Bosch season 7 episode 2 finds several characters facing personal challenges.
Bosch Season 7 Episode 2 “The Dog You Feed”
Written by Osokwe Vasqez
Directed by Patrick Cady
Jerry and Harry make some headway in the apartment fire case. Honey Chandler learns that her client Vincent Franzen is unwilling to take any responsibility for his crimes. Meanwhile, Lt. Billets is met with some disrespectful cops and finds her car vandalized.
Jerry continues to be haunted by the Avril shooting and reaches out to a familiar friend for help. Chief Irving feels his second term being threatened, and old friend’s illness will probably shift the Police Commissioner’s vote out of his favor.
Episode 2 is wrought with nostalgia from seasons past. Watch for cameos and callbacks.
Cases can pull them apart, but justice will always bring them together. The final poster for the final season of #BoschAmazon. pic.twitter.com/04FSWpeN7S
— Bosch (@BoschAmazon) June 24, 2021
Jerry, Jerry, Jerry
Jerry continues to make some bad choices personally as well as ones that can be damaging to the case. Harry is working long hours while Jerry visits a strip club. Edgar arrives to work smelling like smoke and debauchery. Harry scolds him again as Jerry dons the extra shirt and tie from his desk drawer. Later, Jerry appears to be dozing off in the car but claims to just be “resting [his] eyes”. Harry turns up the music.
Jerry is not winning any points with Latonya either. He shows up to spend time with sons Joe and Jack, only to learn that they have made other plans with their mom. Latonya reminds Jerry that he has not called for several days.
Edgar makes a visit to Mama Roux at the pawn shop. She can tell he is heavy-laden. She offers him some words of encouragement and gives him a package of tea. While at the shop, another customer sees Jerry and praises him for taking down “The Butcher”. Jerry seems conflicted about the man’s words.
By the end of the episode, we see Jerry sitting outside Avril’s house drinking from a paper bag. Patrol officers approach Jerry’s vehicle. Jerry shows his badge and lies about why he is there. Officer Enochy lets Jerry go.
Casework
Detective Collins gives Harry files on Miguel Pena, Pedro Alvarez, and Gladys Rodriguez aka La Mayorista.
Harry and Jerry later meet with the apartment building owner who downplays her attempts to push tenants out. She denies that her agenda is gentrification. The property owner does not appear terribly sincere either when she says how sorry she is about the door being locked at the rooftop.
She also tries to play both sides when Harry asks her about a tenant whose grandson was dealing drugs from her apartment. The grandmother is being punished for her grandson’s crimes. Basically, the police are being called to address the drugs and the tenants are being accused of being troublemakers because the police are there. The tenants cannot win.
A break in the case
Crate and Barrel have identified the owner of the SUV used to deliver the firebomb. Jerry and Harry then go meet with the owner of the vehicle who says her car was parked the entire night with the valet service. Then she recalls the car smelling odd and realizes someone may have been in her car. The detectives must impound the car.
Their next stop is to the valet service for The Magic Castle where the owner was that night. The valet manager refuses to believe that any of his drivers would take the car off the property, but Harry and Jerry take the names of the workers.
Harry learns that one of the valet drivers is a parolee. His name is Russell Barnes, and the partners go talk to him. Russell says he is out of the crime life and that he did not park that car. Pressure from Jerry about Russell’s prints being in the car leads the parolee to admit that he let two guys “borrow” the car for a personal fee. Russell gives Harry their gang names, Lil’ Tre Tre and Zorro.
Copyright: Amazon Studios
Description: Pictured (L-R): Titus Welliver (Detective Harry Bosch), Jamie Hector (Detective Jerry Edgar)
Bring ‘em in
Sure enough, they retrieve the guys’ names from their database and learn that “the petroleum in the Mercedes [SUV] matches the accelerant used in the fire”. Harry and J. Edgar head out to arrest them. The detectives have backup with them and pull up to the house where Las Palmas are hanging out in the yard. Bosch handcuffs Zorro (Pedro Alvarez) and Jerry tells Lil’ Tre Tre (Emmanuel Trejo) to surrender. Trejo refuses and starts antagonizing Jerry. Jerry and Trejo get into a physical altercation.
Neighbors are outside their homes videotaping the scene while Trejo shouts “police brutality”. Jerry gets Trejo in the police car and stares him down while Harry demands that Jerry return to their own car. Even Collins tells Harry that Jerry is “out of control”.
Back at the station, Bosch warns Jerry that he better get his act together or leave.
Bosch talks to Billets about bringing in Trejo and Alvarez. He thinks Alvarez is more likely to talk as he is lower rank in the gang. So, they are going to keep him in a cell for the night and “give him time to marinate”. As Alvarez settles into his cell he watches fearfully as his cellmate rolls up his sleeves to reveal what appear to be telltale tattoos of la Eme.
J. Edgar catches up to Bosch in the parking lot and apologizes.
La Mayorista
Gladys Rodriguez confronts Mickey Pena at a bar. She demands to know if Las Palmas are behind the fire. Mickey denies any involvement. La Mayorista insists that he figure out who set the fire. She points out that she cannot run a drug business at a crime scene. Furthermore, she threatens to take her business elsewhere if he does not take care of the situation.
Later, Gladys gets wind of the arrest of Lil’ Tre Tre and Zorro. She calls Mickey Pena from her limousine. Again, Mickey denies their involvement and says she can trust him. Then La Mayorista refers to Mickey by name. He swiftly reminds her not to use real names. She hangs up, calls Mickey a liar and then tosses the phone out the car window.
Everybody counts or nobody counts. Watch the final season of #BoschAmazon, June 25. pic.twitter.com/1Hwm97bRPU
— Bosch (@BoschAmazon) June 2, 2021
Really, Vincent?
Vincent Franzen is a real piece of work, ugh. When Honey tells him that bail may be set around 2 million, he shrugs it off saying he can do that – this from a guy who just swindled over 200 million innocent people. Instead, he complains about how poorly he slept in jail. Mrs. Franzen arrives to the bail hearing in a quiet rage.
Honey encounters slime ball attorney J. Reason Fowwkes hanging out in the courtroom sniffing for clients. The two exchange a few words. Fowwkes applauds Chandler for getting Franzen as a client. She tells him it is the other way around. Franzen is lucky to have retained her services. Bail is set at 1.5 million despite Asst. DA Boyle’s objections saying Franzen is a flight risk.
Later, Franzen meets with Honey at her office. He basically says he is physically incapable of doing jail time and balks at the idea of paying restitution. Does he not realize he is being prosecuted? He is more than happy to throw all his co-conspirators under the bus.
After absolutely refusing the idea of jail time, Honey points out that she requires “something to work with”. Franzen then tells her he knows of a massive insider trading scheme and will testify against the perpetrator in exchange for avoiding jail time. This will involve the SEC.
Should Irving throw in the towel?
Irving meets with one of the Police Commissioners, Francis Alexander, about rumors of him resigning from the board. Irv tries to persuade Francis to stay long enough to make sure he gets approved for a second term. Irv feels certain that Mayor Lopez wants Irving to be replaced by a Latino chief. Sadly, Alexander reveals that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and really has no choice but to step down.
That evening Irving accosts Jen Kowski as she leaves a meeting about the Hispanic Heritage Fiesta. Interestingly, we learn that the mayor did not attend this meeting despite claiming it to be a top priority. Irving suggests a quid pro quo arrangement with Jen. She thinks he is trying to bribe her, but he assures her that he is just requesting a favor in exchange for one later.
Irving wants Jen’s help making sure Francis’ replacement will be one who votes in Irv’s favor. Jen reminds Irving that he blindsided her when he dropped out of the mayoral race and that maybe the mayor does not trust him either. Strike two for Irving.
Back at home, Irv confides in Jun. He considers not even pursuing a second term. He suggests that they already must deal with their son’s health as a preemie. Jun assures him that their baby will be okay and that her husband is not a quitter.
Copyright: Amazon Studios
Description: Pictured (L-R): Gregory Scott Cummins (Detective Moore), Troy Evans (Detective Johnson), Amy Aquino (Lt. Grace Billets)
Can Billets catch a break?
Billets attends a patrol meeting lead by Lt. Thorne. She reminds the patrol officers that they cannot miss court cases when they occur on one of their regular days off. An Officer Leonard in the back row mouths off. Grace asks him to speak louder. He complains that detectives get all the glory even though patrol does so much of the groundwork. Grace swiftly agrees that detectives do get the notoriety and that Officer Leonard could as well if he were capable enough to make detective rank.
As Grace leaves for work another day, she sees a slur written on her car window. Later, she tells Anne about the vandalism at lunch saying it must be a cop who did it based on the white shoe polish and capital letters used for the writing. Anne implores Grace to report the incident.
Cameos and callbacks:
- The title of this episode harkens back to season 1. Bosch and serial killer Raynard Waits both grew up in the McClaren home for boys but ended up being drastically different. Harry talked to Dr. Garcia about something they taught the boys there. “That’s what they told us at McClaren. Everyone has two dogs fighting inside of them. One does the right thing, one doesn’t. The one you choose to feed in the end is the one who wins the fight. I fed the right one. He didn’t.”
- We learned that Jerry always keeps an extra shirt in his desk drawer in season 4 when he offered the clean shirt to Harry. Harry’s shirt was bloodied from trying to resuscitate Eleanor when she was shot at Du-Par’s. Jerry uses the extra shirt in this episode.
- Pierce complains about the station coffee when Vega brings him good coffee from elsewhere. Bad coffee has been a running joke throughout the series.
- Defense attorney Fowwkes makes an appearance this episode after last seeing him when he was defending slime ball Andrew Holland in season 3.
- Jerry says, “just resting my eyes” when he seems to be nodding off in the car. Crate used this same excuse when he was supposed to be listening to the Alicia Kent wiretap in season 6.
- Jerry gives a nod to In-N-Out’s “Animal Fries” menu option. Maddie and Eleanor previously shared a conversation about the Animal Fries recipe in season 4.
- The vehicle used in the arson fire was parked by valet service for The Magic Castle club.. “The Magic Castle” is also the name of episode 9 in season 1 but refers instead to Raynard Waits’ lair.
- Jerry uses the phrase “goes where it goes” when talking to Russell Barnes. This reminds me of a prior conversation between Bosch and Chief Irving in season 4 at the site of Howard Elias’ murder. Many were suspicious of RHD playing a role in this murder. Bosch asks, “If this goes where the public thinks it goes?” Chief Irving replies, “That’s my concern. You just follow the evidence. Let the chips fall where they may.”
You can follow ongoing coverage of Bosch television at So Many Shows and on the Everybody Counts Podcast.