Title: "Exit Time"
Directed by: Kevin Dowling
Written by: Tom Smuts and Tom Bernardo
Air Date: March 11, 2016
Previous: Heart Attack
Next: Follow the Money
Guest Starring: James Ransone, Leisha Hailey, John Marshall Jones
"Exit Time" is the 7th episode of the second season of Bosch.
George Irving is laid to rest in a funeral appropriate for an LAPD officer killed in the line of duty, with an honor guard and 21 gun salute. Bosch picks up a spent shell from the honor guard afterwards, thus revealing what the jar full of spent shells in his house is for. Irvin Irving confronts Arceneaux and demands to know what happened, but Eddie, citing his stress leave, refuses to answer. After the funeral, Irving goes back to headquarters and copies/steals much of the task force's evidence on the George Irving investigation.
Veronica Allen assures her partner in crime, Carl Nash, that her husband's estate will go through probate any day and then they can get whatever Nash wants so badly. Immediately afterwards, she goes into someone's house, carrying a brown envelope.
Bosch receives three years of GPS data from Tony Allen's leased car. Thinking that it might lead the FBI to the location of their undercover agent who disappeared two years ago (there's blood that isn't Allen's in the trunk), he gives the data to Eleanor, who passes it on to Agent Griffin of the Bureau.
Irving calls Bosch to a private meeting at the hotel where he's staying since his wife threw him out of the house. Irving tells Bosch that he believes RHD is going to write off George Irving's death as a robbery, to avoid embarrassment to the LAPD, but Irving is convinced that Eddie Arceneaux's gang sniffed George out as The Mole. Irving wants Bosch to help him with a parallel "off the books" investigation. Bosch is surprisingly reluctant to join someone else's private investigation, since he does his own on a regular basis, but eventually he agrees.
Since they're conducting an illicit investigation, Irving and Bosch can attack the problem directly. They meet Arceneaux at his house, tie him up, and tell him they will give his name to the Mexican drug cartel that Eddie and the gang robbed, if Eddie doesn't tell them who the other cops are. Eddie cooperates, providing all the names including, to Bosch's surprise, Carl Nash. Bosch immediately realizes that Nash is behind the Allen murder and probably was working with/for Veronica Allen.
The next day Bosch and Irving break into Carl Nash's house—the house that Veronica Allen visited earlier. They find the brown envelope Veronica planted there, which contains a bunch of photos of Tony Allen and Layla, as well as Luke Rykov. Bosch figures out that Nash planted the gun to make the Allen murder look like a mob hit.
Arceneaux meets with Carl Nash and tells him about Irving and Bosch. He says he wants his share of the money from the Tony Allen job right now so he can get out of town. Nash doesn't have the Allen money yet but he agrees to pay Arceneaux anyway. Later, Nash comes home from work, finds a screw on the floor that Irving forgot to put in the vent, finds the brown envelope, and realizes that Veronica is setting him up.
That night Maureen and Riley surprise Arceneaux at his house, and murder him.
Tropes:
- Amazing Freaking Grace: Played on bagpipes at George Irving's funeral.
- Call-Back: Earlier in the season, Maddie noticed a jar full of rifle shells in her father's house. In this episode we learn that Harry takes home a rifle shell from every funeral of a cop killed in the line of duty.
- Chekhov's Gun: Irving spots Arcenaux's fancy drone, the one that Arceneaux has been shown playing with more than once in Season 2. It turns out to have a video of the night of George Irving's oil rig ride, a video that shows everyone in Carl Nash's crew.
- Cowboy Cop: For once it's not Harry Bosch cowboying around, it's Irvin Irving, who starts his own secret and unofficial investigation of his son's murder. Harry is surprisingly reluctant, suggesting that Irving should trust RHD, but eventually he agrees to help.
- For Want Of A Nail: If Irving hadn't left that screw on the floor, the investigation might have unfolded in an entirely orderly manner—get a warrant, find the photos a second time, arrest Nash, get him to flip on Veronica, etc. But Irving forgot the screw, which causes Nash to realize that something is up, which leads to the bloody chaos of the last three episodes.
- It's Personal: His son's murder is one investigation Irvin Irving isn't willing to obstruct.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Harry mentions the mystery blood found in the trunk of Tony Allen's car and suggests that he might have served as a cleaner who got rid of the body of the murdered FBI agent.Eleanor: Mr. Wolf!
Harry: Who?
Eleanor: Harvey Keitel? Pulp Fiction? The cleanup guy!
Harry: You know I don't go to the movies. - Title Drop: Arceneaux says "It's exit time, Carl!", when telling Nash he wants his money so he can run.
- Working the Same Case: All it takes is to hear the name "Carl Nash" from Arceneaux for Harry to realize that his and Irving's investigations are really the same case.
