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.

See also Bosch: First Half: Highly Recommended ... Bosch: Second Half as Fine as the First ...  Bosch Season 2: Dragnet with Uber ... Bosch 3: Best Season So Far ... Bosch 4: Delivering and Transcending the Genre ... Bosch 5: Room with a Killer View ... Bosch Season 6: The Best Police on Television ... Bosch Season 7: Can't Let Go

                   another kind of police story 

Bosch Season 7: Can't Let Go

It's the theme song of Bosch (written by Jesse Nolan, performed by Caught a Ghost) because it's the story of Bosch's professional life. It's animated every season in this best cop drama ever on television, and never more so than in it's seventh and final season on Amazon Prime Video.

What Bosch can't let go of is satisfying his profound sense of justice, or bringing to justice the perpetrators of the murders he's investigating and haunted by, or haunted by and investigating.  In season seven, the victim is a 10-year old girl who dies in a deliberately set fire.

The eight-episode season is powerful and memorable for other reasons, too.  Episode six contains one of the most intense short shoot-outs I've seen on any screen.  Paul Calderon is practically shaking with tension and fear as his Jimmy Robertson tries to protect Bosch's beloved daughter Maddie from a skilled hitman who has just taken out a judge who is Bosch's current lover.  The acting, by the way, is superb on the part of every character, both in this scene and the entire series.

Titus Welliver in the title role gives the performance of his career.  Jamie Hector as Bosch's partner Jerry Edgar may be even more than impressive than he was as Marlo in The Wire, which is the biggest compliment in my book, in case you didn't know what I think of The Wire.  Speaking of The Wire, Lance Reddick is always good, and he's as good as ever in Bosch.   I've seen Amy Aquino in a few prior series, but she became an essential character in Bosch.  Madison Lintz has really grown into her crucial part as Bosch's daughter, and I'm looking forward to seeing her in the Bosch spinoff.

Bosch began on Amazon at the dawn of our age of streaming, and helped establish it.  The series went out every bit as strong as it began, something you can't say about every great series.  Similarly, it kept a consistency of character and focus, something you can't say about too many things, period, in this our uncertain age.   But I'm certain I'll be watching the Bosch spinoff, and I'll see you back here with a review of that when it's up on Amazon.

See also Bosch: First Half: Highly Recommended ... Bosch: Second Half as Fine as the First ...  Bosch Season 2: Dragnet with Uber ... Bosch 3: Best Season So Far ... Bosch 4: Delivering and Transcending the Genre ... Bosch 5: Room with a Killer View ... Bosch Season 6: The Best Police on Television ... 

                   another kind of police story 

 

Bosch 6: The Best Police on Television

Have I said before that Bosch is the best police drama on television?  I can't recall.  But I can tell you that whatever I thought after watching the previous five seasons of Bosch, which I very much enjoyed, I think Bosch is at the apex after just binging the sixth season on Amazon Prime Video.

[I'll try for no spoilers ahead.]

I found this sixth season a little tighter than the previous ones, which had an occasionally distracting profusion of up-front plots.   This new season has a least three plots, and several subplots, but there's only one plot that first and foremost.   The characterization is superb, as always, but I especially liked the growth of Jerry Edgar, in both his relationship with his partner Bosch, and what he does on his own.  Father and daughters can easily be old hat in cop dramas.  But Maddie's relationship with her father Harry is richer, more developed, than its been before, with a nice, well-motivated twist at the very end.   Bosch's colleagues are also in fine form, and Detective Johnson was especially outstanding, with more than one crucial move.

The dialogue in Bosch has always been hipt.  Harry talked about getting an Uber before half the world had heard of it.  In Bosch 6, we get such nuggets as "you can’t play social media as you would a news story," spoken to Irving by his opponent in the LA mayoral race.   Now there's a savvy take on media which many in traditional media, as well as politicians, have yet to grasp.

The acting is letter perfect, too.  Titus Welliver acts like he was born to play this hardboiled detective with an unshakeable devotion to his code and an invincible devotion to his daughter.  Jamie Hector, whom I have admired since The Wire, just gets better and better as J. Edgar.  Madison Lintz is coming into her own as an actress playing Bosch's daughter with the same first name.  And as long as I mentioned Det. Johnson, I should mention Troy Evan's portrayal of Johnson puts Evans on the map as an unforgettable character actor.

The essence of Bosch is really straightforward - it's passion, to do the right thing, as he sees it, to protect those he loves, to seek retribution for those unable to get it themselves.  I haven't read the Michael Connelly novels, and I likely won't.  The books won't have Caught a Ghost's "Can't Let Go" playing at the beginning of every chapter, and the faces, accents, and walks in every scene.  For that you need the television series, and it needs to be streaming at that, so you can see as many episodes as possible at one time.

See also  Bosch: First Half: Highly Recommended ... Bosch: Second Half as Fine as the First ...  Bosch Season 2: Dragnet with Uber ... Bosch 3: Best Season So Far ... Bosch 4: Delivering and Transcending the Genre ... Bosch 5: Room with a Killer View

                   another kind of police story