Witten’s Blue Bloods Season 14 return wasted the opportunity to bring back a great Jamie skill

Warning: Contains spoilers for Blue Bloods Season 14, Episode 14.

Blue Blood Season 14, Episode 14, “New York Minute,” wasted an opportunity to bring back one of Jamie Reagan’s (Will Estes) best skills in Rachel Witten’s (Lauren Patten) latest storyline. Witten is a former NYPD officer who is initially fired from the NYPD in one of the Blue Blood‘best episodes because she causes public perception of the NYPD to suffer. However, Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) later reinstates her, leading her to work with Eddie (Vanessa Ray) for two years before permanently retiring from police work because of the stress involved in the job.

Witten returns in “New York Minute” as a social worker, a job that fits your personality and desire to help others. Her return causes a dilemma for Eddie when Witten asks her to keep quiet about her having a client physically attack her to get city services to provide him and his family with the help he needed. Although Blue Blood’ Jamie and Eddie know Witten well, Jamie’s only involvement in his story is giving Eddie advice in one scene, which is a waste of his potential.

Witten’s return was the perfect opportunity to bring back Jamie’s social work skills

In Blue Bloods’ early years, Jamie was especially good at helping people during mental health crises

“New York Minute” underutilizes Jamie’s skills, limiting his involvement to offering to call a friend at the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene. When Jamie is a beat cop, he demonstrates a superior ability to build relationships with people who are acting out because of mental health issues, even getting into trouble once because he refuses to allow his commander to dictate the use of weapons in a situation that could be resolved peacefully.

Given its history, It would have made sense for Jamie to be actively involved in Witten’s caseespecially during the climactic scene, which involves Witten’s client hanging his little sister from a balcony and threatening to throw her to the ground. Jamie could have used his skills to help calm the man down and ensure everyone’s safety. Instead, he is noticeably absent, leading to a dangerous situation in which the police don’t know how to resolve the problem safely, and the child is only saved when Witten arrives and convinces his client to listen to her.

Involving Jamie in the story could have improved Witten’s Blue Bloods return

“New York Minute” made some comments about underfunding, but the Blue Bloods story was less believable

Witten’s story highlights the underfunding of social services. She is desperate to help her client, who has become violent because of substance use related to his mental health problem, not because of the problem itself. However, municipal services are overwhelmed with requests, so she was unable to get immediate help and resorted to unleashing violence against her so that he would go to jail instead of being left to fend for himself. However, the story could have served two character arcs well while also addressing this systemic issue rather than relying on fictional drama.

While Witten’s behavior makes sense in this context, it would have been more powerful and less tense to make a point if Jamie had been involved. Jamie could have been on the scene for several calls involving this man and asked Witten for help as a social worker, only for Jamie to have to calm him down when he attacked Witten. Using one of Blue Blood‘ better characters in this way would have led to a more powerful and memorable story involving Witten, rather than a story centered on his desire to go to extreme lengths to protect his client and his family.