Title: "The Coping"
Directed by: Alex Zakrzewski
Written by: Jeffrey Alan Fiskin
Air Date: April 13, 2018
Previous: Past Lives
Next: The Wine of Youth
Guest Starring: Paul Calderón, John Getz, Winter Ave Zoli, Linda Park
"The Coping" is the 5th episode of the fourth season of Bosch.
Maddie insists on going to school the day after her mother's death, and Harry reluctantly lets her.
Sheehan is on the run in Los Angeles. He calls Harry from a pay phone and tells Harry that he'll be coming in, but not yet. Lincoln and Snyder tail Terry Drake in hopes that Drake will lead them to his colleague. They follow Drake to a pawnshop, where he pawns a laptop. When they get back, Robertson tells them that they made a mistake ending their surveillance there and then: Drake is a technophobe, so the pawnshop was a drop point. A frustrated Snyder goes back to the pawnshop and finds out that Sheehan was there a half-hour later.
Harry goes back to the scene of Eleanor's murder. He sees the Citibank across the street and notices that its security cameras got a view of the shooters as they were driving through the parking lot. The two men on the motorcycle had helmets, but the shooter has long flowing hair that hung out from his helmet.
Bosch has to go to Bradley Walker's mansion right afterwards to take an incident report, as Walker's driver has reported that his gun was stolen on Friday night while Walker was at his fundraiser at the Biltmore. Walker takes the opportunity to quiz Bosch about the hunt for Sheehan.
When Bosch goes to the high school to pick up Maddie, she is already gone. Bosch starts to panic, but through Phil Gentry's daughter, he tracks her down. It turns out that she left school in the company of Ky Hartman, a member of the track team who offered her sympathy. Harry winds up honoring Maddie's wish, and taking her to the morgue to see her mother's body.
Lincoln goes to the Elias autopsy (against her will) and takes custody of the bullet retrieved from Elias' rectum. Pierce is screening the video, trying to figure out where the first bullet, the one that passed completely through Elias, might have gone.
Jerry Edgar, who took possession of Eleanor's cell phone from Harry, finds the video that she took the night of the illegal poker game. Back home, Maddie asks Harry if it ever stops hurting, and he tells her that it doesn't, that "closure's a myth."
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Walker's lost gun is going to become crucial in the future.
- Snyder complains that she lost her ID. That will be crucial to the plot in later episodes.
- The locator app that Maddie reminds Harry of will become critical later.
- Continuity Nod: Robertson meets Drake at the Smog Cutter, which was Edward Gunn's Local Hangout and which gave its name to the Season 3 premiere "The Smog Cutter".
- Flashback: Eleanor's death leads Harry to remember when he heard about his mother's death. He was in the swimming pool at the youth hall. After the cop showed up Harry dove to the bottom, and nearly drowned had the cop not dove in to pull him out.
- Local Hangout: The Smog Cutter has become this for Robertson. His ugly argument with Drake ends with Robertson yelling "Stay out of my bar!"
- Orbital Shot: The camera does a full circle around Harry Bosch as he stands in the Du-par's parking lot and contemplates the scene.
- Shower of Angst: Maddie Bosch isn't even in the shower. She's sitting on the floor next to the bathtub, with a hollow look in her eyes, as the shower runs.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: The empty stare in Maddie's eyes in her father's bathroom, the morning after Eleanor's murder.
