Blue Bloods S05E20 Recap: 'Payback'

Who Got Chopped?

Review by David Clark

As with every other episode this season, this week’s Blue Bloods revolves around three main storylines.

Opening with the aftermath of a homicide, detectives Danny and Maria must overcome their initial shock at finding a celebrity chef named Bret Madison dead. Having found his fame through a reality cooking show, the now dead chef was on the upswing of a promising career. The first suspect that Danny and Maria come across in the investigation ends up giving a full confession. Being seasoned veteran detectives Danny and Maria find the convenience of the confession to good to be true; so they continue looking under rocks for clues.

They quickly learn that the dead chef was having issues with his landlord Choinski. Coincidentally Choinski is also the man who pointed the detectives towards the initial suspect that confessed. Learning that Choinski runs a number of less than legal business ventures, Danny guessed that Choinski may have coerced their initial suspect into a confession.

In an attempt to corner Bret Madison’s real killer, Danny and Maria recruit a young man by the name of Gorski (Kett Turton) on parole that was working for Choinski. They blackmail the kid into being an informant because he is working in an illegal chop-shop which is a violation of parole. Either the kid helps Danny and Maria or the kid goes back to prison for a very long time.

Danny sets up a sting operation in which Gorski wears a wire in an attempt to get a confession out of Choinski. It was a valiant effort but Choinski is clearly not a fool and Gorski is not a trained police detective. Choinski gets suspicious because of how inquisitive Gorski is when they meet. However, before Choinski figures out he is being set up by police Choinski’s wife confesses to killing Chef Madison. Anyone having trouble believing the cute young blond woman might be capable of such an act had those doubts quickly erased when she slammed a knife into the hand of Gorski and threatened to kill him. Fortunately for Gorski Danny and Maria were close enough to save his butt before Choinski and his wife could finish the job.

As these events transpired Jamie and Eddie were facing their own quirky investigation. Finding a girl named Christina (Emily Althaus) nearly unconscious wearing only her underwear in a local park, they proceed to try and unravel the strange story of her assault. Christina is part of an online gaming community which participates in a game that has both online and real-life components.

Christina originally assumed the assault was a result of her actions within the game called Ionic Storm. She tells Eddie and Jamie that her boyfriend Trevor dumped her because he felt betrayed by her actions within the game. Christina was positive that Trevor and many of his friends conspired to assault her in real-life and stalk her through social media.

Jamie, perhaps not being in tune with the younger generations found Christina’s story to be somewhat hard to believe. He was equally confused by his partner Eddie’s strong reaction to Christina’s story. Eddie wanted to hunt down Trevor while Jamie thought that the hearsay aspect of Christina’s story left little ground upon which to act. Attempting to calm down his partner Jamie brought up a situation involving Eddie in which she was raped. Eddie responded how you might expect, she was outraged and stormed off.

After some reflection Jamie decided to use some unconventional means to investigate the situation. He dug up the alleged offender’s college records and found out Trevor had been disciplined multiple times at his college for inappropriate behavior towards women. The college handled the situations internally so the infractions never became part of a criminal record. With that information Jamie was willing to admit Christina’s story had some legitimacy.

It was fortunate that Jamie did finally decide to look into Trevor; by the time they found Christina to ask her more questions Trevor had his hands around her throat and was trying to strangle her to death. Fortunately Eddie and Jamie arrived in time to save her and arrest Trevor.

In this episode Frank Reagan had his own very real problems to address. When one of New York’s finest pulls over a vehicle for running a red light, the officer finds a married New York Senator in the car and a drunk young woman behind the wheel. The senator tried to initially bully the officer into forgetting the entire thing. When that did not work the senator tried to pull rank and push things up to Frank Reagan.

Clearly the senator is not watching the same show the rest of us are because Frank Reagan is a commissioner that keeps his office above reproach. Despite pressure from the senator the commissioner was not about to use the power of his office to do favors for someone who was clearly breaking the law and disrespecting the sanctity of their own marriage.

This season of Blue Bloods is winding down to what will likely be a conclusion to the series. While it will be sad to see yet another police procedural that focuses on cops in the field disappear, when a show loses the creative element it is time to go.