Frank Reagan is the ideal police commissioner. He’s intelligent, tough, and unafraid to stand up for what’s right regardless of the political cost.
Blue Bloods fanatics know the show would never be the same if Frank ever retired. But even before the sad news that Blue Bloods Season 14 would be its last, many fans speculated about a series finale in which Frank stepped down.
That might be precisely what happens. But who would be best suited to be the new Police Commissioner?
The first question is whether the new Commissioner should also be a Reagan. In real life, this would never happen — but then again, in real life, no commissioner serves at the pleasure of five different mayors, especially if he fails to get along with any of them!
The fictional Reagans are as close to a cop family dynasty as possible. Henry Reagan was the Commissioner back in the day, and Frank was appointed after Henry’s replacement turned out to be corrupt. So why shouldn’t one of his children or grandchildren step into his shoes next?
If the mayor wants to keep the position in the family, then it makes the most sense to appoint Jamie.
Jamie is a lot like Frank in all the ways that count. He’s generally level-headed, lives by his moral code, and has a ton of respect for the institution and its traditions.
Jamie once caught a fake cop by re-instituting a mostly antiquated practice of saluting the commanding officer when entering the precinct to begin a shift. That alone suggests he’s a worthy replacement for Frank!
He’s also sensitive to the needs of citizens with mental health issues and prefers to use words to talk people down, reserving violence for when there’s no other option. Those qualities make him an ideal leader of the NYPD.
If the goal is to preserve Frank’s legacy, Jamie Reagan is the right man for the job. But he wouldn’t be a carbon copy of Frank — he’d be his own man.
Jamie has butted heads with Frank a lot over the years, most notably when he didn’t want to take the Sergeant’s exam, and Frank was disappointed in him.
It turned out that Frank was right, and Jamie became more fulfilled once he took that exam and became a commanding officer.
But if Jamie was willing to stand up to Frank, he has the spine to stand up to mayors and other powerful people who want the NYPD to go in the wrong direction.
A few years ago, I might have questioned whether Jamie wanted to be a leader. He seemed happy staying a patrol officer forever, But now he’s led a squad — and he’s also mediated conflicts between Eddie and Sergeant MacNichols, which is no small feat!
The police commissioner needs to be able to negotiate with other top officers and politicians, even ones they can’t stand, so Jamie’s experience with McNichols makes him even more qualified for the job.
There’s only one problem: what would happen to his relationship with Eddie?
We don’t know how Frank’s job affected his marriage; his wife had long since passed away when Blue Bloods began. But Jamie and Eddie are both cops and when they butt heads, it’s often because they don’t see eye-to-eye on some workplace issue.
As it is, Eddie sometimes feels unsupported when Jamie doesn’t take her side in a conflict on the job or doesn’t enact the policy she wants.
That problem will be magnified tenfold if he becomes Commissioner, making him responsible not only for Eddie’s precinct but for every police unit in the NYPD.
Jamie and Eddie’s relationship is strong enough that this type of problem wouldn’t lead to a split for the sake of drama, but it still is something to consider.
Even so, Jamie is a better choice than the other Reagans.
Danny is too hotheaded for the job (though that does beg the question of whether Jamie could handle his brother’s shenanigans as well as Frank did!), Erin’s already proven she has no appetite for politics, and Joe Hill is so impulsive that he makes Danny look like a methodical thinker.
It seems like the choices are Jamie or someone outside the family.
Technically, Blue Bloods could deliver a shocking twist by making Eddie the new Commissioner, but come on. While a qualified female commissioner would make a great successor to Frank, Eddie isn’t it.
She has no command experience and often breaks protocol in the name of justice.
While her desire to help victims is admirable, she’d fit in far better if she transferred to Law & Order: SVU than in a leadership role, especially one this powerful.
But if Jamie doesn’t want the job, my top choice would be Abigail Baker.
Ninety percent of the time, Baker is the most invisible member of Frank’s Dream Team. She often acts as a receptionist, telling Frank when he has a visitor, and there have been many episodes when she did little else.
Fans can be forgiven if they have forgotten that she is a police detective, not just an administrative assistant and that she has years of experience on the force.
She also is better than anyone else at handling Frank, and that’s no easy task.
When Baker needs to, she gets Frank off the wrong path.
Sometimes, she quietly states an opinion, while other times, she manipulates his calendar or tells a critical figure that Frank wants to see them so that he’s forced to have a conversation he’s been avoiding.
That demonstrates both leadership and political savvy. And since she’s been in Frank’s office for so long, she knows how things are supposed to work — and what values Frank stands for.
She considers Frank one of the finest gentlemen she knows, and her respect for him shines through. But like Jamie, she’d be her own person with her own ideas and the courage to implement them.
And as a bonus, she’s not related to any of the Reagans, so she wouldn’t have to deal with their hurt feelings when she didn’t side with them — although she’s been like family for so long that they may feel betrayed anyway by some of her decisions.
She’s the leader of the Dream Team, whether anyone acknowledges it or not.
Garett and Sid might consider staying on under her (though I suspect Sid would have a hard time accepting he didn’t get the top job instead, despite his hotheadedness and general unsuitability for the role.).
That would be great because she wouldn’t have to start all over again with a new Dream Team if she got the appointment.
Who would you rather become the new Commissioner if Blue Bloods ends with Frank retiring?
Jamie, Abigail, or someone else?
Blue Bloods airs on CBS on Fridays at 10/8c.