REVIEW: Bosch: Legacy – Season 2, Episodes 3-10

Television Reviews

Following the season premiere of Bosch: Legacy, I fell behind on watching and reviewing several shows. As such, I’ll be reviewing the rest of season 2 in bulk here. Incidentally, this works out reasonably well, as the Dockweiler storyline in the premiere is referenced throughout the season, but the rest of season 2 has a different story. Since eight episodes is a lot, we’ll mostly be going over the broad strokes. Episodes 1 and 2 followed Bosch and Honey Chandler as they searched for Maddie, buried in the desert by the Screen Cutter to gain leverage as she closed in on his identity. The rest of the season shows the fallout from Maddie’s emotional point of view, but it has little bearing on the rest of the story.

In season 2 of Bosch: Legacy, a police officer finds his wife murdered in their home. This leads Bosch down a twisty path to a conspiracy, a wrongly imprisoned man, and the FBI. Meanwhile, Maddie is stuck behind a desk and gets squirrelly when a woman reports a stolen bracelet. Carl Rogers comes back to haunt Bosch and Honey as Maddie grapples with writing a victim impact statement about Dockweiler. David Foster, the primary suspect in the murder and Honey’s client, has secrets. Along the way, Honey discovers that an employee has been informing on her to the FBI. As Bosch works the murder case and Maddie tries to get back out there, Honey is harassed and arrested by crooked cops. The trio must solve the murder of Lexy Parks, take down rogue police officers, and contend with the FBI and the trauma left by Kurt Dockweiler.

***SPOILERS***

The performances are pretty consistent in both Bosch series, and by now, it’s hard to remember that these actors aren’t their characters. Titus Welliver, Mimi Rogers, and Madison Lintz wear their roles like fitted gloves at this point. I still hold out hope we’ll see Amy Aquino’s Billets again at some point. Since I was playing catch-up watching most of this season, I heard about the late Lance Reddick’s cameo before I saw it. Naturally, this was exciting, as Reddick’s Irvin Irving was another of my favorite characters in the first show, and I had been hoping to see him at some point in Bosch: Legacy. This isn’t a reflection on his performance at all, but I found the scene underwhelming. It’s all about Honey’s bid to run for DA. It has nothing to do with Lance’s legacy or this character’s importance. I imagine that is because this wasn’t intended to be Reddick’s final appearance as Irving. It makes much more sense if this was filmed as a fun cameo and retroactively became more important when he passed. I just found this scene odd, especially given the fanfare I’d seen for his return. I wanted more, and if it was going to be one cameo scene, I wish it was a more impactful one. This isn’t necessarily a fair complaint since someone passed away, which is both more important than a TV show and impossible to predict or plan for. It’s just how I felt.

My biggest problems with Bosch: Legacy season 2 are that it feels disjointed and has too much going on. For one thing, as I mentioned earlier, the season premiere’s storyline with Dockweiler feels detached from the investigation and FBI interference later in the season. It doesn’t feel like one flowing story or even concurrent subplotting. It’s just messy. I think they tried to do too much with this season; this much story could have been a couple of seasons. I would have done the Screen Cutter/Dockweiler story and the FBI investigation in one season and saved the corrupt cops and the murder of Lexy Parks for another. I don’t think any of these stories or characters were particularly well-served by combining them. At times, I found the season confusing, especially when the cops started tailing Honey and arrested her. This made sense a few episodes later, but I was just confounded at the time. I don’t think that’s necessary in a show like Bosch: Legacy.

Ellis (Max Martini) and Long (Guy Wilson), the crooked officers who harass Bosch and Honey, are lame. I attribute this to the crammed nature of the season. Dockweiler, at least, is intimidating, but these guys get very little characterization or focus. I look back on villains like Nash (Brent Sexton) and Veronica Allen (Jeri Ryan) in season 2 of Bosch, or Dobbs in season 3. Those were great villains that I still think about because of their inexcusable actions and compelling backstories. Crooked cops who turn on their own could be interesting, but Bosch: Legacy doesn’t give them the time or attention they need. I don’t blame the actors for this, either. Martini, in particular, has some charisma as Ellis, but we’re not allowed to learn anything about him or why he does the things he does.

I also think Honey’s dilemma with Matthew would have been better served by more time and focus. This is a major betrayal; she learns that her own employee has been informing on her to the FBI. This leads to greater strife as Martin, the head of her firm, is understandably upset by the FBI raid on his office. They even take files that pre-date Honey’s employment with the firm! But we don’t know Matthew much, if at all. I need to rewatch season 1 of Legacy, which I didn’t love, but I don’t recall him specifically.

The acting, costumes, and production of Bosch: Legacy remain as polished and impressive as ever. However, I fully believe they tried to accomplish too much with ten episodes of TV here. My husband read The Wrong Side of Goodbye, the book on which this season is based. Some things are different, like it’s Bosch’s half-brother, Mickey Haller of The Lincoln Lawyer, who gets investigated rather than Honey Chandler. Some of the storylines are absent from the book, like the Carl Rogers nonsense. He says the book did a better job of balancing the stories it told, which is easy to believe. This season isn’t bad, but it is overstuffed and very messy at times.