For those viewers out there who thought Saperstein (Santino Fontana)  wasn’t really dead and instead was in protective custody, witness protection, or stashed in his mother’s basement, your theories were debunked in tonight’s episode. Yes, sorry folks, Saperstein is truly dead, as in gone-to-the-morgue dead, laying-in-a-pine-box dead. So, unless the writers managed to pull a shenanigan bigger than the Glenn Rhee The Walking Dead fakeout, tonight was the good-bye to one of the show’s fan favorites. Total buzzkill. But, there is an upside, fortunately. While a part of me wants to beat Harlee (Jennifer Lopez)  senseless for allowing all of this to spiral out of control, she does step up and finally decides to do the right thing, thus giving us hope that maybe some justice will come out of this horrible situation.

GIVING A BEAT-DOWN TO 2 BAD COPS DOESN’T MAKE YOU A GOOD COP, WOZ

Even though the episode focuses primarily on saying good-bye to Detective Saperstein, it also puts the spotlight on Harlee and her inner struggle on what to do now knowing that her boss — and good friend — is a cold-blooded murderer. As a result, the entire hour ends up being one big string of events, each of which tips the scale in one direction or the other. One of these revolves around her daughter, Christine (Sarah Jeffery), and her boyfriend, Mannie. Now, we, the audience, have known for a while about Mannie, but Harlee doesn’t, and so, when the secret boyfriend gets beaten to a bloody pulp by 2 over-zealous cops, Christine doesn’t go to her Mom. Instead, she turns to Wozniak (Ray Liotta).

Of course, with Woz still being a cop himself, he’s initially skeptical. After all, a police officer generally doesn’t use a suspect’s face as a punching bag and then, not arrest him afterwards. However, Christine is smart and catches the entire thing on her phone, and what we see is pretty disturbing. The 2 officers accused Mannie of drinking and hustling drugs, when in reality, he was not and they had no proof of it anyways. Basically, the beat-down was unwarranted and on the surface, made it look like it was motivated by race as Mannie is Puerto Rican.

So, Wozniak sees an opportunity here. He decides to give the 2 officers a taste of their own medicine which culminates with their getting jumped by Woz’s entire team. Woz needs to get his crew back on track, and I can see his doing this for several reasons. First, he includes Loman because as he says himself, they “have a void to fill,” and plus, Loman needs to see first-hand how this team works. Second, I’m sure he was thinking that beating up the thugs who attacked Christine’s boyfriend might score some brownie-points with Harlee. Unfortunately, the latter doesn’t work, and in fact, it turns out to be one of the events that starts to tip the scale against Wozniak. The big issue Harlee has is that while these 2 guys are dirty cops, honestly Woz and his team are just as bad. So, basically it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

You are members of the New York City Police Department. Do right by your city. The last thing it needs is another dirty cop — Harlee

You can tell by the look on Woz’s face that he knows she’s actually referring to his team, but this is only one of many, many things that Harlee begins to look at differently given recent events.

A TEARFUL GOOD-BYE TO SAPERSTEIN AND HARLEE GETS A WAKE-UP CALL

As soon as Saperstein flat-lined last week, I think most of us knew this episode was going to be heart-wrenching to say the least. And, oh my God, it certainly was. Times 10. Times 100! Starting with that opening scene of Saperstein lying there dead and his eyes open, I was already bawling before we were barely out of the gate! And, the chilling part is that it appears David woke up and was fully aware that he was suffocating to death from the pulmonary embolism. Can you imagine?

Then, we have the scenes with David’s mother, and I knew those would kill me and they did. From every indication it appears that David was her only child, and in fact, her only family, period. Because of that, Woz asks Tufo (Hampton Fluker)  to go to the morgue “to hold her hand” as they prepare David for burial. She keeps her composure pretty well until she shares with Tufo the last thing her son said to her.

He told me that he was caught doing some bad things, but he could still do one good one — Mrs. Saperstein to Tufo

Then, she completely breaks down and turns to Tufo for comfort not realizing that David being on this team is what got him killed.

However, the real tear-jerkers come later with the viewing of David’s body. Jews don’t normally have a viewing, but Mrs. Saperstein decides to make an exception for David’s “friends.” These scenes are nicely interlaced with a scene of Tess (Drea de Matteo)  reading a letter David wrote along with 2 tickets to a Mets game he gave her for her birthday. Earlier in the episode, Tess is very quick to bad-mouth Saperstein and goes as far as saying “Karma’s a bitch,” but even she is moved to tears. If this scene didn’t have you reaching for the tissues, then you seriously don’t have a heart.

Dear Tess: I know you are going through some stuff. Thought the tickets might help. It’s impossible to dwell on life’s problems when you’re sitting at the ballpark. So, I’m not great at talking it out or advice in general, but this is what I got. Life never turns out the way we expect it to. Don’t let anyone tell you things happen for a reason — they don’t. Things happen because they happen. And, we do the best we can to make them right. If we’re lucky, we have friends who understand that — or don’t need to. Most people may have one of these. I know you’re got at least five. Your friend and partner, Saperstein

About this time, both Harleee and Wozniak show up at the viewing. All day long, Harlee had been hammered with one thing right after another that screamed very loudly that the man she was working for was way beyond redemption and that she needed to do something to make sure that Saperstein’s murder doesn’t go unpunished. Well, what Woz does next turns out to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Harlee hears him talking to Mrs. Saperstein, and when she turns around, she sees a thick envelope he hands to her that’s obviously full of cash. So, kill a mother’s only son, and as long as you pony up enough $$$, then all is good, right? Of course not! All the money in the world couldn’t possibly make losing her son any less painful.

Well, that’s enough for Harlee because she whispers to David “I’m going to make this right. I promise,”and the next thing we see is Harlee at Stahl’s apartment (love, love the “How do you know where I live?” line. You really have no clue, Stahl!) She tells him that Wozniak killed Saperstein, that he confessed it to her, and that she’s ready to do whatever it takes to nail him. YEEESSSSSS!! I had a strong suspicion last week that this is where Harleen would end up, and so, I’m beyond thrilled.

All in all, another fantastic installment of Shades of Blue. The writing was top-notch, and it was a very nice — and very emotional — send-off to one of the most beloved characters on the show. I have no doubt that most of the viewers burned through a half box of Kleenex by the end of the hour, which only means the writing team is doing a damn good job. However, one of the things that pushed this episode from being just “good” to one that is “great” is Jennifer Lopez’s stellar performance. Wow. Every last scene she’s in is perfect, and every last scene makes you feel like you are there with her mourning for Saperstein and crying for her fallen friend. If last week was the Ray Liotta show, then this week belonged to J. Lo. A high-five to you, Mrs. Lopez, because you definitely hit this one out of the park.

So, what’s next? Harlee is definitely on-board with Stahl now, but how easy or how hard will it be to trap Woz? Of course, it also helps that Stahl now knows the truth about Miguel Zepeta and promises Harlee that he’ll basically forget about it if she helps in his investigation. So, at least she doesn’t have to worry about Wozniak trying to use that against her because Stahl already knows. What really bugs me, though, is I really see no way of Harlee and Wozniak continuing to co-exist and work together. What Wozniak did he can’t come back from, and Harlee will never be able to get past it. In other words, I think one of them has to go. I keep going back to that very first scene in the Pilot that takes place 2 weeks in the future where Harlee is crying and says “it happened so slowly, I didn’t realize and so quickly I didn’t see it coming.” As of the last episode, I think we are 10 days in, and so, we should be catching up to this scene soon. What is Harlee so distraught about? Could it be Woz’s death? Or, heaven-forbid, the death of another team member? This show has really raised the bar in these past couple of episodes, and regardless of what it is, you can expect it to be major.

Shades of Blue  airs on Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.

Critic Grade — A

s are closed.