BOSCH (Season 7) -- A Fitting Conclusion to the Breakout Show From Amazon

Review by Dan Skip Allen

Photo Credit: Hopper Stone.

Bosch is in its seventh and final season on Amazon Prime. It is based on the LAPD Detective Harry Bosch from the series of novels by Michael Connelly. The series adapts Connelly's books into different seasons of the show. Taking two books at a time and making each season. Season seven adapts The Concrete Blonde, the third novel from 1994, and The Burning Room, the seventeenth novel from 2014. The series writers, Eric Overmeyer, and others have done a very nice job adapting Connelly's books into this gritty yet realistic detective drama.

Season seven consists of eight episodes instead of the usual ten. It doesn't lose any of the punch or drama though with two fewer episodes. If anything, season seven is a more tight compact season compared to the other six. It has to get into the main storyline pretty quickly. Once wherein it doesn't let us go. It builds on Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector), and all the established characters in the series, especially Lt. Grace Billets (Amy Aquino) and Police Chief Irvin Irving (Lance Reddick).

Season seven starts with a man throwing a molotov cocktail onto a crowded building where people live. A woman, her mother, and her daughter are making tamales and handing them out to their neighbors. They are caught in the fire that ensues. Including them, two others die in the fire in the building. The little girl is found dead kneeling in front of the door to the roof. This is a tragic event that was gang-related. Bosch and Edgar are tasked with finding out why this tragedy happened and who was responsible for this senseless crime that claimed the lives of these five innocent people.

Photo Credit: Hopper Stone.

​The thing that is so great about Bosch is that the writers give all the supporting characters their due. As I've mentioned already Billets and Irving have great character arcs throughout season seven, but Maddie Bosch (Madison Lintz), the daughter of Harry, comes into her own as an assistant to Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) affectionately called "Money" because she gets settlements for a lot of her clients in her cases. Maddie learns a lot from her and this helps develop her character very well. Jerry Edgar has a good arc as well dealing with his personal life, work, and a shooting from season six. Also, a lot of the subplots come together, in the end, to make for very satisfying conclusions to many of the character arcs.

Harry has gone through a lot in six seasons of this show, but this season he takes it to the next level. He is fed up with the bureaucracy of the system and how some criminals get away with murder, literally. He is a man that can't put up with the failures of the system and he finally does something about it. He's gotten on the nerve of his superiors before, but this time he takes his anger and puts it to good use. I think everybody watching can get behind him on this one. This failure has happened too much and he's the only one who can or will do anything about it. Titus Welliver is incredible this season as Bosch!

There have been a lot of good police dramas in the past, but Bosch is one of the best police shows ever. It's on par with Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, and The Wire. Connelly understands this world perfectly and in turn, Overmeyer understands the material he's adapting. This world is one of the unflinching real sides of the LAPD. Amazon let him do what was necessary to make this show and season seven a success. With the great cast including Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch, they captured lightning in a bottle. This is the best last season to season of any show on television or streaming services.

Bosch is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Rating: 5/5