Is the final season of Bosch: Legacy trying to turn Bosch against Bosch? Because it feels a little like that, as Maddie’s suspicions grow about her dad. Or should we call him Silver Wolf? That was Harry’s Special Forces call sign, as Maddie learns when she visits the funeral reception for a soldier he served with in Afghanistan. Another vet, Gurbizs (Gonzalo Menendez), in dress blues and a beret like her father, says of their old unit, “We would have run through a brick wall for Harry Bosch.” But Gurbizs also tells Maddie about a certain cave system in Tora Bora, a certain Taliban bombmaker who was unwilling to talk, and a certain Master Sergeant Harry Bosch, who secured the intel they needed by whatever means necessary. She heard this tale from Gurbizs because Bosch doesn’t talk about his time in the service. Maddie leaves the reception wondering what else he’s not talking about, and what else her dad might be capable of. Like conspiring with two inmates to kill the man who attacked and abducted his daughter.  

Harry swore to Maddie he had nothing to do with the Dockweiler murder. But in her mind, she keeps coming back to that cryptic phone call from Preston “I took care of it” Borders. Add in the startling details of Gurbizs’s story, and she’s out here ignoring her dad’s phone calls as she visits Honey Chandler and her daughter Michelle (Aisha Kabia) for wine night. While Maddie characterizes the cave torture story as a potential war crime, Honey preaches caution in making conclusions, and emphasizes Bosch’s integrity. He must have had his reasons.

But we can also add another layer to Maddie’s suspicions. Because Detective Robertson and his partner Perry Lopez (Miles Gaston Villanueva) are circling Maddie, too, with their own questions about the Borders phone call. Of course they’re going to insinuate full Bosch involvement right off the bat – it’s what cops do, and the “Chief’s Special” investigation has been working toward Bosch’s presumed guilt from the beginning. None of that makes it true, and Maddie doesn’t give Robertson and Lopez anything further work with. But she’s still leaving her dad’s texts on read. 

While Bosch the ex-cop gets dragged, Bosch the private investigator has a new case. Siobhan Murphy (Orla Brady) visits him at his office – his handwritten name card outside the door says “H. Bosch,” not “Hieronymous” – and explains that her daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandchildren have vanished. A family of four “doesn’t just disappear,” so Harry drives Siobhan up to Ojai in Ventura, where her daughter’s family had a cabin. No Gallaghers there, but evidence they were there – a blanket Siobhan knitted for her granddaughter, which the kid never went anywhere without. And later, back in Los Angeles, when Bosch inquires about the case with a missing persons detective, among other things, he learns Siobhan’s son-in-law’s construction business was mostly underwater. It’s still early days, but whatever’s going on here, the Gallaghers didn’t just vanish. Either from their house in Ojai, or across the Mexican border, where their minivan was recovered. We’re with Bosch: as difficult as it is for Siobhan to hear, it seems likely someone made the Gallaghers disappear.

This episode of Bosch: Legacy also fills in a few more details about the “follow-home” robbery crew Officers Bosch and Vasquez have been tracking in the LA streets. For one thing, the attacks are not random. While Nestor (Jesse Gallegos) and Albert (Tommy Martinez) are the stickup men from the Honda CRV, it’s Victoria (Andrea Cortés) who cases their targets while she dines alone in restaurants. Cash, jewelry, expensive watches – she takes inventory on who has what. But also their demeanor, and whether a potential mark might have a concealed carry license. When Nestor and Albert grouse annoyingly about little details of the strongarm robberies, Victoria shuts them down. Whether those two have considered it or not, she is clearly the ringleader of this bunch. And even if she isn’t, Mayans MC veteran Andrea Cortés plays Victoria with such a swagger and intensity, she is singlehandedly making the follow-home crew interesting.

And speaking of making things interesting, wherever the “Chief’s Special” investigation into Bosch is going, it’s not nearly as gripping as what Paul Calderón is doing. Calderón plays Detective Santiago “Jimmy” Robertson with such a balance between chill – “too blessed to be stressed, my brother” – and jaded darkness, he regularly eclipses most everyone else in a scene.

“You can’t come at Bosch like you would anyone else,” Detective Robertson tells Lopez. “You gotta investigate him the way he investigates. How far are you willing to go?” This conversation is held outside Harry’s PI office, beside his handwritten name card. And from the locks they proceed to pick and shreds of potential evidence they lift without a warrant – like a thank you to Bosch from the family of recently paroled Wasco inmate Curtis Dignan (Eddie Steeples) – Robertson and Lopez are gonna be “Bosching Bosch” until they find something, anything usable. Whether it’s actual evidence or just circumstantial, well, with a “Chief’s Special,” sometimes the ingredients don’t matter as much as the meal.

There are some ingredients that could sour Bosch, though. Did the Silver Wolf ever stick a pencil in a Taliban fighter’s ear to gain the intel he needed? Because Robertson has leaned on Hollywood Division sergeant John “Mank” Mankiewicz to recover archival video from an unsupervised interrogation of Dockweiler, back when Bosch was still a detective. And Dockweiler’s ear canal was definitely violated. But even pairing what the tape reveals with what the cops know about Preston Borders’ phone call to Bosch does not necessarily make Harry an open-and-shut suspect. These are facts, but they only give purchase to suspicion – in Robertson’s mind, and in Maddie’s mind – without an appreciation for the whole picture.      

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.