Pop culture’s graveyard is littered with the corpses of many fine television shows that were cancelled too soon, shows that couldn’t find an audience quickly enough to hold off twitchy executives who lacked patience and vision. Occasionally, there are series that manage to survive if not quite thrive in terms of bigtime ratings. Two from the 1990s that come to mind are Homicide: Life on the Street, a stone-cold classic cop drama that was universally praised but criminally under-viewed, and NewsRadio, a daring comedy that had the misfortune of being in the same era as Seinfeld and Friends.
Bosch shares many qualities with those two shows.
Amazon Prime’s longest-running series is well regarded for its crime noir aesthetic as well as its attention to detail regarding police work. It’s also adored by a passionate fanbase for its thoughtful characterization. Bosch may be a crime drama on the surface, but at its core, it’s a show about family and friendship and the difficulty in maintaining such bonds while keeping up with the demands of police work. It’s also a series that goes to extraordinary lengths to show a side of Los Angeles rarely seen in TV or film. Also, the food. So much great food!
Watch an exclusive clip from the new season of Bosch right here:
Now, after six years of being one of the best-kept secrets on television, Bosch is ready to tackle one final case. The seventh and final eight-episode season debuted on Prime on June 25.
Much like previous years, this season is based on Michael Connelly’s bestselling Bosch novels, specifically 2014’s The Burning Room. It’s a case that pushes all the most painful buttons for legendary LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), and it once again puts him at odds with the feds and the top echelons of the LAPD, including Chief Irvin Irving (Lance Reddick). Meanwhile, the other key figures in Harry’s universe, including his daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz), his partner J. Edgar (Jamie Hector) and his friend and commanding officer Lt. Grace Billets (Amy Aquino), all face their own personal crises.
If you haven't seen Bosch, the title character is cantankerous, infuriating and monumentally single-minded. Over the course of the series, Harry Bosch has endured great tragedy, survived shootouts, serial killers, military assassins, and nearly being thrown out of a plane. He’s been the subject of lawsuits, Internal Affairs probes and a lengthy suspension, all of which can be traced back to his unwavering commitment to a single principle - the pursuit of justice for all.
Bosch has never been the trendiest show or the one with the most buzz, as executive producer Henrik Bastin can attest. He recalls after the first season walking around L.A. with a Bosch crew baseball cap and people thinking he was promoting the dishwasher brand. “Now I get so many people coming up to me to say, ‘I love that show. It's the best,’” he says.
That passion is one reason why Amazon gave the greenlight for a Bosch spinoff series that will debut on the ad-supported IMDB TV streaming service. Welliver, Lintz and Mimi Rogers, who plays Bosch’s frenemy, ace attorney Honey Chandler, are reprising their roles for the show, which remains untitled. “I found out on set [about the spinoff],” Lintz recalls. “Titus pulled me aside, and I thought I was getting fired, or I had COVID, or I had done something horrible. He's never done that before. He said, ‘You, Mimi, and I are getting a spin-off.’ That's all it took for me to burst into tears. That's how I found out, right before I had to film a scene. So I had to pull myself together really fast, because it was top secret. Nobody could know, not even my family. So I had to just pull it together and do this scene. But it was a very special moment.”
We talked with the show’s main actors and executive producers to crack the case on Bosch and provide snapshots of each of the principal characters as the final season arrives. From the relationships on- and off-screen that formed over seven years to memorable moments and where their characters stand as the show comes to an end, they each shared their personal insights. We even got a few of them to confess which stop along the Bosch L.A. food tour - seriously, this show loves its food - would be their top choice.
Finding Bosch
Titus Welliver’s performance as the intense, laconic Harry Bosch has been the driving force behind the show from the beginning. His portrayal has been as true in spirit to the character as any fan of the Bosch novels could have hoped for. Harry is always close to the edge because all of his cases are personal, and the way Welliver has portrayed that imminent combustibility has been a master class in restraint. When you talk to Welliver, it becomes clear immediately how invested in and how protective he is of the character.
Titus Welliver, “Harry Bosch”: Bosch has been, and continues to be, the greatest experience that I've ever had as an actor.
After years of compiling a laundry list of memorable supporting roles on one great series after another - The Man in Black on Lost, Jimmy O’Phelan on Sons of Anarchy, Silas Adams on Deadwood, to name just a few - the actor got the role of his career at age 52. When the auditions for Bosch were happening, it was the author Michael Connelly who suggested him. He had been impressed by Welliver’s guest-starring role as a traumatized firefighter on the Kiefer Sutherland drama Touch.
Michael Connelly, executive producer and author of the Bosch book series: He just played it so well, he didn't have to say he had [PTSD], you could just tell by his haunted eyes. The lead character is always the biggest choice to make, but it was more difficult than usual because Harry Bosch is a very internal guy. He's not going to talk a lot about what's going on inside. So you have to find an actor who can show that he's carrying something inside, some baggage or trauma or something.
Bosch has been, and continues to be, the greatest experience that I've ever had as an actor.
But even though they were interested, he proved hard to find. At the time, Welliver was in China shooting Transformers: Age of Extinction. The production finally got hold of him and he flew in to meet with the team on a Saturday.
Michael Connelly: I was there with a few people who were involved in that choice. And he practiced a scene and he did it really well. And we just kind of knew it was him right away. We thanked him and he left and then very quickly, everyone said, “That's him, that’s Bosch.” So somebody ran out into the parking lot to grab him and bring him back.
Gregory Scott Cummins, “Crate”: Titus worked his way up in the business, paid his dues. As the lead character who's on set every day, it's just amazing how hard he works. And he always, always keeps it light and in between shots he's just nice to people and funny. The creative process of making a show can be hard, but you want it to be enjoyable and he made the experience better for us.
Understanding Bosch
The heartbeat of the show lies within the relationships between Harry and the most important people in his world, beginning with his daughter Madeline. In one sense, Bosch is as much a low-key “dad show” as it is a detective series because of Harry’s ongoing and often clumsy attempts at figuring out how to be a parent to Maddie. Their relationship is informed by the strong bond Welliver and Lintz have formed off-camera. In the final season, both are trying to figure out their next steps when Maddie’s job at Honey Chandler’s law firm unexpectedly puts her in danger.
Titus Welliver: When the shit hits the fan, Maddie is compromised. It becomes one of those things where Harry, he's always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then it becomes a kind of “I told you so.”
Madison Lintz, “Madeline Bosch”: They’ve become equals for sure. And I think as Maddie aged and grew... Well, there was a lot about her father that she didn't really understand. In Season 3, she has a line that's something like, "You're like a turtle. Your shell is where you're safe, but nobody gets in there with you. Not really, not even me." So, he had these emotional walls up that Maddie didn't really understand. She is her father's daughter. As she got older and was forced to deal with these traumatic situations and these hardships, she starts compartmentalizing them and dealing with them in the same way and putting up emotional walls. And I think this [final] season and the last season as well, there were moments where she would look at her father and think, "Oh, I get it now. I do that. I understand that because I do that." And I think in understanding herself as she aged, she also understood her father.
Mimi Rogers: I think what we've seen over the seasons… the dance of [Honey and Harry’s] relationship has been so many different things, confrontational, adversarial, working together well, having to represent him. I think over time, both of them have kind of recognized that they're kindred souls. It’s also great that Harry has an individual in his life who he can't run roughshod over. He's met his match with her. And not only has he accepted it, but I think he kind of liked it. That explains why, even though it was a humiliating moment for him, when [Harry] needed legal help in Season 5, there was one person that he was going to entrust with the situation, and of course it's Honey. And did he have to eat crow and tolerate me making fun of him? Yeah. But he also knew this person would get the job done.
Titus Welliver: That's the dance that they do. They respect each other and they've kind of buried the hatchet with what went down at the Flores trial [in Season 1]. But it's the relationship between Honey and Maddie and how she treats Maddie which I think has softened Harry.
Everybody Counts or Nobody Counts
“Everybody counts or nobody counts” is the motto that Harry Bosch lives by and which drives him to pursue every homicide case with equal determination. That phrase also describes how the series has approached its character development. Because while the show may be called Bosch, it’s an ensemble in many ways. From Hollywood Division’s commanding officer Lt. Grace Billets to veteran detectives Johnson and Moore, aka “Crate” and “Barrel,” to Police Chief Irving and Harry’s partner Jerry Edgar, these characters have all navigated their own complicated journeys.
One thing that was clear from the start of the series is that being Harry Bosch’s partner is a monumental challenge. J. Edgar has been unyieldingly loyal, and has often been the anchor who has helped keep Harry from being swallowed up by the darkness that always seems to be encroaching on him. But at the start of the final season, it is Jerry who finds himself in dire straits. The aftermath of the deadly shooting at the end of Season 6 has Jerry at his lowest point. Despondent and unreliable, he makes several lapses in judgement that has Harry wondering if he can still trust his partner to have his back.
Jamie Hector, “J. Edgar”: The inconsolable consequences, the thing that put them in a bad spot, is knowing that he did something wrong. J. Edgar is grappling with what it means to kill someone, even though the person was on the other side of the law. And it's very difficult for him to wrap his mind around it. So you shut your eyes at night and there's the image of this guy standing in front of you and you wake up in the morning and there he is again, which causes you not to sleep. So he tries to drown it out with so many other things and it just creates a deeper hole.
Lt. Billets and Harry go way back, and that connection allows Harry to confide in her in ways he does with almost no one else. But Aquino says her character benefited from the decision by the writers early on in the show to untether her from Harry.
Amy Aquino: When I signed on to the show, I knew from the start that she was there to stay and be mainly Bosch’s friend. The big limitation for her is that Harry is not somebody who really depends on friends. Also, she's really stuck in the station; she's not out in the field and she's not solving crimes. So the more they developed the people inside the Hollywood station and the relationships within the station, the deeper and broader we could go with Grace. And I appreciated that we did more and more of that as time went on.
No one has had a more complicated relationship with Bosch than Chief Irvin Irving. There have been times where the two have been allied by circumstance. Despite that, and despite the grudging respect they have for each other, they are fundamentally different people. Irving can't abide Bosch's disregard for authority and protocol in search of justice, while Bosch thinks Irving prioritizes politics over police work. That's never more apparent than in Season 7. Irving makes a decision to aid the FBI that ultimately helps him gain leverage against the mayor, who’s out for his job, but that also kneecaps Bosch’s murder investigation.
Lance Reddick, “Chief Irvin Irving”: I feel like he's been a political animal from the start. So the thing that I found interesting about Season 7 is not the compromise that he makes, but how much he hates to do it. [There’s a scene] with FBI special agent Brenner [Adam J. Harrington] where you can see how much he hates it, but this is one where his hands really are tied. And by the same token it really is kind of the greater good kind of thing, if you believe in that.
Michael Connelly: Irving really is swallowed up by the job. But he also believes he is the good guy because he sees his position [as Chief of Police] is… to safeguard the department so it can continue to function. Bosch sees the abandonment of justice in his case and Irving sees it as hard choices that had to be made for the greater good. They both think they're right. I think that's one of the things that makes it interesting.
Lance Reddick: Titus out-nerds me though in both memorabilia and comics. He knows artists that I don't know and which artists drew a run of what comic book, which decade. I mean, he leaves me in the dust. And particularly about American cinema too. I'm fairly well-versed. But Titus knows American cinema like nobody’s business.
Reddick also happens to be a major Star Trek fan. That came to light when Jeri Ryan, a.k.a. Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager, joined the Bosch cast in Season 3.
Lance Reddick: Star Trek: Voyager was my show! I would not miss an episode. Like I would like try to make sure the kids were in bed by nine so I could be hunkered down to see what they're doing.
Titus Welliver: Lance knocked on my trailer door. He's like, “Did you know that Jeri Ryan is here?” I was like, “Yeah, she's a friend of mine. I did Star Trek with her.” “You did? How did I not know that?” He says, “She's in the makeup trailer.” It's the only time I've ever seen Lance tongue-tied. We go over to the trailer and I tell him I’ll introduce them, and it turns out she's a huge fan of Lance. But he can't put a sentence together… His hands were trembling. He's that deep. And it's not just because she's a beautiful woman. It was the Seven of Nine thing. He was completely gobsmacked. It was hilarious.
On a lesser show, Crate and Barrel would be relegated to strictly comic relief duty. On Bosch, even though they may lighten the mood with their deadpan banter and classic movie references, their abilities as detectives remain rock solid. Actors Gregory Scott Cummins [Crate] and Troy Evans [Barrel] discovered an instant chemistry from almost day one.
Troy Evans, “Barrel”: When Bosch started, I'd been retired for three years. And then Eric Overmyer, who I had known for 40 years now, [called]. I met Eric when he was a young playwright and I was working in the little theater in Santa Maria, California. That was 1976. Jump ahead 40 years and there I am working on his TV show. And because of the continuity in that writer's room, the characters just steadily built and built and you didn't have to come in and reinvent yourself in Season 4, Season 5. Look, when you're on a show called Bosch, either you’re Bosch or you’re not Bosch. But within those parameters, all the other characters were real characters. They were real people and they mattered in the stories.
Amy Aquino: I treasure all the moments that I had with them. I looked forward to those scenes and the ones with Scott Klace [who plays Sgt. Mankiewicz]. They were my favorite moments in the show because they're consummate, wonderful actors.
Bosch Loves L.A. - and Its Food
The eating habits of Harry Bosch have inspired fans to break decades of ingrained behavior by putting the syrup on the plate first, then the pancakes. There are also interactive maps to Bosch’s favorite eateries and bars. Dozens of L.A. establishments have made cameos on the show, and each actor had several favorites during the show’s run, but one iconic place was the easy winner in our survey of Favorite Bosch joint.
Titus Welliver: We've always talking about In & Out and a burger with animal fries. But I think Musso & Franks is really his favorite place to go. Because Harry likes his cocktails too. Although he's not like the boozy cop, but he does like to go and have martinis there. I would imagine he likes the iceberg wedge salad with the Roquefort cheese and the bacon bits.
Madison Lintz: I feel like it has to be Du-par's, because I do love a good pancake. And of course, I do [put the syrup first]. That's the only way to do it. It allows for the most even spread of syrup. People can deny it and deny it all they want, but that's the truth.
Amy Aquino: Musso & Franks is so iconic. And it's close to where I live because I live in the Hollywood precinct area. Oh, El Compadre, of course. El Compadre is around the corner where I live. That's actually where we went after my first ride-along with Mitzi and Tim. So that is probably at the top of the list.
Note: Jamie Hector changed his answer multiple times before ultimately texting that his choice would be Musso & Franks as well!
Thanks for the Memories
As the show comes to an end, many of the principal figures in Bosch have become understandably reflective of their time on the series. For some, specific memories rose to the surface as particularly special moments. For others, it was an appreciation for a set that was uncommonly close-knit, with remarkably little turnover in the behind-the-scenes production crew.
Troy Evans: ER was beautifully run. It was a smooth-running machine. You never had these things where you go to work at six in the morning and you'd still be there for the next morning. That didn't happen on ER. I expected a much rougher ride on Bosch because a small studio, the whole new thing going on and all that. But in fact it was very, very similar to working on ER. The scheduling was slick and everything worked. It was as happy a time as I've ever, ever had on set.
Madison Lintz: There were no horrible moments on set. I can't pick one moment. I mean, I guess when we were wrapping out people, there was one day where we were at Musso & Franks, and that was a very, very special moment, especially because it's not often that I crossed paths with some of those actors and got to work with them. And it's not often we're all on set altogether at the same time. So we just sat in the back of the restaurant where they weren't filming and chatted and took pictures and shared memories. And they made sure everyone stuck around, and we clapped for everybody and played videos and cried. So that was a really special day.
Lance Reddick: I had a lot of buyer's remorse afterwards after I agreed to do the show. I was hesitant because I'd already played a commanding officer in law enforcement, but then Eric Overmyer, who I knew, sent me a personal note and then we talked on the phone [about the role]. Because it was Eric, I made the leap. I started the show so worried that I made a huge mistake in my career. And then it ended up not only being one of the highlights of my career, but I feel like it's some of the finest work I've ever done. And to say I did it with people of this caliber makes me proud.
Michael Connelly: A scene that means the world to me is from the very beginning of the third season. That season opens with the kid, Sharkey, doing graffiti on a wall and he's basically the only witness to a murder. That is the first scene of the very first book I wrote that was published. When I wrote that back in the late 1980s, I never thought it would ever be filmed or anything like that. And so to be out there that night and see that happening was pretty amazing. It was an amazing night and still an amazing moment for me. Even though Harry Bosch is not in that scene, it stands out to me as the high point of this whole experience.
Henrik Bastin: What I think I’m proudest off is when people come up and say, it's such a good show, and it's the best adaptation of a book series that I’ve seen. I think that's because that's the one thing I promised Michael in the beginning, that I would try everything I could to not fuck up the adaptation of books that I personally love. So every time I hear that, I feel that we succeeded in that and we created a show that has been really entertaining to a lot of people. I thought we didn't reinvent the wheel or anything like that, but we took a well-established genre and we did it as good as the best ones that have come before us.
