Joe Hill was a fan favorite character on Blue Bloods until he went missing last season.
One of the most shocking moments in the history of the long-running police procedural drama television series Blue Bloods came in the show’s tenth-season finale episode when New York City police commissioner Frank Reagan discovered that NYPD detective Joe Hill, played by Will Hochman, was Frank’s grandson.
Joe was revealed to be the biological son of Frank’s deceased son, former NYPD detective Joseph Reagan, who was unaware of Joe’s existence, which upended the Reagan family dynamic during the show’s eleventh season when Joe was included in the traditional Reagan Sunday family dinners.
Joe’s introduction as Frank’s grandson not only transformed the audience’s perception of the enduring Reagan family but also how the preexisting Reagan family members saw themselves, especially since Joe is also firmly entrenched within the family business. Moreover, while he certainly has familiar Reagan family traits, the impassioned Joe possesses a unique personality that distinguishes him within the interconnected Reagan family and Blue Bloods characters. The fact that Joe followed in his father’s proverbial footsteps without being aware of this connection added another layer of drama and meaning to Joe’s presence.
However, despite the character’s popularity, Joe only appeared in four episodes last season and was completely missing from last season’s final six episodes. With Blue Bloods set to enter its fourteenth and final season, it seems unfathomable that the show can resolve its voluminous family business without bringing back Joe.
Joe Hill Made Blue Bloods Seem More Personal
When Blue Bloods patriarch Frank Reagan, the character that completely transformed Tom Selleck’s legacy, discovered that Joe Hill was the biological son of Frank’s deceased cop son, Joseph, Selleck also discovered, through Joe’s mother, that as Joseph had been unaware of Joe’s existence, Joe was previously oblivious to his connection to the Reagan family. The various complications that arose from this revelation, primarily due to Joe’s own police career, obviously made Joe’s addition to the Reagan family much more interesting than if Joe hadn’t been a cop.
In last season’s “Nothing Sacred” episode, Joe is enraged after his father’s gravestone is knocked over and seeks to find the culprit. Frank, recognizing Joe’s unbalanced emotional state, discourages Joe from pursuing this investigation and eventually realizes that Joe’s anger toward the displaced gravestone is a byproduct of Joe’s latent grief over never having known his father.
In last season’s “Past History” episode, which presently marks Joe’s final appearance on the show, Joe is reprimanded and transferred by Frank after breaking FBI protocol while working on a joint task force. After being punished by Frank, Joe experiences another wave of grief related to his father but finds a measure of peace when Frank and Joe watch home movie footage of Joe’s father.
Will Hochman Brought Energy and Youth to Blue Bloods
The addition of Will Hochman as Joe Hill revitalized the TV cop series, for which Joe’s appearances generated an enthusiastic reaction from viewers, many of whom called for Hochman to become a main cast member on the show, alongside Len Cariou, Will Estes, Bridget Moynahan, Tom Selleck, and Donnie Wahlberg. Hochman, who will be thirty-one when the upcoming final season of Blue Bloods debuts next month, is nearly fifteen years younger than the show’s next youngest main cast member, Will Estes, who is forty-five, and over twenty years younger than Wahlberg, who is fifty-four.
Moreover, as a newly introduced blood relative who was part of the New York City Police Department family before becoming part of its first family, Joe’s character arc inspired a new definition and understanding of the show’s core family dynamic, which had become increasingly predictable and tired. Joe’s awkward, difficult journey with joining a new family, becoming acquainted with their rituals, and gaining acceptance and trust revolutionized the show and was a rich source of drama.
Indeed, Joe’s character arc was especially compelling given that longtime viewers of Blue Bloods were so much more familiar with the Reagan family dynamic than Joe was when he nervously sat down to eat dinner with his estranged family members for the first time.
Blue Bloods Viewers Love Joe Hill
After Will Hochman debuted as Joe Hill in the tenth-season finale episode of Blue Bloods, Hochman appeared in five episodes of the show’s eleventh season and four in each of the show’s twelfth and thirteenth seasons. Despite appearing in only four episodes last season and being completely absent from last season’s closing episodes, Joe is arguably the most popular addition to the series in recent memory. Blue Bloods viewers became so enamored of Joe and his inclusion within the Reagan family that they clamored for more. This makes Joe’s gradual disappearance from the show seem especially baffling.
Since his most recent appearance in last season’s “Past History” episode, Joe hasn’t even been mentioned on Blue Bloods, not even during the Reagan family dinner conversation, nor has there been any official confirmation that Hochman will appear in any episodes for the show’s upcoming final season.
However, as the upcoming final season of Blue Bloods will surely provide the show’s longtime cast members with plenty of opportunities with which to say goodbye to one another and the series, it seems likely that Joe, who has been known to become immersed in undercover police work, could make a surprise reappearance at any given moment. Indeed, assuming that Joe lives to see the show’s final episode, it’s hard to imagine that the show’s final Reagan Sunday family dinner could take place without him. Blue Bloods is available to stream on Paramount +.
