Donnie Wahlberg warns ‘buckle up’ for “Boston Blue ”season 2 premiere’s big cameo and sensational true crime case

Ryan ColemanFri, October 9, 2026 at 7:00 PM UTC

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Donnie Wahlberg on ‘Boston Blue’Credit: Seacia Pavao/CBSKey Points -

Donnie Wahlberg is warning fans of Boston Blue to “buckle up” for the season 2 premiere.

The actor behind Det. Danny Reagan says the Boston Blue team was “really determined to pack every hour this year, to really give the audience as much as we can.”

To that end, he breaks down Lena’s shooting, Brian’s car crash, his own character’s potential promotion, and the wild true crime case that nearly swallows Boston whole on “The Crash.”

Friday nights are for the family. At least they are now that Boston Blueis heading back to the small screen.

After a rip-roaring first run on CBS, the little Blue Bloodsspinoff that could has gone and done it, becoming a top-four premiere for the network back in 2025, and even besting the mothership’s season average ratings. Donnie Wahlberg and Tom Selleck led the original series to 14 seasons of success, but not even the series’ abrupt cancellation could put a dent in viewers’ enthusiasm — or Wahlberg’s.

“I’m grateful. Extremely grateful. There’s been a lot of enthusiasm for season 2, which is great. We are really determined to pack every hour this year, to really give the audience as much as we can,” the second-youngest son of the Wahlberg acting dynasty tells Entertainment Weekly ahead of the Boston Blue season 2 premiere. The primary link between the two series and the spinoff’s tireless leader emphasizes, “We want to entertain the audience. I don’t know if it’s old-fashioned, but entertaining people is kind of an important thing. When they dedicate an hour of their lives to your show, it’s important that you give them something to enjoy and talk about.”

And boy does Friday’s season 2 premiere, titled “The Crash,” give ‘em something to talk about it. Echoing the words his tireless detective Danny Reagan has for his Boston born-and-bred partner, Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green), about the premiere’s grisly case, Wahlberg warns viewers to “buckle up.”

Wahlberg with Sonequa Martin-Green on ‘Boston Blue’Credit: Seacia Pavao/CBS

Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis, who developed the spinoff based on Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess’ NYC-set procedural, knew they had a problem on their hands when faced with the question of why a fiercely devoted family man like Danny would ever uproot himself from home. Blue Bloods, for the uninitiated, centered on the Reagan family policing dynasty, led by Tom Selleck’s Frank Reagan, his father, Len Cariou’s Henry Reagan, Danny’s sister, Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan), and more.

Cannily, Sonnier and Margolis opted to employ the problem itself as its own solution, invoking the family as Danny makes a break for Beantown to support his son, Sean (Mika Amonsen), who has joined Boston P.D. It helps that season 1 was littered with familiar faces from the O.G., like Moynahan’s and Cariou’s. “When I decided to do this show, a big part of it for me was, I wanted to [show] Danny could leave New York. I believed he could, unlike some people. I believed he could do it. I just didn’t believe he could turn his back on his family and never see them again,” Wahlberg explains.

And so Danny didn’t. Cariou even shows up in a delightful season 2 premiere cameo to consult on an old case that has reared its ugly head.

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When young women start turning up strangled across the Boston metro area, minds flock to the most obvious, yet most improbable thought: The Boston Strangler has returned.

“My initial reaction was, ‘Are we going there? Are we really going there?’” Wahlberg jokes. “But then I remembered that Grandpa Reagan in season 1, when he came to visit Boston, referenced that he was on the task force for the Boston Strangler. I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to link Grandpa in.’ So the Brandons were like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, let’s do that.’ It started to create a lot of possibilities, and it [gets] pretty intense.”

Fans eagerly awaiting the arrival of season 2 will of course be delighted to catch up with Danny. But when it comes to intensity, two of his coworkers fared far worse in the season 1 finale — and one key player got off so rough that his return hasn’t even been certain.

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Fortunately, Ryan Broussard’s Det. Brian Rodgers survives the deliberate car crash that put an exclamation point on the end of season 1. Just how he’s faring, fans will have to wait and see, but Wahlberg speaks at length about Lena, who was shot on “Patrol,” the momentous season 1 finale. “Sonequa is amazing. She had so much to carry through the end of last season, and she makes it look effortless. But she puts so much care and effort into everything she does,” Wahlberg raves.

Mika Amonsen and Marcus Scribner on ‘Boston Blue’Credit: Seacia Pavao/CBS

He keeps mum about Lena’s condition, but the action-packed cold open that introduces viewers to season 2 will clarify things quickly. And besides, the real conflict coming to flower for Lena this season will occur in “her heart,” Wahlberg says.

In season 1, the daughter of powerful D.A. Mae Silver (Gloria Reuben) becomes curious about her biological father, who was never a part of her life. She finally made the bold choice to meet Chris (Erik King), and his daughter, her new half-sister Kristina (Alisha Wainwright), but things aren’t yet settled. “In some ways, her heart is open to these new relationships, because of what happened to her. But I think in other ways, she’s also a little guarded, and I think Danny’s on high alert as well on her behalf, right?” Wahlberg ventures.

“That doesn’t mean [Danny is] going to be entangled in, you know, the relationship with her dad or her half-sister, but he’s going to be concerned that she doesn’t get hurt again. That’s one of the reasons he didn’t want to be sergeant, right? He didn’t want to hurt her.” Enter the other major cliffhanger that carries from season 1 into season 2: the matter of Danny’s potential promotion to sergeant detective in the major case unit. It was the job Lena always had her eye on, but she was unfairly passed over.

Danny “watched her through the whole first season and learned about all of the hurt she’s experienced, and he doesn’t want to be part of that hurt,” Wahlberg reasons. “He wants to be part of the healing. So I think he’s going to be keeping an eye out, making sure everyone is what they say they are. He wants to be sincere in their relationship.”

Maggie Lawson as Sarah Silver on ‘Boston Blue’Credit: Seacia Pavao/CBS

Danny and Lena don’t go it alone when it seems a new Strangler — or, somehow, the old, uncaught Strangler — starts ripping through the city again. They get a crucial assist from Sean and Jonah Silver (Marcus Scribner), Sean’s partner in the patrol officer ranks of the force, and yet another member of the Blue Bloods franchise’s new first family.

There are twists and turns, too, concerning Lena’s stepsister, Superintendent of Detectives Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson), as well as Mae, whose campaign against the crooked Thad Longfellow (Ward Horton) for the D.A. seat takes a dark turn. But there’s one core character on Boston Blue who won’t be ignored — especially in a location shot–heavy episode like “The Crash” — Boston itself.

“When we can make Boston a character in the show, it’s really fun,” says Wahlberg, who teases “a duck boat tour coming up. We have all these different things. We have a chase through the North End in the first episode, which is literally the streets where the chase in The Town happened, except they were in cars instead of bicycles.”

Wahlberg on the season 2 premiere of ‘Boston Blue’Credit: Seacia Pavao/CBS

The Boston native finds it “fun to know some of the things about Massachusetts. For example, when we’re at the demolition derby, I was like, ‘Guys, you know this can’t happen in Boston, right? This is probably at the Brockton Fair or the Marshfield Fair.’ And it became the Marshfield Fair. So they were like, ‘All right, all right, we’ll switch it.’ Anyone in Boston is going to know, it has to be the Marshfield Fair.”

Throughout the conversation, Wahlberg continually refers to the cast and crew that ushered the Blue Bloods universe into existence back in 2010. Though original stars such as himself, Moynahan, and Marisa Ramirez have all returned, and more are on the way, as Will Estes was announced for season 2 back in August, Wahlberg gets emotional when he notes, “I’m very, very fortunate to have been part of Blue Bloods, and equally as fortunate to be part of this show,” and “that we’ve gotten to honor the shoulders we stand on with this show.”

Boston Blue season 2 premieres on Oct. 9 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. New episodes follow each Friday, and stream on Paramount+.

on Entertainment Weekly

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