Following the events of the final season of the Amazon Prime series Bosch, Titus Welliver has picked up playing the title character on its spinoff Bosch: Legacy. The proven commodity was used to help launch the rebranded, and Amazon owned streaming service Freevee, and if not for a fresh title sequence, you’d hardly notice the difference. What was previously a well-received, and authentic look at life as an L.A.P.D homicide detective, now represents the same, for Harry Bosch’s life as a private investigator. The show serves to help tie up loose ends, but it’s also clear that the character still has a lot of new stories in him as well.
This new iteration of Bosch features a lot of familiar faces, popping up at various times to assist him, but the primary holdovers are his daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz, The Walkng Dead), as she starts her career on the force, and his rival turned respected attorney friend Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers, Desperate Hours). While Chandler completes her recovery, and takes on some high-profile cases to show she’s still the best defense attorney in the business, she’s also determined to get justice for the attempt on her life. That plight puts her and Bosch at odds with some very dangerous people.
In a lot of ways, the stakes are much higher these days, and that’s not just because their pursuit of Carl Rogers (Michael Rose, Lovecraft Country) pits them against the Russian mob. Bosch no longer has whatever protection and backup the badge previously afforded him, and as a private investigator, some of what he does to gain results forces him to operate outside of the law. He also has to wait in lines, and pay for research. Things would be a lot harder for him if he didn’t employ the services of Mo (Stephen A. Chang, Shameless), who helps to bring modern tech and ideas to Bosch’s old-school methods. The commonly used, “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” idiom is a popular narrative in detective stories like this one, but it surprisingly wasn’t central in the sevens seasons of the prior show, so its welcome at this point, and Mo is as smooth as the jazz him and Bosch bond over, which is the fastest way to find yourself in his good graces.
That Russian mob though, really is quite formidable. Brothers Alex (Konstantin Melikhov, 1883) and Lev (Bogdan Yasinki, SEAL Team) Ivanovich are menacing as hell anytime they are on screen, and that’s long before their boss Baba (Pasha D. Lychnikoff) enters the picture. The continuing storyline from the previous series, which serves as the central through line, proves that in the criminal world, there is always a bigger fish, and this might be one they wish they could cut loose before it drags them all down.
To this point, the secondary story of Bosch accepting a job tracking down a potential heir to a billionaire’s (William Devane, The Grinder) fortune seems to serve as the latest illustration of his mantra, “everyone counts, or no one counts”, and it appears it will have some interesting twists and turns before it reaches its completion. Additionally, we see Chandler tackle some landmark or at least thought-provoking court cases, and Maddie struggles with the emotional burden of the job as she learns the ropes from her superior Reina Vasquez (Denise G. Sanchez, The Good Place).
Something that Bosch always did well, was show things as they were. It effectively blended the detective story with the legal drama, presenting cases but not always tying them up in a neat bow. Things sometimes got messy, and even when you knew someone was guilty, it didn’t mean they’d ultimately go down for it. It also had a way of presenting things that didn’t shy away from the gray areas that exist in scenarios, and sometimes having its leads present conflicting ideas about them. It made for interesting television, and thankfully many of the same creative forces behind that show, including Michael Connelly, continue to be a part of Bosch: Legacy.
It’s an even more compelling dilemma now that Maddie has started her career on the force. In theory, after growing up with two parents in law enforcement, and then being mentored by Chandler, she may grow into having the most well-rounded opinion and outlook of the bunch. Not a bad “legacy” to leave behind.
What’s really been great through the first six episodes of the show, is that they aren’t resting on the previously established backstories and relationships, rather they keep building the characters that you love, and allowing them to grow. The episode, “Chain of Authenticity” is a terrific example of that, as Maddie asks her father to tell her about the time he was shot, and it allows for a brilliant exchange between them, and we get a great full-circle payoff that’s pretty rare to find this late.
The overall driving narrative of Bosch: Legacy is that the courts, justice system, and due process failed all of them, so now, as they resolve to do things Bosch’s way, he has to determine where his boundaries lie now that he’s solely responsible for setting them, and they each have to navigate what that means against their interests. As we see that play out over the rest of the season, returning fans can rest assured that the only concerns pertaining to quality they’ll have to navigate, is related to the occasional ad with the free streaming service. Bosch and company are as good as ever, and new episodes release Fridays.
