Welcome To The Other Side

Harry Bosch might be retired, but his gut never takes a day off. While DA Honey Chandler is getting shit from the LAPD top brass for not filing immediate murder charges against Diego Perra, Bosch is out here in the streets – just him and his gut, with Mo Bassi on backup – doing the substantive investigative work that the cops’ push for a turn-and-burn Perra prosecution ignored.

On the night he was killed, Detective Jimmy Robertson didn’t hit up that particular taco truck at that particular time just because he loved barbacoa. From the broken cameras at the scene and Jimmy’s deescalating movements, Bosch already suspected his old friend was targeted. And with evidence of the time and location found in Jimmy’s belongings, and further links, seemingly sideways but not, to a “Juan Doe” murder case Robertson was working – involving a murdered migrant, Mexican drug cartels, fentanyl, and author Michael Connelly’s favorite made-up street drug, “black ice” – Bosch is not surprised when a test of the bullets that killed Jimmy reveal a DNA match. To Perra? Nah. Right back to the Juan Doe murder and the drug violence Robertson was onto. Chandler was right to wait on murder charges. Because the “unimpeachable case” she wanted to build is here now, and what it shows is Diego Perra as a fall guy for cartel activity. “This was a hit,” Bosch says about Jimmy’s murder. “This was sicarios.”   

What’s gone unmentioned in this final run for Bosch: Legacy is Mo’s season 2 static with the FBI, and his relationship with Special Agent Janice Morrell (Jessica Camacho), aka underground hacker “Jade Quinn.” But in back in Season 3 Episode 6, when Mo said “Let me take a stab” regarding sealed federal files, we were pretty sure he meant “let me call in a favor,” and sure enough, it’s Morrell he contacts here in Ep 7. (The UNO card on her windshield is a nice little throwback.) Back then, their flirtation was cut short when Mo sniffed out the feds’ larger intentions. That doesn’t mean their personal connection wasn’t real, though, and the tone of their new meeting is interesting, because it feels as much like a trade for information – “You owe me,” he says, alluding to his not ratting out Agent Morrell to Jade Quinn’s hacker buddies – as much as it feels like another round of flirtation. The tail end of a show’s final season isn’t the rightest time to spark a love connection, but bringing Camacho back as Morrell is still intriguing. 

It’s also encouraging – because Mo deserves a love connection! – but also because the sealed federal file reveals more about Finbar McShane, who’s still in the wind. Finbar had an accomplice, one with government connections, a fact the feds and their sealed files had been protecting. Whatever hole McShane is hiding in, and wherever it is, Bosch is not gonna leave that stone unturned. He’s retired. He’s got time and Mo on his side. 

But finding Finbar and delivering justice also feels like core Bosch Ethos shit. To avenge the senseless murder of innocents – his way – and rebalance the universe in the process. 

“You have to decide how much of the grey you’re willing to live in,” is how he puts it to Maddie. Harry doesn’t just live in the grey, he built a house there. His gut pays taxes in the grey. But for Officer Bosch, who has independently verified that her partner’s nephew is indeed part of the follow-home crew, she’s still figuring out where her on-the-job line is.

For now, she brings her concern straight to Vasquez, tells her partner she knows about Albert. And on her own, Vasquez had already confronted Albert, gave him one chance to cut the shit and come clean, for the sake of his family. He did not. He’s lying to auntie, lying to his mama, hiding contraband goods in hat boxes at his kindly old grandfather’s nursing home facility – he’s even setting up freelance merch sales behind Victoria’s back. This guy’s a dummy. Now the cops are gaining, and the follow-home crew is ever closer to splintering. Albert should have taken his Aunt Reyna’s one-time offer. Because via the family photos on his fridge, Victoria now knows about the criminal-cop family connect, too.

With his gut proven right, Harry Bosch brings Detective Lopez up to speed. That despite the LAPD’s push for a prosecution, Diego Perra isn’t the guy, and that the circumstances of Jimmy Robertson’s slaying “was a frame.” From his veteran partner, Lopez learned a certain amount of cynicism, of being on the job but living in the grey, of “Bosching Bosch.” And so he’s willing to follow any threads that will lead to those actually responsible for Jimmy’s murder.

Harry Bosch’s gut is working overtime. It’s gotta help him find Finbar McShane and hold him accountable. It’s gotta sort out the police work the actual police weren’t doing in the apprehension and prosecution of those who killed one of their own. It’s gotta advise Maddie on ways to handle ethical grey areas. And it’s gotta reassure Honey Chandler that her decision to wait on a prosecution was the right one all along. “Someone went through a lot of trouble to frame Diego Perra, right?” Bosch says in Chandler’s office. A drug cartel would have that kind of power, and the gall to commit the brazen public murder of a police detective. Now it’s up to Bosch, his allies, and his gut to follow all of this to the other side, whatever that looks like.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.