Title: "Past Lives"
Directed by: Tim Hunter
Written by: Shaz Bennett and Elle Johnson
Air Date: April 13, 2018
Previous: Devil in the House
Next: The Coping
Guest Starring: Paul Calderón, John Getz, Winter Ave Zoli
"Past Lives" is the 4th episode of the fourth season of Bosch.
Sheehan, a broken man, pouring out all his problems to a sympathetic Harry. It seems that Sheehan's wife has left him, and now he spends all his time drinking. He insists that he did not kill Elias; he was at home getting plastered at the time of the murder. However, he confesses that everything Michael Harris is alleging is true. It was Sheehan himself who stabbed Harris in the ear with a pencil. He hands over his service gun to Harry. The next morning, Harry wakes up and finds to his frustration that Sheehan is gone.
Harry goes to see Sheehan's ex-wife Margaret. Margaret doesn't know anything, other than that Sheehan has been in a downward spiral ever since the Michael Harris incident.
At Hollywood station, Robertson upbraids Harry for not bringing Sheehan in. Harry is surprised to see that Jerry Edgar, who is supposed to still be on light duty, has joined the Elias task force. Edgar and Lincoln volunteer to review the deposition that Sheehan gave in an earlier police brutality lawsuit against Doug Rooker. Harry has to leave when he gets a call from Eleanor.
Over lunch at an outdoor table at Du-par's, Eleanor tells Harry that Reggie finally called that morning. It looks like her marriage to Reggie Woo is over. It turns out that Reggie is nephew to one Stanley Woo, a Triad gangster boss. Eleanor demanded that Reggie cut ties with his family, and Reggie refused, so it seems like she and Reggie are done. She's depressed about it, and Harry tries to reassure her. Eleanor returns to her car, only for her to realize she left her phone on the table. As Harry is picking it up and about to walk over to return it to her, she is fatally gunned down by two men riding past on a motorcycle.
Harry waits for the police to arrive before leaving. He pulls Maddie out of school and breaks the bad news to her as he takes her to the station, where all of his colleagues are gathered around the TV watching the news. Jerry supplies Harry with a replacement shirt (Harry got blood on his while administering CPR to Eleanor) and agrees to take Maddie to his family's place so someone can look after her, while Harry returns to Du-pars and gives a statement to the FBI investigators. He later goes back to Eleanor's house, which is crawling with more FBI agents, and picks up some of Maddie's things.
With Harry on bereavement leave, Robertson is left to oversee the Elias task force. After making a failed visit to sweat Rooker for information on Sheehan's whereabouts, he and Pierce lead a SWAT team raid of Sheehan's apartment, where they find a second gun in a box. Edgar and Lincoln, meanwhile, watch Sheehan's deposition, and are stunned when, in a fit of anger, he threatens Elias, warning him "someday someone will put a cap in your ass!"...which is what literally happened when the murderer fired a shot up Elias's rectum.
Harry picks up Maddie and takes her home. After Maddie has gone to bed, Harry listens to his voicemail, including several condolence calls from Billets, Irving, and other cops...and a call from Joan Bennett and Pell, the RHD detectives investigating Caffrey's death in the Riverwatch arson, informing him that they have identified a person of interest.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: The story Sheehan tells about the suspect he killed years ago turns out to be crucial to the plot three episodes later.
- Creepy Souvenir: The Koreatown Killer has a whole shelf in his closet of cell phones that he's stolen from victims.
- Flyaway Shot: The camera zooms up and away as a desperate Harry kneels in the parking lot next to a dead Eleanor.
- Handshake Refusal: At the murder scene, Agent Wang tries to offer Harry her condolences and extends her hand. Harry, who is enraged at the Bureau for putting Eleanor in harm's way, ignores her.
- Meaningful Background Event: The motorcyclists who kill Eleanor can be seen pulling into the parking lot about two and a half minutes before the shooting.
- Silence of Sadness: No dialogue or ambient sound for the scene at the high school in which Harry breaks the terrible news to Maddie, and takes her to the station. When they arrive, Harry's colleagues are silently glued to the TV screen watching the news of the shooting.
- These Hands Have Killed: In the middle of confessing to the torture of Michael Harris, Sheehan tells Bosch that he is also haunted by killing a bad guy years ago. The shoot was justified, but Sheehan thinks about it every year on the victim's birthday.
- Title Drop: Just a couple of minutes before she is murdered, a depressed Eleanor tells Harry that "past lives just catch up with us."
- Wham Episode: The shocking death of Eleanor.
