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!

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.

See also Bosch: Legacy 2.1-2.4: Better and Better ... Bosch: Legacy 2.5-2.6: Maddie Steps Up

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 ... Bosch: Legacy: Even Better than Bosch

                   another kind of police story 

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!

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.

See also Bosch: Legacy 2.1-2.4: Better and Better

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 ... Bosch: Legacy: Even Better than Bosch

                   another kind of police story 

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.

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 ... Bosch: Legacy: Even Better than Bosch

                   another kind of police story 

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 

Bosch 5: Room with a Killer View

Amazon Prime put up the fifth season of Bosch last Friday, and I've got to say, though I really enjoyed all the prior seasons, this one was the best (I've said this after every season).  It has more of Bosch's customary panache, with the punch-in-the-face surprises, top-notch acting, and well-drawn nexus of plots we've come to expect from this drama.   At this point, it's not only the best cop show on television - in Los Angeles terrain that surpasses the many excellent homicide-cop shows that take place in NYC and Chicago - but must be counted among the best cop shows ever on television (I think I said this after most of the seasons, too).

The repartee is sharp as ever, laugh-out-loud funny, profound when need be, and cutting-edge current, as always.  A female detective says she's "polyamorous".   Back in the office, an old-salt high-ranking officer complains about the lousy coffee, "you might as well drink straight stomach acid, cut out the middleman".   Harry asks Maddie if she remembers the MLK quote from her senior high school year, "the arc of the moral universe ..."  Earlier, she advises Harry to "watch your six with her".

Maddie has really come into her own this season.  She was always Harry's daughter when it came to doing what she wanted, and now she's applying this to directly helping her father.   In fact, I not only thought Maddie had her best season, so did Lt. Grace Billets.   Plaudits to Madison Lintz as Maddie and Amy Aquino as Billets.   Come to think of it, attorney Honey Chandler (well played by Mimi Rogers) had her best season, too, and delivered some of the best twists in the narrative, starting with taking on Harry as her client.   Speaking of which, Titus Welliver, always outstanding as Bosch, was even more outstanding in this fifth season.   Jamie Hector as Jerry Edgar and Lance Reddick as Irwin Irving are excellent as ever, too

Getting back to the locale, Bosch always captured the unique Los Angeles mix of stunning beauty and rotting degradation.   Bosch's apartment is high up and indeed has a "killer view," as Maddie says.  But his job takes him through the dregs of society.   There are never any outright happy endings in Bosch - we have to be happy that at least he survived - but this one really goes to the dog(s).   If that's not clear, give yourself a treat and see season 5, after you've seen the previous four.

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

                   another kind of police story