Although the Reagans might not be in the same city anymore, Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade supports the direction of the CBS spin-off.
In a recent conversation with Bill O’Reilly, the Golden Globe nominee rejected the No Spin News host’s take that the offshoot is a “woke version” of the original, noting that he’s “happy for them.”
O’Reilly argued, “Boston Blue is woke. I mean, they got every ethnicity in the world coming in there. I don’t know who’s who, I can’t keep track of where these people are from and what they’re doing. Whereas Blue Bloods was Irish Catholic traditional down the line.
“So, do you think that the suits in Hollywood said, ‘Enough of this traditional stuff. It might be working, but we can make a woke version of this and make just as as much money’?” he asked.
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Wade praised Donnie Wahlberg for doing “a terrific job” in reprising his role as Danny Reagan, adding, “And I’m going to be on the side of my colleagues here and go, anytime something is providing jobs for actors and the huge amount of people that are employed as crew, I’m happy for them, and I root for it.”
With Blue Bloods, Wade also didn’t see there being “a political agenda,” because although the show “was perceived as a maybe a right-leaning show—it was certainly about a family of white Roman Catholic Brooklyn cops, and cops and law enforcement in general tend to lean to the right.
“If we had a little secret sauce, it was that when we built a soapbox for one side, we tried to make sure to build a soapbox of equal dimensions for the other side of an issue,” explained Wade. “We had to take on a lot of issues, and we chose to take on a lot of issues during the run of the show. I think that if there was a reason for its success … it was that people didn’t feel preached to. They didn’t feel like we were telling them what to think, or how to think, or what side was the right side.”
Following Blue Bloods‘ 2024 finale, Wahlberg reprised his role as Det. Danny Reagan in the spin-off Boston Blue, which premiered last October, with the role of Danny’s Sean recast with Mika Amonsen after Andrew Terraciano played him in the parent series.
Also starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Ernie Hudson, Maggie Lawson, Gloria Reuben and Marcus Scribner, Boston Blue received an early renewal for Season 2 in December, set to return on Oct. 9.
