How Old Is Joe Reagan On Blue Bloods & Why Did It Confuse Some Fans?

In the pilot episode of the CBS cop drama "Blue Bloods," viewers find out that prior to the series start, a son of family patriarch Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) named Joe Reagan was murdered while investigating the villainous Blue Templar organization. Based on some ensuing discussion of Joe's life and the fact that his adult son Joseph Hill (Will Hochman) eventually becomes a recurring character, some fans have become confused about just how old Joe was before he died.

The clearest insight into Joe's age is his gravestone appearing in a couple of "Blue Bloods" episodes, revealing that he was born in 1977. That said, his gravestone's first appearance lists his birthday as June 6, 1977, whereas that changes to January 4, 1977, in a subsequent episode. Nevertheless, viewers can infer that Joe was either 31 or 32 when he died on May 15, 2009. Meanwhile, his son Joseph seems to have been born sometime in the mid-'90s, when Joe was between 18 and 20 years old. His age relative to his adult son, then, makes sense considering that he had him early on in his adulthood.

While determining Joe Reagan's birthdate may be as simple as reading the year he was born on his gravestone, confusion about this matter among a number of fans is understandable given pervasive continuity errors surrounding his age.

Frank Reagan, for instance, alludes to the fact that Joe was his eldest child a few times during the show's first couple of seasons. His siblings Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) and Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan), however, were both born prior to 1977 and should be older. Frank even recalls Joe being a baby during the Watergate hearings, which occurred in the early '70s, before the character's now-canonical birthdate, further misleading fans.

In a Reddit thread about this issue, u/SomethingAboutSean recounted Frank calling Joe his eldest child as recently as Season 8, Episode 7, well after his birthdate appears on his headstone in the Season 1 finale. "There are two separate timelines because of this: one where Danny is the eldest, and one where Joe is the eldest," they suggest, before arguing that Joe should canonically be the third-oldest child. Based on this interpretation coming from the only tangible evidence of his age, it's reasonable to assume that his birth in 1977 is canon. References to Joe as the eldest of his generation of Reagans, meanwhile, can be considered recurring continuity errors.