Fuckin’ Bosch: Season Six, Episodes Five & Six
Episode Five
As we enter the second half of BOSCH season six, we see things going a bit on autopilot. That’s somewhat baked into the narrative in this one as the cops exhaust their 72-hour wiretap warrant on Alicia Kent’s phone, waiting for a smoking gun to bring something to the season’s A-story, and using that time to do other things.
For Bosch, this means investigating the ten-year-old murder of Daisy Clayton. Part of Bosch’s whole deal is looking into cases most cops find unimportant. His mother was a murdered prostitute, therefore, he specializes in murdered prostitutes. Daisy Clayton was a murdered prostitute.
This side story brings Bosch to Clayton’s old street partner, now straight and boring. His information, fed to the old case’s original investigator over some beer, leads him to John the Baptist, played by character actor Jeff Kober, who really should have appeared on BOSCH by now. John takes street kids in off the street and gives them a bed and food if they acquiesce to a baptism.
That interview is about as far as it goes this episode, as BOSCH stops spinning its tires and gets back to this rapidly closing wiretap business. It’s time to let Kent’s widow know she’s being investigated. Of course she immediately lawyers up. The big episode-ending twist arrives with her lawyer - it’s Mimi Rogers’ Honey Chandler! The lawyer Maddie is interning for! Oh shit!
But really, this episode is 90% standard, BOSCH nonsense, which offers a good look at why this show works despite itself. It doesn’t seem to matter who is investigating what in this world; the process is somehow compelling nonetheless. The episode opens with rapid fire scenes - Irving visiting his son’s grave, Bosch giving some shit to crooked FBI agent Brenner, side cops investigating a fresh corpse - in record breaking time. Irving in particular goes through a lot in this episode - he participates in a debate, visits his kid’s grave and even gets married - and probably has less than five minutes of screen time. It’s wild. You could almost randomly re-order every scene of BOSCH, and it would feel basically the same.
Bosch is perfect: Bosch warns Maddie that her boss has a huge moral grey zone. A few scenes later, the show reveals her as Kent’s attorney. And of course he’s probably about to solve a ten-year-old murder case everyone else gave up on.
Bosch gets takeout! Maddie brings him some Jon & Vinny’s pizza. He doesn’t eat any, “Tempted, but late lunch.”
Episode Six
Things get going quickly in this one. Alicia Kent gives up her FBI boyfriend immediately in exchange for a two-year sentence for conspiring against her husband. The big shock is when she identifies her lover not as Brenner but Maxwell. I honestly don’t know if the show wanted me to believe it was Brenner, or if I did that myself. It turns out Brenner is just smug, not crooked.
Bosch, J. Edgar and Maxwell’s FBI partner set him up at the Ace Hotel, but he bolts. I usually miss out on the part of BOSCH where everyone in LA watches it to see places they know, but I’ve actually been to the Ace Hotel, so this whole sequence was a lot of fun for me personally. But probably not you.
Actually, you probably enjoyed it too because there was action. Maxwell’s partner is acting very rash and strange through all this. When the cops surround Maxwell, she and he have a little chat via eyeballs and after a weird nod in agreement, he pulls his gun and she takes him down - suicide by crooked partner, I guess. Bosch’s post mortem: “It was a good shoot. But her career will stall out. She’s poison. Killed her partner. Never live that down.” Which is to say Bosch does not suspect her of anything. Maybe he’s not so perfect after all.
With all that excitement behind him, Bosch is ready to resume his investigation of the Daisy Clayton murder. Irvin can resume running for mayor (now he needs an endorsement from Honey Chandler, of all people), and the show can get back to teasing us with all this Sovereign stuff. We only have four episodes left, and the initial murder is close to wrapped. Obviously, a new terrorism angle is about to come into play and help close out the season. On top of that we have this suspicious FBI agent, Maddie’s internship, the weird sexual harassment side side side story, Irving’s mayoral run and J. Edgar’s side investigation into the two murdered cops. Or they could just drop a bunch of that stuff and no one would notice.
Bosch is perfect: Nothing this episode, though I did like him lamenting the days before Spotify took over our music-listening habits.
Also no takeout. Again. Maybe Bosch finally ate that pizza Baddie brought him in episode five.
