Episode

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 5, “Suffer the Children.”]

Parents taking responsibility for their children was the name of the game in Boston Blue‘s fifth episode. “Suffer the Children” aired on Friday, November 14, on CBS, and it showed different sets of parents intertwined into one storyline, intended to make the characters and viewers question how culpable parents are for the state of their families. The answer was more than Danny Reagan (Boston native Donnie Wahlberg) could admit at first, but Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson) was on a mission to prove that a dangerous teen’s parents were at fault for their son’s crimes in the Blue Bloods spinoff. The episode also addressed a famous Boston art heist that’s been unsolved for 35 years.

The episode began violently, with teenagers being killed in a shooting at a yogurt shop. Sarah eventually connected the dots to a teen named Kyle, whose parents were “responsible gun owners.” They taught their kid how to use a gun safely at a shooting range and kept their weapon locked up at home, but they failed to do enough to address their son’s mental health struggles that resulted in violence. Danny and the law said that the parents aren’t responsible for the murders when they were responsible gun owners. He used his late wife, Linda, as an example.

At the Silver family Shabbat dinner, Danny argued that he, as a detective, wanted to teach his sons how to safely use a firearm. Linda, however, didn’t, because she didn’t want her sons using the weapons at all. He posed a hypothetical question: If Sean Reagan (Mika Amonsen) or his brother, Jack, were to commit a serious crime with that firearm, should Linda be held responsible for not teaching them gun safety?

It was more complicated and insidious with Kyle’s family. Sarah proved that his parents knew he was prescribed a medication intended to help decrease the symptoms that triggered Kyle’s violence. She also proved that they knew he wasn’t taking the medication and that they didn’t do enough to address his increasingly concerning behavior. They were arrested for involuntary manslaughter, and the son was sent to jail as well.

Connecting with your children was a big theme of the episode. Danny, who’s been living with Sean in Boston so far, has been struggling to connect with his son. And the proximity of living together had raised tensions between them, making Sean distant, disinterested in bonding, and displeased at his dad’s attempts to connect.

While on a case with Jonah (Marcus Scribner), Sean encountered an elderly man experiencing dementia-like symptoms who needed help reconnecting with his son, not just because he was lonely living on his own, but also because of the safety hazards caused by his memory issues. Danny, meanwhile, was on a case with new partner Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green) about a legendary Boston art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

In March 1990, 13 works of art were stolen from the museum. Lena told Danny in the episode that every once in a while, they’ll get people claiming to have a lead about the paintings. Most of the time, it’s a prank, but this time, it might have actually been real. The man who came to the precinct left before filing a report, and he wound up dead later. It was his own family that got him killed, all in the name of keeping the stolen paintings stolen.

The episode offered up its own version of the real supposed art thief, who said he’s been living his everyday-man life for 35 years and nothing could stop him now. The heist remained unsolved at the end.

A daughter not knowing that her family was connected to this infamous theft brought up Lena’s complicated feelings about her own biological father, whom she’s never met.

Lena revealed to Danny that she once dreamed of studying art in college, and she had a talent for it. But she decided against that life because her mother, Mae (Gloria Reuben), didn’t have any artistic talent, leading young Lena to believe it was a trait she inherited from her absent father. She wanted to distance herself from that, but adult Lena regrets having unanswered questions about him.

These cases made Danny and Sean realize the importance of getting past the problems that made them distant and finding new ways to connect. They got started by beginning a new tradition of Sean introducing Danny to all of the Marvel movies, starting with The Avengers. There was no mention of Danny’s father, Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck), in the episode, but he’s been referenced a couple of times in the spinoff so far.

Fun fact: This isn’t the first time in recent TV seasons that this art heist has been referenced. One of the stolen paintings from the Gardner Museum is Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” That painting is hanging in the background of the Dubai penthouse apartment in AMC‘s Interview With the Vampire. Lena, get Daniel Molloy on the phone — he’s an eyewitness!

Boston Blue, Fridays, 10/9c, CBS