Screen: Amazon
Having kicked off our review of Amazon's pilots with The After, we move on in alpha order as God intended with Bosch.
Our Players
Hi, I'm East Coast Editor Sarah D. Bunting.
Hi, I'm West Coast Editor Tara Ariano.
The Discussion
Two shows in on The Amazon Pilot Project, we arrive at the one I thought had the greatest chance of winning over Buntsy: Bosch. 1. It's a cop show. 2. It stars a recurring Good Wife guest star. So let's find out if I was right!
It stars even more Buntnippy actors, but first, let's talk about what Bosch is about: Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver, and yes, it's short for "Hieronymous," and yes, that's annoying) is an LAPD homicide detective currently defending himself in civil court in a wrongful-death suit, after he shot a guy he claims was (a) armed and (b) a serial killer. The department exonerated him, as we hear from his section chief, played by Lance Reddick, but he's still supposedly on restricted duty, and we hear that from one of my longtime Dealmakers, Lt. Amy Aquino. But of course he can't just sit at home, so he ends up on a call about human bones found in the woods, and the bones belong to an abused boy. I'm interested in the central mystery — who killed the kid, and when; how the bones got where they did. I'm less interested in the court case; I'm not at all interested in Bosch's nascent flirtations with various ladies, or in his tendency to brood accompanied by jazz.
The jazzy brooding (or broody jazzing, whichever you prefer) is just one of the many tired TV tropes of this episode. You touched on another — the cop who just can't stand not to work, he's just so committed. There's also the Shambling Defense Attorney, the Ballbreaking Ex, the Extreme Outrage Over A Child Victim....
...The Taking! It! Personally! Flashback, as though Bosch couldn't be sufficiently outraged by a kid suffering horrible physical abuse without having suffered it himself. And if you're going to name your central character Bosch, shouldn't HE find the skull?
The name is a problem. It's the most self-conscious character name since a girl named Justice enjoyed writing poetry in Poetic Justice.
Augh! (Tupac was good in that, though. I am not a crackpot.)
But despite these potential deficiencies (and my having fallen asleep about halfway through the episode the first time), I thought it was not bad. It's a testament to how much a so-so premise can be improved with the casting of character actor all-stars.
Agreed. I would have liked to see more of Reddick and Aquino, but I was enjoying Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield of The Wire) as a good guy. I sort of wish the show were about him. Nothing against Welliver, but Hector's in a three-piece suit. I'm just saying. I also liked that Bosch said "fuck a duck." Shout-out!
And Scott Wilson! Though things ended poorly for him on The Walking Dead, he's also great as the retired doctor whose dog finds the first bone and thus catalyzes the investigation.
Yes! I would keep watching if I knew he would figure heavily in it going forward. In fact, I would probably keep watching anyway, at least for a few episodes, despite lines like "stick around; you might learn something." Simmer down, Sexy Antagonistic Redhead. Would you keep watching, T-Bone?
I'm so glad you remembered that line, because yeah, please throw its corpse on the Viking funeral of "He's right behind me, isn't he." ANYWAY, yes, I would keep watching. Despite the setting — and L.A. has rarely looked so much like a proper city as opposed to the collection of strip malls it sometimes is — it has a European crime drama feel to it that I think Welliver is equal to carrying whereas a Joel Kinnaman maybe was not.
Agreed on the European feel. It's not too apologetic for Bosch, either, and I'd like to think some of the cartoonish elements might get ironed out over the course of a full season. So this one's in the lead for me, currently. You?
For sure. But wait until you get to Mozart In The Jungle, Sarah. I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
That's what she said.