Boston Blue premiered on CBS in the 2025 TV schedule with the pressure on co-showrunners Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis to prove if the spinoff could recapture the magic (and audience size) of Blue Bloods. The drama is ending the year as the #1 network TV drama of the fall season, following a very early renewal for Season 2. Although a lot of the show is different from its predecessor; however, one important element made the transfer to Beantown: family dinners. The showrunners opened up about why they’re “hugely important.”
The Reagan family dinners were a Blue Bloods tradition going back to the beginning, with the family gathering together and Tom Selleck‘s Frank Reagan at the head of the table. While the scenes were reportedly “the trickiest” to film, they were key to the series, and Donnie Wahlberg hyped that Boston Blue would build a tradition of its own. (Both Blue Bloods and Boston Blue are streaming with a Paramount+ subscription now.)
This time, Danny (Wahlberg) and son Sean (Mika Amonsen) are attending Silver family Shabbat dinners alongside Lena (Sonequa Martin-Green), Jonah (Marcus Scribner), Reverend Edwin Peters (Ernie Hudson), Mae (Gloria Reuben), and Sarah (Maggie Lawson). Co-showrunner Brandon Sonnier shared the importance of nailing the family dinner tradition on Boston Blue:
It’s hugely important to us. When we started this, when we were making the first episode and through every episode so far, the hope is that you want to join this family at that table. That you feel like this is a table where everyone is welcome. You want to be a part of that dinner with these people.
Spoilers in the next few paragraphs!
Of course, it didn’t even take the full fall half of the first season for Boston Blue to reveal that not all dinners are going to be warm and wholesome celebrations between loved ones. The fall finale meal was tense in light of Jonah’s quest for revenge, but Sonnier confirmed that’s what they were going for. He went on:
We wanted it to feel like a real family dinner. Sometimes families fight. That happens too. Sometimes families disagree, sometimes someone feels like everyone’s ganging up on them. Sometimes people storm away, and that is also part of being in a family.
It remains to be seen if the dinners are back up to their usual loving state once Boston Blue returns in the 2026 TV schedule, but the SIlver family has already been through a lot without breaking. One tense meal doesn’t mean the rest of the season will end on an uncomfortable family scene.
There was a fun callback to the original show in the very first episode of Boston Blue, when Bridget Moynahan joined the cast for a family dinner sequence. Erin Reagan had come to the city to reunite with her brother after Sean’s incident, and stayed long enough to meet the extended Silver family. Co-showrunner Brandon Margolis went on to commend the new cast for what they bring to the dinners:
All the credit goes to the cast. I mean, they’re such amazing talents. On day two of the shoot, during the pilot, when they’re filming that dinner, it was like they had been working together for a decade. It was incredible. They’re so good together and genuinely love the time they spend with each other that it’s coming through in the performances too. We could have written all the lovely dinner scenes we want, but if the actors weren’t delivering it, no one was buying it. But they truly are just such a fun group to be around, and they’re so good at what they do that it makes our lives infinitely easier.
Considering that Tom Selleck once said that the Reagan dinners were “miserable” to film, it sounds like Boston Blue has found a winning formula for the cast… unless this is just a case of the novelty not yet wearing off. Selleck also credited those scenes for Blue Bloods lasting as long as it did. As for how the Boston Blue cast is handling them, Brandon Sonnier said:
I think they do all truly love each other. I think they look forward to the days when we’re shooting those family dinners, because they enjoy family dinner. It’s family dinner for them for real. You know, when you’re shooting a show, you don’t always get to work with all the other characters at the same time. You’re in a scene with this person, you’re in a scene with that person, but that’s an opportunity when they all get to be together for the day that I think they all actually truly enjoy. Those are really fun days on set.
Thanks to the early renewal, fans are guaranteed enough family dinners with the Silvers and their two Reagan guests to fill out the rest of the 2025-2026 TV schedule and come back with more next season. Boston Blue is currently on its winter hiatus from CBS, and will return to its usual 10 p.m. ET time slot on Friday, February 27 following Fire Country. In the meantime, you can revisit earlier episodes via Paramount+.
