Recap / Bosch S 1 E 01

"'Tis the Season" is the first episode of the first season of Amazon Studios, Prime Video series Bosch. Season 1 of Bosch adapted the Harry Bosch novels City of Bones, The Concrete Blonde, and Echo Park, by Michael Connelly.

The episode starts with LAPD detective third grade Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and his partner Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector) tailing Roberto Flores, a suspect in a Serial Killer investigation. When Flores leaves his car and travels on foot, Bosch follows him. As rain begins to pour, Bosch catches Flores in an alley. Bosch tells Flores to freeze and the man gets down on his knees, but makes a suspicious movement. Bosch then fires his gun twice, killing Flores.

Two years later, it's the Christmas season, but it's not a very merry one for Bosch, who is not only alone, but is in court facing a civil suit over the death of Roberto Flores. Bosch insists that it was a "good shooting" in that Morales was going for his gun, but the plaintiff's attorney Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers), representing Morales' widow, alleges that Cowboy Cop Bosch executed Morales and planted a gun to make it look like a good shooting. Chandler also confronts Bosch in court with his own past, namely with his mother, a prostitute who was killed when Harry was 12. Her murder was never solved.

Meanwhile, Bosch winds up taking a call involving a civilian, a retired doctor, who reports discovering a human bone in the hills behind his home. Bosch goes to check it out and the doctor shows him a child's femur, which his dog dug up. Bosch follows the dog into the woods and finds finger bones, and just like that he has a murder case. Forensic pathologist Dr. Golliher eventually tells Bosch and Edgar that the victim was a boy of around 12 years old, who died of blunt force trauma, but only after suffering years of chronic abuse.

The discovery of the bones gets Bosch not only a case, but a date. He is met at the scene by another beat cop, Julia Brasher (Annie Wersching). Bosch pretends that he doesn't have his flashlight, so he has to borrow hers, which means he later has to return it, which winds up with the two of them going out for drinks. Brasher reveals that she has only recently gone into a new career in law enforcement after briefly practicing as a lawyer.

This pilot episode debuted on Amazon in February 2014. After it won a fan vote to be picked up as a series, the rest of Season 1 of Bosch debuted in February 2015.

Tropes:

• As You Know: John Chastain is established as being an Internal Affairs cop when Bosch addresses him by snarking, "And how are the fearless men and women of Internal Affairs these days?" Chastain even supplies the new name of IA when he shoots back with "Professional Standards Bureau, Bosch."
• Bad Santa: A gag has a handcuffed Santa with a vomit-soaked beard give Harry a bleary-eyed stare.
• Battle in the Rain: Bosch's showdown with Flores in a dark alley in the pouring rain, which ends with Bosch fatally shooting Flores.
• Courtroom Episode: Bosch is being sued for the shooting of Roberto Flores.
• Creator Cameo: Producer Henrik Bastin is the drunk Santa under arrest at police HQ.
• Da Chief: Captain Harvey Pounds, who haaaaaaates Harry Bosch and his cowboy cop ways and wants him out of the LAPD. Harry is convinced that Pounds is the one who leaked the info about his mother to Chandler.
• Death of a Child: Harry finds the bones of a 12-year-old murder victim in the woods.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: The whole first season is set at Christmas time, which has little to do with the plot other than allow for incongruous backgrounds like drunk, vomiting Bad Santas or Salvation Army Santas outside the courthouse where Harry Bosch is being sued.
• Disposable Sex Worker: Discussed Trope, as Honey Chandler makes Bosch testify about how prostitutes are often targets of serial killers.
• Driven to Suicide: One of Harry's call outs involves a woman who shot herself in her car, by an overlook next to a dam.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his first scene Bosch is staring out the window of the undercover car in a pensive manner, muttering about how it will soon rain and "wash all the shit away." He soon winds up chasing his suspect on foot before shooting him. This establishes him both as world-weary and haunted, and a Cowboy Cop.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Bosch is dramatically half-lit by a light in the alley, as he stands over the corpse of Flores.
• Intrepid Reporter: Nate Tyler of the Los Angeles Times is antagonistic to Bosch but he's pretty intrepid, seeing as how he hides in a taco truck to pester cops at a crime scene with questions.
• Lame Pun Reaction: The City of Bones plot is kicked off when Harry Bosch gets a phone call from Sgt. Mankiewicz, the Hollywood Division watch commander, who sends Bosch to check out a bone that was found by a dog. Bosch is immediately skeptical because he's seen this before and it's usually animal bones. Mank assures Bosch that the caller is a doctor and not only identified the bone as human, but specifically a child's upper arm bone, complete with scarring from numerous injuries.
  Mank: The point is, this doctor says it was just a kid, Harry. So could you humor us and go check out this humerus?
  Bosch: .....
  Mank: Oh, come on, that was fucking funny.
  Bosch: Hilarious, Mank.
• Mythology Gag: In the opening scene Bosch chases Flores down the hill past the Angels Flight funicular railway. That location was crucial to the Harry Bosch novel Angels Flight, in which Bosch investigates two murders there. (Angels Flight was adapted into season 4 of Bosch.)
• Pilot: It was picked up, kicking off the seven-year run of Bosch.
• Son of a Whore: Discussed Trope. Chandler ambushes Bosch with this in court, making him admit that his mother was a prostitute that was murdered, and that was why he shot Flores, suspected to be a Serial Killer of prostitutes.
• Trauma Button: Hearing about the abuse that the long-dead boy in the woods suffered causes Harry to flee to a restroom, where he has a panic attack, remembering his past abuse in the Orphanage of Fear.