Episode Three
A season of BOSCH lasts ten episodes. That’s ten hours of television. If its mystery investigation focuses on one thing in the first couple episodes, you can be sure that won’t be on the table for long.
That’s definitely become true of BOSCH’s terrorism angle. While most of this episode follows Bosch and the FBI’s Sovereign leads, the whole cesium scare ends up getting wrapped up almost casually. The burned and blistered body of a homeless man leads Bosch and J. Edgar to a van holding the radioactive material. Apparently, the doctor hid it before he was murdered and this homeless person stumbled upon it, thinking it was valuable.
That’s good for the city (and probably Irving’s run for mayor), but bad for Bosch as he now must start his homicide investigation over from scratch. This leads him to looking at the widow, which is what I’ve been yelling at the screen since episode one. That’s not me being some kind of genius; that’s BOSCH being engineered to make stupid people feel smart.
Still, even a transitional episode of BOSCH is entertaining. We watch Bosch and the Feds tail a guy they all know by sight and identify as Charlie Dax. We’re only on episode three and I already don’t remember who this guy is. In any case, Bosch and J. Edgar follow him to his landscaping job. Bosch calls in the location and the Feds tell him to stay put, but when Dax leaves, Bosch follows. J. Edgar: “Stay put for backup, she said.” Bosch: “She didn’t say where.” Oh, Bosch, you are incorrigible.
Most of this episode’s best bits are between Bosch and his daughter Maddie. She’s making good headway on whatever her lawyer intern plot is supposed to be. Bosch: “You’re a grinder, like your mama.” Maddie: “Like you, you mean.” Bosch, solemn: “Like both of us.” Bosch decides he respects Maddie enough to tell her what’s going on with the threat to the city, which leads to this great exchange:
Maddie: “Well, then I’m going back to work. I’m not going to let the terrorists win.
Bosch: “What we said after 9/11.”
Maddie: “And you were right. Nothing like that has happened since.”
Bosch, solemn: “Not yet.”
Also, Maddie later makes a fucking “not” joke.
Bosch is perfect: Not much other than the above quotes, which are perfect. Mostly Bosch is perfect in this episode by way of not cooperating with the FBI.
Also, no takeout again. I’m beginning to think Bosch no longer eats food and just drinks coffee. To that end, he gets some from a French press and later a cup from outside the office because the office's K-cup machine makes garbage coffee. We also see him throw and empty cup in the trash, but cannot confirm its origin.
Episode Four
With a clear path on our A-story, it’s time to get a little mired in other shit. To that end, Bosch reconnects with a dead girl’s mother from last season’s case, which I guess he didn’t solve all the way. He even has a guilt dream about it later in the episode. Shit’s getting into Bosch’s head!
As for the main case, that’s rolling along very well, starting from a place we all expected but tweaking it just one step further into insanity we didn’t predict. The murder victim’s wife is up to no good. Bosch basically figures out that her whole tied up in bed thing was phony, and susses out that she also had a secret lover. That, combined with the discovery that she is super wealthy due to a medical doohickey she invented gives Bosch motive enough to get a phone tap. The judge, at night and in her home, won’t give Bosch the two weeks he asks for, but she does allow 72 hours of listening in.
Bosch puts Barrel on some headphones. The widow’s not saying much, so he visits her to scare her a little. As soon as he leaves, she calls Jack Brenner. Since names don’t matter on this show, we have to wait a bit to learn that Jack Brenner is the main FBI guy. Oh shit! We already knew this guy was scum because he publicly blames the LAPD for the ugly shooting the FBI fucked up in episode two, but I did not predict he would end up being the actual bad guy this season. Way to go Bosch!
Everything else is kind of just standard Bosch side-story stuff. J. Edgar’s case with the Haitian murder lord and the two murdered crooked cops keeps rolling along. It’s entertaining even if I don’t understand it. Barrel’s buddy Ryano has a heart attack. And Bosch starts looking back into that old case.
Bosch is perfect: We have a scene where Maddie and her boyfriend shop for jazz records and she schools him on Art Pepper, which is a byproduct of Bosch’s perfection. The boyfriend asks to meet Bosch - “Mr. Old School” - which leads to a great dinner with the three of them in which the boyfriend tries to butter Bosch up by pretending to know jazz. When he admits he doesn’t know anything about the genre, Bosch says “I don’t trust anyone who does.” I honestly don’t understand this comment, but I am not perfect like Bosch.
Again, no takeout. But Maddie does make Bosch some pancakes and he does the very Bosch thing of putting his syrup on the plate first. Best show on earth.