Villainess Review: Chelsey Parker (Blue Bloods)

If there's one thing I've learned while binge-watching the long-running CBS series, Blue Bloods, it's this: the series is chock full of deliciously sinister villainesses. My story collection on Vocal is proof of that, as I've done profiles of four different villainesses from the series, which has aired on CBS since 2010 and is ongoing. The villainess count has been quite low in recent seasons, but it's still pretty high overall, and it includes quite a deranged one in the episode, "Lonely Hearts Club."

The episode began with young woman entering a hotel and heading up to her room, with the woman quickly being established as an escort. She's waiting for her latest client, but the wait becomes fatal, as she's suddenly killed in her hotel room. Danny Reagan and Jackie Curatola are on the case, which reveal the woman's name as Stacy Fryman, while the cause of death was revealed to be a fatal drug injection. As it turned out, this was not the first escort murder, as two others--Emily Parker and Aly Garcia--were murdered months prior in the same fashion.

Before I continue, I want to say that I'm a big fan of Jennifer Esposito, who portrayed Jackie Curatola during the first few years of the show. It was during this time that Danny went through a number of different partners before finally beginning his pairing with Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez), though Jackie was quite an amazing character in her own right. Speaking of Jackie, she interviewed Stacy's boyfriend, while Danny visited the home of Emily's mother, Chelsey Parker, as he was looking to see if the girls knew each other. The visit established Chelsey as being devoutly religious, stating that she had attempted to teach Emily about morals, while making a few interesting comments about her daughter's profession--one of them being that she was only surprised that she wasn't killed sooner than she was.

So Jackie's interview with the boyfriend turned up nothing; he had a hardcore alibi. This lead to Jackie deciding to go undercover as an escort to nab the killer, and the sting included Jackie going by the name "Michelle" (since when is that a typical escort name?), while Danny was on the lookout. Jackie's visitor turned out to be a congressman looking for something on the side, and since politicians and escorts seem to go together like the Montreal Canadiens and Stanley Cups, the pair of detectives were set to put the kibosh on their sting. The kibosh was, in itself, kiboshed, as Jackie was encountered by a young man who had, apparently, set up a date, though Jackie told him to run off.

It was at this moment that a gloved villainess injected a drug into Jackie, and the woman was revealed as none other than Chelsey Parker herself, while the young man was her son (Emily's brother), Bryan Parker. So Chelsey and Bryan were the killers, as Chelsey's devoutness developed into outright and maniacal zeal, and she had instilled her message into Bryan. The pair murdered Emily and Aly before killing Stacy, with Chelsey claiming that she and Bryan were saving them and sending then back to the heavens. She even claimed that she was doing the same for Jackie, adding that she would be "welcomed back," while disbelieving Jackie's statement that she was a cop. However, Bryan found the badge in her purse, leading the duo to panic. Even so, they saw Jackie's appearance as a test and were still set on killing Jackie, as she as a threat to their "mission"; however, Danny entered the room (as he suspected something was up after waiting a long time for Jackie) and tackled Bryan, while Jackie knocked out Chelsey, leading to the mother-son duo being arrested.

"Lonely Hearts Club" was the seventh episode of Blue Bloods' second season, and aired on CBS on November 11, 2011. The episode's main villainess, Chelsey Parker, was played by Jordan Baker, and she was definitely one of the best villainesses from the series' early years (if not overall). It was pretty easy to determine whether or not Chelsey was evil; the way she spoke about her daughter was quite a tell, not to mention the way she spoke about her faith. The murderous religious zealot has appeared quite a bit in these procedural crime dramas, and when I watched that moment where Chelsey turned heel on Jackie, that was the "Aha!" moment right there. Chelsey was immensely deranged; she not only resorts to murder in order to "save" her victims, she also indoctrinated her son with this twisted rhetoric, which also resulted in the pair murdering one of their own family members. Baker's performance was stellar; she acted out her character's feigned grief over the victims, and absolutely shined when it came to Chelsey's insanity in the climax.

Jordan Baker actually returned to the series as a different character, Julia Connors, in "Ghosted," from the series' 13th season. She also played another interesting villainess on Psych, appearing as terrorist/murderess Melanie Baker in one episode. Baker also appeared in episodes of Medium (as Jennifer Lawrence's mother), Person of Interest, Madam Secretary, and FBI: Most Wanted (among many other shows).

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Check out Chelsey Parker's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!