Harry Bosch is one cool cop, because he has great taste in jazz. He is also a veteran and owns a dog (named Coltrane). Altogether, that must make him the most sympathetic and easiest-to-identify-with cop ever—except he is no longer a cop. Frustrated with LAPD bureaucracy, Bosch is now a private investigator, but catching bad guys is still his thing. His latest cases are positioned as a fresh start (now on Prime’s sister streamer), but it is really just Bosch “season 8,” but that should suit fans just fine when Bosch: Legacy premieres today on Freevee (formerly branded as IMDb).
Bosch and hard-charging criminal defense attorney Honey Chandler used to be mortal enemies, but they formed an alliance when crooked tycoon Carl Rogers tried to have them killed, along with Bosch’s daughter Maddie. That formed a bond between all three, but Bosch and Chandler still have very different ideas regarding criminal justice. Nevertheless, he and the counselor agree to work together when Rogers flips a witness to beat the rap. Unfortunately for the newly freed sleaze, his partners in the Russian mob now want all the revenue they lost while he was in prison, plus interest.
In the private sector, Bosch is free to work whatever case appeals to his sense of justice. In addition, to Rogers, he also works with (not for) Chandler to clear a homeless man charged with murder. Meanwhile, a dying billionaire Whitney Vance (a lot like Gen. Sternwood in The Big Sleep) retains Bosch to find the illegitimate son he abandoned decades ago. A whole lot of money is at stake, so the board of his aerospace company would prefer Bosch did not find any heirs.
Of course, Bosch also worries about his daughter, especially since her experience with Rogers motivated her to join the police force. Finally patrolling the streets with tough but reasonably fair training officer, she struggles to maintain her objective detachment, especially when they respond to calls involving a serial rapist stalking their beat.
Legacy cannot quite wrap-up all four strands in ten episodes. In fact, writer-creators Eric Ellis Overmyer, Tom Bernardo, and original novelist Michael Connelly do not even try, ending “season one” on a cliffhanger. At least they do a nice job bringing new viewers up to speed with their initial recap.
Regardless, Bosch is maybe the best American TV/streaming detective going these days. It is not just his taste in music, but the way he plugs artists like Art Pepper, Ron Carter, and Frank Morgan is definitely cool. (He even has a poster on his wall for the Morgan documentary, Sound of Redemption, on which Connelly served as an executive producer). Titus Welliver is just terrific in the role. He is all kinds of steely and grizzled, but he also plays the worried dad quite compellingly.
Mimi Rogers is nearly as entertaining bickering and bantering with him as Chandler, but she also keenly expresses the lawyer’s lingering trauma. Madison Lintz plays off both of them well as Maddie, while Stephen A. Chang earns most of the series laughs as Bosch’s deadpan hipster tech guy, Mo Bassi (who also happens to be a jazz listener). As a bonus, Legacy has several interesting character thesps who add a lot of color and dimension, including John Savage, William Devane, Kate Burton, and Phil Morris.
The good news for pre-existing Bosch fans is Legacy is more of the same. For those who are new, that means there is a lot for us to catch up with. Legacy stands alone relatively well, but for most streamers, it probably won’t have to. Nevertheless, for a viewer that only saw a few episodes of the first season of Bosch, Legacy is surprisingly addictive stuff. Bosch: Legacy, the Bosch character, and his music are all very highly recommended when Legacy premieres today 5/6) on Freevee (as it is now called).