‘Boston Blue’ Surprise! [Spoiler] Returns From Danny’s Past — Will They Be Back?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Boston Blue series premiere.]

They finally did it!

A lot of news about Boston Blue, Blue Bloods‘ first spinoff, had been shared to capture the interest of fans of the beloved cop family show canceled in the spring of 2024. We learned that born-and-bred Brooklynite, detective Donnie Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg), finds himself in Boston due to a horrible injury to his younger son Sean (Mika Amonsen, replacing the parent show’s original actor Andrew Terraciano), who just graduated from the Boston Police Academy. It’s also been out there that Danny will get involved with a loving Reagan-like law enforcement clan at the heart of the new series.

There is, however, one secret that was held very closely by everyone involved in the pilot. The last we saw Danny and his longtime NYPD partner Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez) in the series finale, they were heading out to get some pizza together. It must have been some really sizzling pizza because in the storyline, it’s a year later, and they are now committed romantic partners. As Ramirez puts it: “I guess that pizza led to a series of dates.”

The reveal was not subtle. Fairly early on in Boston Blue‘s series premiere, the couple is getting out of bed and maybe for the first time, we see Danny Reagan shirtless! The actress jokes that when they gave her the costume for that scene, she “wasn’t comfortable wearing that” and covered up a bit more. “That would just make it too obvious,” Ramirez tells TV Insider.

Despite their eventual pairing being somewhat divisive over the years among devoted Bloods fans, “on the street,” says Ramirez, “people tell me they would like to see us get romantic.” The actors, as well “often spoke of their getting together,” she says. “It was only kind of natural that they would end up [that way]. I know it is something that Donnie wants to explore, and what a perfect place to explore it but in the next kind of universe of Blue Bloods — in Boston Blue.”

“The moment we realized that we were getting a chance to continue Danny Reagan’s story, we recalled that Danny was going to ask his partner out and audiences were left to wonder how that was going to go,” says exec producer Brandon Sonnier, who co-created Boston Blue with Brandon Margolis. “We decided that the two of them are good together, and they were making it work. So, it was important to us that even though the episode [quickly] takes Danny out of New York, the one opportunity to show him before he left, was to have Baez there. So we were thrilled that Marissa — who’s an occasional guest star this season — was game to come play with us and that we get to tell a story about Danny Reagan going forward that she continues to be a part of.”

It was Wahlberg who called Ramirez, the actress says. “He asked if I would want to be part of the new show and explore Baez and Dany’s relationship post Blue Bloods. Of course, I’m going to say yes. I don’t even know why he called to ask. They could have just said, ‘OK, you’re doing it,’ and I would have said, ‘Let’s go!” But Donnie,” she adds, “is always so generous about your feeling or what you are going through. It’s who he is as a person to call personally and make sure I’m on the same page.”

Ramirez hopes there will be a backstory revealed at some point about whether the couple had to stop working together, which usually happens when partners become involved. Last night wasn’t her last appearance; she’s already guested in an upcoming episode.

Can their long-distance relationship work? Says Sonnier, “They will try. My wife and I did long distance for two years before we moved to the same city. That was 25 years ago and we made it.” Ramirez says she is feeling pretty positive about their future. “After over more than a 10-year-long friendship, they can adjust and shift and see what happens,” says the actress. “I think they’re both mature enough to handle it.”

Danny Reagan and Maria Baez weren’t the only familiar faces appearing on Boston Blue ‘s premiere episode. ADA Erin (Bridget Moynahan) shows up to support her brother Danny and Sean. (She’s also directing this season.) “It’s an important thing for us to keep present in the show that this an expansion of the [Blue Bloods] universe,” says Sonnier. “The Reagan family still exists in New York; they’re still having dinners on Sundays. And the people we love from the original series, if there are opportunities for them to come visit Danny we’re going to explore that. It did seem that Erin would be the one who would jump at the chance to look out for Danny which is the kind of relationship they always had. [Will Estes‘ Jamie] has a baby at home, so he needs to be around at home for his wife [Vanessa Ray‘s Eddie].”

It’s definitely a positive that Wahlberg is a star on the new show. “Everyone is eager to support Donnie,” Sonnier adds. “It’s a credit to Donnie Wahlberg as an actor and a person that everybody enjoys working with him and would like to continue to do so. He is a great dude.”

John Medland / CBS

As for the recasting of Sean Reagan, “We wanted a slightly different version of Sean,” says Margolis. “We wanted a character that feels familiar, an actor that does resemble the character that we watched grow up. But as you saw in the pilot, he has made some life changes and having joined the police force, he is really picking up that family mantle.”

The producers chose to “join the story in progress,” they say. Sean has already moved and adapted to life in Boston, Danny and Maria are in a relationship, and there’s a new family to learn about.

Despite not being part of the local police force, after he saw his son in the hospital, the ever-impetuous New York detective quickly took action, went over to the building in which Sean was injured, and immediately became suspicious of a guy who was looking intently at a specific window on the burning floor of the crime scene. That led to Danny and his Boston counterpart Lena Silver (Star Trek: Discovery‘s Sonequa Martin-Green) meeting cute when she thinks she’s apprehending a possible perp since she was working on that case that hurt Sean, an arson used to cover a murder.

Once she discovers he’s Sean’s dad and yet another Silver, superintendent of police investigative services Sarah (Maggie Lawson) knows his rep in New York as a great detective, she allows him to officially, though temporarily, work on the case with Lena.

Like its progenitor, there’s a lot of “faith, family, and tradition” in Boston Blue. In the first episode, Danny and Erin are invited to the weekly Friday night Shabbat dinner held at the home of Lena’s mother, Boston DA Mae Silver (Gloria Reuben), whose husband Ben, a circuit judge, was murdered about a year ago. Like the Reagans’ Sunday meal, there’s plenty of gossip and humor, and yeah, debate at the table. It’s not rare, says Margolis, “that everyone ends up with a different point of view on whatever the issue that we’re discussing that week.”

As for Danny’s future? We can safely assume that Danny’s little speech at the end of the premiere, declaring that he’ll stay in Boston as long as his son needs him, sets the scene for next week, for him to stay put in Beantown. Just don’t expect the lifelong New York Mets fan to start sporting a Red Sox cap (which of course is Boston’s favorite son’s favorite team).

Here’s little teaser for next week’s episode: Expect an investigation into a Ponzi scheme with great teamwork by Danny and Lena, who quickly bond, while rookie cops Sean and Jonah (Marcus Scribner) battle for dominance on their first official day of work as full-fledge Boston police.

Boston Blue, Fridays, 10/9c, CBS