Last nights episode of Blue Bloods (Season 5, episode 9: Under The Gun) was (for Hollywood standards) a revolution. Some lone killer in a motorcycle targets prominent Jewish people in what initially appears to be a rash of Hate Crimes. On the home front, Linda, the wife of Detective Danny Reagan gets mugged at knife point while working a mobile clinic in a seedy part of town.
After the third victim falls to gunfire, the Jewish community decides that prevention is the better part of valor and tells Commissioner Reagan that they are hiring 500 armed guards to protect Jewish centers (The first killing happened in front of a Temple), the Comish is not very happy about it and storms off the gathering. Linda Reagan uses her influence on being married to the son of the Commissioner to get a gun permit and buys a gun for personal protection. And yes, she buys a snub nose, but it was not pink and I actually think was a Ruger LCR.
During the Family Dinner (a recurring scene in every episode and subject to much hate by haters) Papa Reagan stands alone in his indignation of the Jewish Community seeking extra security when every adult in the table agrees that there is nothing wrong with people to defend themselves. I must point out that Papa Reagan is not against the defending but with the way it makes NYPD look like they are not prepared to handle the problem… and my brain kept popping a banner with Castle Rock v. Gonzales.
In the meantime, Detective Reagan finds out that the killings are not based on Hate but on revenge about a lawsuits in which the three individuals were involved and that there was still one more person to be targeted: a nurse who is out walking her dog. Linda Reagan is back to work at the project and as she arrives to the location, she sees the guy who robbed her at the beginning of the show. For a couple of moments we think she is gonna go Dirty Harriet but she eventually pulls out her cell phone and calls 911 which is the smart thing to do.
But where the surprise hits home is Danny Reagan and his partner looking for the targeted nurse in a park. He suddenly hears shooting and runs towards the sound and finds the killer being brought down by the nurse who is legally carrying a concealed weapon.
The show ends on a rerun of old clichés when Linda gives the gun to her husband saying that is not for her and blah-blah, but I have to go back to the nurse and the myths that scene confronts: A woman armed (That does not happen evah!) uses her gun effectively (somehow the killer was not able to rip it off her hand and use it against her) and stops the bad guy (without bringing down a double-decker bus full of handicapped children from Iowa on their way to the Vatican to see the Pope) without shakes or hysterics. Her life was in danger, she had the proper tool, she used it, bad guy down, end of story. For us, nothing to be surprised about, but for the Hollywood Media Machine?
Maybe there is hope after all.
Did hell freeze over? How did they let that on the air? Hmmmm.
If this becomes a trend, the usual ‘damsel in distress’ and ‘poor helpless me’ TV tropes are going to need to be re-written. How many TV shows do you see where the victim is chased through their house and killed while cowering in a bedroom or closet?
Hollywood Script Writers have a chance to write some new original scripts if they only listen.
It was interesting watching the contrast between the attitudes of Linda and the non-victimized nurse. They both are nurses, but the one that defends herself is matter of fact, a non-shrieking non-hot house flower. Paraphrasing and reading between the lines, “I work as a Nurse. Over 20 years I have seen the worst criminals can do to their victims. I will defend myself. I will not be a victim.”
Linda is a perpetual victim, she has been mugged, kidnapped from her home and held hostage by drug dealers, seen friends beaten, robbed, and murdered, even seen her sister-in-law attacked by a serial rapist in her own office, and in a court-house taken hostage and shot by another drug dealer. But she refuses to learn to defend herself and her children. Not just no handguns or firearms, but not even basic self-defense. Nope, she will rely on the big bad Reagan men with badges to miraculously show up in the nick of time to keep her safe. So far they have been 100%, but will they always be?
And the scene where she is picking up the gun. Jamie walks in to buy practice ammo, she is too ashamed to admit she is buying herself a gun. She lies, and asks Jamie to keep her ‘secret.’
A trained psycho-analyst could have a field day with this episode.
That’s not how I read it. She didn’t want Jamie to tell her husband, because she was afraid of blowback at home.
While this episode does represent something of a breakthrough regarding Hollywood and the right to armed defense, it still fails terribly by suggesting that an ordinary citizen can easily obtain a concealed carry permit in New York City.
Note that the character Linda Reagan only uses her family police connection to expedite her concealed carry permit. And the second nurse (“Dirty Harriet”) is an ordinary citizen with no special privileges. Yet she, too, possesses a New York City carry permit. And upon the discovery that she fired her gun onto a dark Manhattan street, rather than being tackled and arrested, the police simply ask her to place her gun on the ground and show them her permit.
Of course, this is how America works almost everywhere except in New York City (and a few other retrograde localities, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles). A far more accurate script would have shown Linda Reagan obtaining her carry permit only through the power of her family connections and “Dirty Harriet” falling prey to an armed criminal, because New York City is still a “constitution-free zone,” the police can’t be everywhere, and besides — they have no legal obligation to protect any particular individual.
Remember, Selleck is a conservative. The sanity of the episodes is likely related to his influence over them.
(And why do you think the family name is “Reagan”?)
not gonna speculate on that one
To be fair, it IS a Selleck show.
And one my wife loves, mainly because of Selleck (yet she maintains she can’t stand facial hair!).
The problem I had with this episode was Hollywood portraying that a citizen of NYC could somehow get a carry permit. I liked Linda Reagan having to use the Commish courtesy card to even get looked at in a timely fashion. They really glossed over the fact that, the average citizen basically has no chance of being that nurse. Realistically, if she’d put in for a permit after the trial, she’d likely still be waiting, and just be another statistic.