Bosch Season 6
Bosch Season 6 becomes available for streaming on Amazon Prime this Friday, April 17th. The season kicks off with Bosch and the Los Angeles Police Department working with the FBI on a “credible threat” (read: terrorism) to the city.
That threat ups the stakes for a show that’s mainly been about human evil and corruption but, having seen the first five episodes via press screeners, I can say in a non-spoilery way that Bosch Season 6 is compelling for the same reasons the show always has been compelling: it digs deep into the small details of detective work and derives its tension from the quiet conversations between characters who are often unpredictable. (Though, yes, there are some big action sequences along the way.)
The title character, Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch, played by Titus Welliver, sets the tone for Bosch, a stylish, noir-inspired police drama which is based on Michael Connelly’s novels. (Note: I haven’t read the books.) The husband and I spent the last three weeks binging the first five seasons. We loved the interactions between all the characters, the mysteries have been compelling–though occasionally a little over the top–and the cinematography shows off all the fascinating corners of Los Angeles.
I do enjoy a good police procedural in any genre and Bosch himself is one of my favorite character types: the world-weary protector who can’t quite let himself dive too deep into cynicism because there’s that core of heroism underneath. He’s not perfect and I love that he’s shown making mistakes, or crossing the line, and that there are people smarter than he is around him. I first noticed Welliver way back in Brooklyn South, (I really need to find where that is available!) so it’s great to see someone who’s basically been a character actor sink into such a complex part as a lead.
For those who’ve enjoyed the first five seasons, I think Bosch Season 6 is a little bit more compelling than Season 5, which went to the well of “Harry is accused of official misconduct” once too often, though it had its charms, especially anytime Harry and attorney Honey Chandler (a wonderful Mimi Rogers) were on-screen together.
For those who haven’t watch Bosch yet, here are my reasons to binge the show.
Five Reasons to Binge-Watch Bosch
1. The characters look and act like real people in Bosch, not Hollywood actors. When I started watching BBC shows some time back, I noticed a vast difference in the actors who were cast in lead roles. The British shows had actors who looked like everyday people, while our American shows have people who, well, mostly resemble the beautiful people of the world. Oh, sure, there are character actors as part of their casts, like Margo Martindale, but mostly it’s a parade of pretty.
On Bosch, not only is the lead not conventially attractive, and more on the normal spectrum but he’s surrounded by others who are the same. That goes for Lt. Grace Billets (Amy Aquino) who is allowed to look her age, as is Honey Chandler, and there’s also Police Chief George Irvin (the wonderful Lance Reddick), Detective Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector of The Wire) and, of course, the older detectives nicknamed Crate & Barrel. About the only people who look conventionally Hollywood attractive are those whose parts call for it, like Jeri Ryan, playing a femme fatal, (who is yet another older actress killing it on the show), and Bosch’s daughter, who isn’t so much Hollywood pretty as a nice-looking high school/college student.
2. I mentioned the cinemotography above but I have to state again how great this show looks. It gets tremendous mileage out of the view from Bosch’s glass-walled home in the Hollywood Hills, which looks down on the city. (Bosch paid for the house with money from some Hollywood work) But there’s also the tremendous care in the locations of Los Angeles, like the Angel’s Flight railcar, the exteriors of the various neighborhoods, and the interiors of the bars that Bosch and the otherw haunt. And, of course, the interiors of the detectives’ precinct, which includes the cubicles and the sign above them that says “Our day starts when your day ends.”
3. Each season begins with an intriguing mystery which, of course, allows us insight into Bosch himself. The first concerned a cold case involving a young boy killed and buried on a Hillside that had several twists and turns, leading us into Harry’s background as a foster child and the son of a murdered prostitute. (Though his mother is dead, I like the care the show takes in presenting all sides of her, that she could simultaneously be a prostitute and a good, loving mother to Harry.) Other seasons include investigations into (inevitably) Harry’s mother’s murder, the murder of a prominent civil right attorney, and murders of at least two people that hit close to home for Harry. There’s usually a main mystery and a secondary one, which can end up being related but not always. Sometimes Harry doesn’t even solve the secondary mystery.
4. Harry evolves during the course of the show. When we first meet him, we learn that he’s driven by the mystery of his mother’s death, that he takes cases too personally, and because the system let him down, his allegiance to proper police chain of command is a bit dubious. On the other hand, he sees order in solving mysteries. As the series progresses, he makes both good and bad choices, and I thought at one point that he’d go off strictly into antihero territory but seems to have pulled it back from the abyss, despite his flaws. Still, he remains an unpredictable character, as capable of flaming out as final gaining self-knowledge.
5. It’s not always about Harry. Rare is the show where it could be centered around four or five different characters besides the lead but that’s the case here. There’s Irving, who begins as a deputy police chief who knows how to play politics and evolves his goals over the seasons. There’s Edgar, who both supports Harry and clashes with him, and has his own agenda on their investigations as well. Honey Chandler and her investigative assistant could easily have their own legal show (please!). She’s as smart as Harry, perhaps smarter, but her ethics are harder to pin down. Not to mention one could make a whole show around Det. Santiago Rodriguez, played by Paul Calderón. This actor, with his background as an Amazon trail cutter,and his travels in South America before he went into acting, could well be a candidate for the Most Interesting Man in the World.
In short, if you enjoy police shows or mysteries, and haven’t checked out Bosch, now’s the time.
Disclaimer: GeekMom received screener access to the first five episodes of Season 6 of Bosch.
