Don't go to Barbie. Watch the second season of this Philippines-set cop show
instead. Yes, they are vastly different, particularly in terms of their ethical bearings.
Barbie features a child-like rendering of China’s imperialistic “Nine-Dash Line,” which asserts their illegal claims to the waters and fishing rights of
the South China Sea, way beyond its borders. The studio claims their prop map
just coincidentally resembles the CCP’s notorious Nine-Dash Line, but has there
ever been a film that lavished greater attention on its art direction and
design details than Barbie?
In contrast, the third episode of Almost
Paradise’s second season directly addresses the dire economic hardships
experienced by Filipino fisherman as the result of China’s naval imperialism.
There are also ten new crimes for the somewhat unlikely trio of detectives to
solve in season two of creators Dean Devlin & Gary Rosen’s Almost
Paradise, which premieres today on Freevee.
If
Almost Paradise sounds vaguely familiar, season one premiered on WGN,
back in 2020. Now, it is a Freevee, show, but little else has changed, except
Alex Walker’s formerly high blood pressure. For health reasons, he retired from
the DEA and moved to Cebu, where he had fond memories from his first case. He
actually got healthier, despite working several cases with Mactan detectives
Kai Mendoza and Ernesto Alamares, sometimes reluctantly and sometimes through
his unwelcome initiative. Their boss, politically savvy (but not corrupt) Chief
Ike Ocampo is always eager for the benefits of Walker’s DEA experience—and contacts.
The ambitious Mendoza and the Zen-like Alamares are impressive, whereas Walker
is grizzled and burned-out, but his new Filipino friends steadily rejuvenate his
soul.
Almost
Paradise
is a very traditional throwback-style of detective show, in that all ten
episodes of season two can easily stand alone. There is a recurring villain, Vargas
“The Water-Boarder,” a drug lord Walker busted in the first season, but each
episode has its own self-contained arc. In terms of theme and tone, the series
should appeal to fans of Lenkov-verse shows like Magnum P.I. and Hawaii
Five-O, but it also incorporates Filipino and Cebuano culture in smart,
interesting ways.
The
first episode, “The Magellan Cross,” refers to a relic of early colonial times,
but it might be the weakest of the season, so keep going. “Breaking Badminton”
is indeed set in a dodgy badminton club, which is about as Philippines as it
gets. “A Fishfolk Tale” calls out the Chinese maritime grab by name, while
showing how the resulting hardships exacerbated tensions between two clans of
fishing families.
“Ghost
Month” (S2E6) might be the best episode, exploring local belief in “hungry
ghosts,” without completely undermining the supernatural themes with a pat “Scooby
Doo” ending. “All In” is a clever caperish installment, wherein Walker agrees
to test the security of a luxury casino owned by Ann Villegas, the heiress he
is trying to romance, while “Uncoupled” handles some creepy cult stuff pretty
well within its forty-some-minute time constraints, when Walker and Mendoza go
undercover in a New Age couples retreat.
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.
