Shades Of Blue's season 3 premiere set up how the final season would play out for Harlee. Shades Of Blue is a crime drama from NBC that starred Jennifer Lopez as corrupt New York City cop Harlee Santos. She's arrested by the FBI during season 1 and is forced to become an informant on her mentor Lt. Wozniak (Ray Liotta, Goodfellas). The first season received good ratings and the performances of both Lopez and Ray Liotta were praised, but it received a mixed critical response.
This was mostly down to the fact that outside of the performances, Shades Of Blue covered ground seen before in other cop shows. The ratings also started to wane during season 2, which led to the decision to make season 3 the final series; Liotta also stated Jennifer Lopez wanted to move on to other projects. The final season proved to be one of the show's strongest, with the show ending with Harlee in prison for her past misdeeds but having redeemed and made peace with herself too.
Shades Of Blue season 3 premiere "Good Police" found both Harlee and Wozniak in reflective moods, with both having survived brutal attacks in the season 2 finale. The episode opens with the duo drawn into a diner shooting that leaves an undercover cop and several others dead, with Harlee shooting a suspect following a chase after mistaking him for Stahl. This leaves her shaken, as she's still haunted by Stahl's attack on her months before, with her former FBI handler having subsuquently disappeared.
Shades Of Blue season 3 premiere finds Wozniak reflecting on his season 2 shooting, where he thought he was going to die. He visits Adrian - the kid who shot him - to play chess and forgives him. He wants to reunite his old team, but Harlee rejects the idea. She also starts to suspect the partner of the undercover cop from the diner shooting may know more than he's revealing. Harlee and Loman later track down a suspect named Orlando, who Captain Ramsay (Bruce McGill, Collateral) - the head of the intelligence unit - wants turned over to be killed. In exchange, he'll give Wozniak Quince, the drug dealer responsible for his shooting. Knowing Orlando will be killed, she instead hands him over to lover and Assistant District Attorney Nava (Gino Anthony Pesi).
Shades Of Blue's season 3 premiere ends with Harlee thinking she sees Stahl again and finding both Nava and Orlando dead when she returns. "Good Police" established Harlee was tired of the lies and corruption surrounding her job and life, and was determined to redeem herself at whatever cost. Nava's murder would prove to be the final straw, with the episode also establishing Ramsey, who would become a major villain in the final season.