‘Bosch’ Season Three: I’m Hooked

I don’t normally review television shows, because if I did my life would consist of nonstop criticism, praise, theorizing, and repeated attempts to kill myself. It may surprise people, but I watch even more television than I do movies and the thought of writing about Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Big Little Lies and the dozens of other Netflix and Amazon Prime Video shows I watch makes me sweaty in all the places I don’t want to be sweaty.

So when I was asked to watch the first two episodes of Amazon Video’s Bosch: Season Three, I hesitated, though ultimately I decided that free popcorn and soda and the opportunity to watch a show about a gritty homicide detective for two hours was not the worst way to spend my evening.

Besides, I’ve had Bosch lingering in my Amazon Video “Watch List” for months now, Titus Welliver’s steely, unamused eyes staring at me everytime I log in, daring me to watch his show rather than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for the 30th time.

Starting Bosch at the beginning of season three goes against everything I believe in when it comes to watching television: you watch from the beginning or not at all. In desperation, I navigated over to Amazon and watched the first two episodes of the first season, correctly assuming that it would be helpful to understand who this dude is, what makes him tick, and why I should give a damn before jumping ahead two years to watch the kickoff of season three, which debuts on Amazon Prime Video on April 21, 2017.

My first observation on season three: his daughter, played by Madison Lintz, looks a hell of a lot like the woman he sleeps with in the first couple episodes of the series.

Hmm.

Anyway, I digress. Season three of Bosch kicks off with a bang–literally, as one might suspect for a homicide show–as a homeless veteran gets killed in his RV, the only witness a street kid who flees instead of calling the cops. Harry Bosch and his partner (Jamie Hector) investigate, but of course they aren’t dealing with just that one case–there’s a trial involving Jeri Ryan, who apparently bashed a man’s head in last season but is on the verge of getting acquitted, and Bosch is stalking a creepy old man who may be a serial killer.

There’s a lot going on, which makes Bosch feel quite a bit different than your ordinary cop show. It isn’t your murder-by-the-episode kind of show, and the two episodes I got to watch early certainly presented more threads than it wrapped up. The characters are unique and interesting and the storylines fall somewhere between realistic and sensational for TV purposes, a happy medium if I must say so.

The show’s one weakness is that it clearly wants to be funny at times, but it isn’t; Bosch is generally serious, but the characters exchange enough barbs to lighten the mood. Unfortunately, the humor either feels out of place or forced.

My next course of action is to marathon through Bosch seasons one and two in anticipation of the rest of season three, because in the end, after watching the episodes that I watched, I’m hooked. The show is complex, entertaining and unpredictable, and those three elements make for a good detective show.

from FilmJabber Movie Blog http://ift.tt/2pBxeL8