Title: "The Smog Hunter"
Directed by: Adam Davidson
Written by: Eric Overmyer
Air Date: April 21, 2017
Previous: Everybody Counts
Next: The Four Last Things
Guest Starring: Mimi Rogers, Steven Culp, Arnold Vosloo
"The Smog Cutter" is the first episode of the third season of Bosch. It adapts plot threads from Michael Connelly novels The Black Echo and A Darkness More Than Night.
It is November 2016, 16 months since the end of Season 2. Harry Bosch has remained in a troubled frame of mind ever since finding out that his mother's murderer got away with it (he was dead by the time Harry had his name) and that the LAPD helped him do it (the killer was a CI who was protected by Narcotics). He is smoking again, and drinking too much, and prone to outbursts of rage. The fact that his daughter Maddie is now living with him (Eleanor is in Hong Kong with her husband Reggie) only partly mitigates this.
Harry's quite busy. Veronica Allen (Jeri Ryan) is going on trial for the murder of Father Tabakian. Her attorney Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) is going with self-defense, and with attacking Harry's credibility. It works, as Veronica beats the rap when the trial ends in a hung jury. Harry only makes it worse for himself when he confronts District Attorney Rick O'Shea at a bar after O'Shea decides against pushing for a retrial. The video goes viral on the internet.
Meanwhile, Bosch and Edgar have cases. A homeless drug addict, one William Meadows, is shot and killed in his dilapidated RV. It looks like a case of homeless people fighting over drugs, but what Bosch doesn't know is a young street hustler, Thomas "Sharkey" Niese, witnessed the murder. Meadows, as it happens, is an Army Green Beret who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was never the same since he came home.
Another case, that of movie director Andrew Holland, is about to go to trial for the murder of Donatella Speer. Speer was found dead in her apartment. Her death, at least according to Holland's lawyer John Reason Fowkkes, was presumed to be from auto-erotic asphyxiation after a night of drugs and sex at Holland's house, but Bosch and the prosecutor, DDA Anita Benitez (Paola Turbay), think otherwise. What they theorize really happened is that Holland, her date that night, killed her at his house during rough sex, and then drove her body back to her apartment, where he then staged the scene with the help of his fixer Rudy Tafero (Arnold Vosloo), an ex-cop with whom Bosch has personal beef with.
In his free time, Bosch is pursuing still another case. Edward James Gunn is a sad alcoholic bum whom Bosch strongly suspects of being a serial killer. The only problem is Bosch didn't have any proof. He has set up some very illegal hidden cameras both outside and inside Gunn's sad little apartment, in the hopes of catching something incriminating. Bosch is puzzled when his cameras show a mysterious woman helping an extremely drunk Gunn into his apartment.
Irvin Irving is still interim chief of police. Mayor Hector Ramos, who won reelection against O'Shea with ease after Irving leaked the Waits video to the press to damage O'Shea's chances, wants him to take the job permanently, as does the Police Commission president, Bradley Walker (John Getz).
And if that isn't enough plot threads, a man on a bicycle assaults a woman in Koreatown and steals her phone.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Name Change: David Storey, the murder suspect film director from A Darkness More Than Night, becomes Andrew Holland.
- Call-Back: After walking out of court free, a triumphant Veronica Allen says she still owes Bosch a drink. (She offered him a drink in a Season 2 episode where he came over to her house.)
- Celebrity Paradox: As has been explained more than once, Harry can afford his fabulous house because one of his cases was the inspiration for a movie called The Black Echo. But this season uses a plot thread from Connelly novel The Black Echo (the murder of Army vet Harold Meadows). So In-Universe, just what was the movie The Black Echo about?
- Comforting Comforter: For all his faults Harry Bosch is an attentive father, as is shown when he tucks Maddie in.
- Continuity Nod: When Bosch arrives at the scene of the Meadows murder he taunts Officer Powers with "Did you glove up?" Last season, Harry reamed Powers for not putting gloves on before opening the trunk of the car that contained Tony Allen's corpse.
- Erotic Asphyxiation: How Donatella Spear supposedly died. Bosch doesn't buy it, citing that almost all cases of auto-erotic asphyxiation are men. (Other points against Holland are why it took so long for him to make what is a pretty short drive from his mansion to Spear's apartment.
- I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!: A very drunk Edward Gunn says this word for word in a bar when the bartender tries to cut him off.
- Karma Houdini: Veronica Allen, who killed one person and conspired to murder another (her husband) gets away free. (No charges were brought in the Tony Allen conspiracy because everyone else involved except for Maureen O'Grady was dead.)
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Discussed when Harry and Benitez are revisiting the Donatella Speer crime scene.Bosch: If Holland were an ordinary mook with a public defender, he'd be begging to cop a plea. But he's a semi-famous film director with a high price mouthpiece.Benitez: Well, I still think he'll plead.Bosch: This is L.A. I've got two words for you.Benitez: Don't say "OJ".Bosch: Robert Blake
.Benitez: Phil Spector.Bosch: The exception that proves the rule. - Streetwalker: Averted. Sharkey the graffiti artist pretends to be a gay streetwalker who looks for men to pick him up, but it's really a scam in which his two buddies follow the car, beat up the unfortunate victim, and rob him.
- Visual Title Drop: "The Smog Cutter" is the name of the bar where Edward Gunn goes to get blind drunk.
