken to identify the body when the other officers first contacted him? Then was he ignoring all further contact while he lived in denial?

This doesn’t change anything about the earlier events, but it helps Witten by removing a burden from her shoulders. Rachel no longer has to worry about this denial of what she’s been going through.

Final Thoughts

The story shows how Witten is effected by the shooting without repeating what has been shown in previous episodes. More importantly, it manages to do it in a way that is different from what happened to Jamie and Eddie. It does bear a similarity to Eddie’s first shooting in Power Players as we see the crime being committed, validating their response. Eddie’s experience showed that knowing she took the right action still led to self-doubt and stress. Understandably, the later accusations were so tough for Witten to deal with. What Eddie then does to investigate the claims is similar to Danny investigating Jamie’s case. Through their investigations, they’re providing peace of mind.

It’s so rare we get a story where Eddie isn’t working with another Reagan. It may have been Witten’s story, but Eddie is the one who drove the investigation. This is a significant step for Eddie as a character, previously in episodes like Blues or The Price You Pay Anthony has been providing the voice of experience. There are similarities to Grave Errors with Eddie solving a problem (coincidentally by the same writer), but this has a broader scope; from the opening action scene to the conclusion of helping the father face his grief.

While all of the storylines were interesting and addressed a particular idea, this was probably the strongest of the episode. The episode’s main issue was that many of the scenes seemed sparse, causing it to feel overly slow. Maybe it’s because they covered such critical social topics it was believed they required thinking time and space was created within the episode to allow it. As a consequence, it seems to suffer from unnecessarily long pauses and made the absences in the cast particularly noticeable. This is all guesswork, it feels unfair to judge it too harshly as the current working conditions may have caused this situation.