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Jamie Hector: "Bosch"

Det. Harry Bosch lives in LA; he has a fabulous hillside home, because one of his cases became a movie, "The Black Echo," and the proceeds were generous.

(What is a black echo? That's a joke the writers choose not to explain. Novelist Michael Connelly actually has written a Bosch tale called "The Black Echo," as well as "The Black Box," "The Black Ice.")

Bosch is a good cop who sometimes cuts a few corners, nothing major. He believes that "each soul counts," because, if that's not true, then *no* soul counts. He is the "tough, silent type"; he tells his daughter's nervous boyfriend that awkwardness-with-small-talk is a sign of good character.

In any season of "Bosch," there is a range of plots and even genres, from slightly absurd "24" melodrama territory to quiet Raymond Carver-ish domestic skits. This is what I love. In the current season, for example, there is some monkey business surrounding stolen cesium, or *apparently* stolen cesium, and there's a noir vibe with the background music, and then there's a calculating femme fatale. We might as well be revisiting the character of Nina, from the Jack Bauer days.

At the same time, there's an interest in mundane office politics. A lesbian runs the office, and she has a favorite among her underlings, and she sometimes compliments this younger woman a bit too effusively, or does a little dance with the woman's upper arm. Others notice. That's a story. Also, a young person trying to make it in a legal office encounters covert sexism with her male supervisor, and the supervisor is half-conscious, at most, that the subtle thing he is doing is wrong. And no one really likes that Jamie Hector's character is dating a fellow cop--this is mentioned often, in a mildly-uneasy jokey way--and if you're paying even a bit of attention, you have serious worries about where this situation is headed.

Raymond Carver fan that I am, I like the small stuff most of all. That's the world I operate in. But I also like that--in the background--there's the bat-shit cesium plot unfolding. I wouldn't love the show if it were just about cesium. I wouldn't love the show if it were just about slightly strange office politics. It's that combo of big-stakes thriller terrain and kitchen-sink realist terrain that makes this show so unusual, and so exciting.

I hope you'll consider "Bosch." It's not Amazon Prime's longest-running original series. There are always scenes I don't fully get, and moments that I'd speed up more, but what a comfort this show is. Still strong, after all these years.
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