Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress: Bosch: Legacy

Showing posts with label Bosch: Legacy. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Podcast Review of Bosch: Legacy 2.7-2.10

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 362, in which I review Bosch: Legacy, episodes 2.7-2.10, on Amazon Prime Video.

Read this review (with links to reviews of earlier episodes and seasons, including the very first season of Bosch).

Check out this episode!

Friday, November 10, 2023

Bosch: Legacy 2.7-2.10: The Highs and the Powerful Lows

A superb quartet of concluding episodes of the second season of Bosch: Legacy, put up last week and tonight on Amazon Prime Video. Every one of these episodes had the masterful dialogue, riveting action, and mix of surprise and satisfaction that comes from seeing characters behave as you ultimately expect -- all of which typify Bosch at its best, which this second season of Legacy certainly is, as I've been saying all along.

Here are some of the highlights for me:

[And of course here's an advisory about Spoilers ahead ... ]

1. Maddie saves Harry, literally, just as Harry saved her at the beginning of this season, albeit in very different circumstances. Maddie gets even closer to her father as a result. But one of the fundamental, seemingly inviolable principles of this series and these characters is the two can't be happy together at the end, however close they may have become. Whatever demons Maddie maybe be able overcome in her relationship with her father, which means everything to do her, he will always do, or will always have done, something that can and maybe does undermine that father-and-daughter unity. It's tough to see, but realistic, given who Harry is.

2. I said in an earlier review that it was good to see Mo get some love. Well, it turns out that the love was not physical, and worse than that, the attraction was not completely mutual. But Mo is put in a position where he would have had to turn on Harry and Honey, and of course he's not going to do that, and so he can't continue with the woman he was falling for, even though she truly had at least some feelings for him. Tough world, tough life -- there's that word again -- for just about all the main characters in this series.

3. Speaking of Honey, she's on her way to an unexpectedly big job. At least, she hopes so, and I hope so, too. Will be fun to see her in this new job next season.

4. As I've been saying in these reviews, the acting this season was outstanding, and especially impressive was Madison Lentz as Maddie. By the conclusion of this season, I'd say she was on a par with Titus Welliver as Bosch, which is high praise indeed.

5. But speaking of acting, it was good and sad to see Lance Reddick one more time in his role of Irvin Irving in the season finale. A great actor in everything from The Wire to Fringe, and I'm glad we all got a chance to see him one more time, filmed before he left us in March of this year.

another kind of police story

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Podcast Review of Bosch: Legacy 2.1-2.6

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 358, in which I review Bosch: Legacy, episodes 2.1-2.6, on Amazon Prime Video.

Read this review (with links to reviews of earlier seasons, including the very first season of Bosch).

Check out this episode!

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Bosch: Legacy 2.5-2.6: Maddie Steps Up

Bosch: Legacy episodes 2.5-2.6 are now up on Amazon Prime Video, continuing this powerful season of this stellar series.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

First, Madison Lintz continues to really impress with her performance as Harry's daughter, Maddie Bosch. Her stepping up and confronting her attacker in the courtroom as she testifies to the deleterious impact the attack had on her life, was an outstanding piece of acting. And she's equally good in her scenes with her partner as well as her boyfriend, delivering emotional subtlety and even humor in the breakneck world she inhabits.

It's good to see Max Martini back on the screen -- I first saw him years ago in The Unit -- this time as the brutal, villainous Detective Don Ellis. Bosch in the original series was always confronting crooked cops, but this time, Ellis is highly intelligent, with a strong partner Detective Long who's willing to do Ellis's bidding, and together they make a formidable adversary to Harry, Maddie, and Honey Chandler.

Mo also continues at the top of his game in these episodes, as well as finding some romance with a sexy podcaster. Good for him. He deserves more from life than just chips and hacks. And Harry will need all the help he can get against Ellis and Long, as he slowly gets to the bottom of the murder that brought Honey and Maddie and him into the sights of these murderous detectives and what bigger marauders they may be working for in the first place.

And I'll see you back here after Prime Video dishes out some more episodes.

another kind of police story

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Bosch: Legacy 2.1-2.4: Better and Better

I caught the first four episodes of the new (second) season of Bosch: Legacy on Amazon Prime Video, the post-Bosch series in which Harry has moved from LAPD to private investigator (still living and working in Los Angeles) and his daughter Maddie has joined the LAPD. I thought and said the original Bosch series was the best cop show on television, and the first season of Legacy was even better than Bosch. Well, so far the second season -- or at least the first four episodes -- are sheer dynamite, emotionally, and in overall storyline and acting -- and even better than the first season. (Queue The Beatles' "It's Getting Better All the Time".)

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Maddie is really coming into her own as a police officer, indeed so much so, she attracts a kidnapper and becomes the centerpiece of the first two episodes. Poppa Bosch will understandably do anything to save his beloved daughter, and he's helped by his old partner J. Edgar, as well as the perennial Crate and Barrel. Now, obviously, the Legacy series wouldn't be so dumb as to kill off Maddie, as big a star in this sequel series as her father, and knowing this makes the tension and excitement of how she's rescued even more impressive to see on the screen.

The third and fourth episodes introduce a new, suitably dangerous story, as it pulls some strings embedded in previous seasons. Unlike the first two episodes, in which Maddie's kidnapping is resolved as her father uses every ounce of his intelligence and instincts to save her, the fourth episode keeps us on the edge of suspense right through the end. Maddie gets a promotion, Honey Chandler plays a central role, and these episodes teem with the full gamut of LA cops, good, bad, and former. It was also good to see Mo back this season with tech smarts and sarcasm.

The acting is better than ever. Madison Lintz as Maddie is the epitome of getting better and better, and everyone else, including Titus Welliver as Bosch are as superb and incisive as ever. I'll conclude this review, though, with my typical current complaint about Amazon Prime Video and Netflix: I miss the days when I could binge complete seasons as soon as the new season was available. So ... I'll see you back here as the new episodes of Bosch: Legacy are doled out.

another kind of police story

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Bosch: Legacy: Even Better than Bosch!

As you readers of this blog may recall, I said Bosch was the best cop show on television. I was therefore not too happy that it concluded, and I expected to be at least somewhat disappointed by its sequel Bosch: Legacy, which I just got around to watching on Amazon's new FreeVee service. Well, I now think just the opposite: I thought the first season of Bosch: Legacy, which continues the story of Bosch, now a private detective, and his beloved daughter Maddie, now a rookie LA cop, was better even than Bosch.

First and foremost, the acting was better than ever, with Titus Welliver as Bosch, Madison Lintz as his daughter Maddie, and Mimi Rogers as the other powerful character, defense attorney Honey Chandler. And the stories were both more plentiful -- and, as always interweaving -- and by and large even better than what we saw in previous Bosch seasons.

Not only that, there were more surprises.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

My favorite was the revelation that Ida (played by Kate Burton) killed Whitney Vance (good to see William Devane back on the screen, if not in much action). The Russian assassin was handled well, and the Russians as bad guys rang especially true with what that monster Putin has been doing in Ukraine (which played no part in Bosch, but I'm just saying).

About the only thing I didn't like as much as in the original Bosch was the theme song. But, in all fairness, Caught a Ghost's "Can't Let Go" is a flat-out masterpiece and among the best theme songs ever sung at the beginning of a TV series. And I guess I would have liked to have seen a little more of Jerry Edgar, but I'm not inclined to quibble, because what we did get is a Harry Bosch really coming into his own as a human being and his daughter becoming a truly impressive adult.

Count me in for the next season.

another kind of police story

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!