Danny Reagan's Worst Moment In Blue Bloods Season 1
While most crime procedurals focus on the bond between police officers, "Blue Bloods" centers on a family of three generations of law enforcement workers led by NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck). He works alongside his children, Detective Danny (Donnie Wahlberg), ADA Erin (Bridget Moynahan), and Sergeant Jamie (Will Estes). Working in different areas of the same field often results in debates between the Reagans over policies and tactics, but they always come together for their weekly family dinners.
Over the last decade, "Blue Bloods" has tackled timely social issues with varying degrees of success. Fans of the show admittedly struggle with pinning down its political leanings as the core messaging changes from episode to episode. Additionally, some viewers have found specific episodes troubling, and more often than not, it's because of something Danny said or did. The old-school detective is known for his aggressive interrogation skills, and he boasts a surprisingly high body count.
One of the worst things Danny did in Season 1 happened in the episode "What You See," which follows the investigation into a bomb threat.
Danny encouraged racial profiling in What You See
In "What You See," Danny Reagan and the NYPD interrogate Khalid Hassan (Mousa Hussein Kraish) after intercepting a concerning email and finding the ingredients to make a nail bomb in his apartment. However, the bomb is missing, and they must work quickly to find and defuse it before it's detonated. To speed up the process, Danny suggests that they "just focus on the Arabs" driving vehicles that match the description.
Later in the episode, Erin admonishes their use of profiling as being racist and ineffective, which he brushes off as "that ACLU crap." However, Erin is correct, and this approach causes them to initially overlook the bomber: a white woman who converted to Islam and fell in with a radicalized group. She goes unnoticed at a police checkpoint and heads to meet her target: her ex-husband, who just won custody of their son. The Reagans acknowledge that they would've never suspected a "blonde housewife" as a "radical" bomber, but that's the extent of the episode's attempt at subversion.
"It really was offensive to categorize terrorist threats to a certain religion or race," one reviewer pointed out on IMDb.
Another viewer called the episode "Islamophobic dribble masquerading as television" and went on to explain how perpetuating stereotypes like this can have harmful real-world consequences. "Stereotyping Muslims as terrorists has the whole of a generation in fight or flight mode despite there being no real evidence that Muslims are violent or militaristic people in the U.S.A.," they said (via IMDb).