Title: Copy Cat
Directed by: Ernest Dickerson
Written by: Eric Overmyer and Alex Meenehan
Air Date: April 17, 2020
Previous: Hard Feelings
Next: Dark Sacred Night
Guest Starring: Lynn Collins, Mimi Rogers, Kristen Ariza, Linda Park
"Copy Cat" is the 8th episode of the sixth season of Bosch.
Six weeks have passed. Alicia Kent has a preliminary court hearing, where Honey Chandler argues that Cliff Maxwell's incriminating recording should be suppressed because Alicia didn't consent, and the evidence from the wiretap should be suppressed because Harry Bosch supposedly misled Judge Sobel about his evidence. Heather Strout is in attendance—carrying the backpack that she stitched a Betsy Ross flag onto earlier in the season.
The IT guy gives Bosch the videos that he recovered from Alex Sands's ancient computer. Bosch and Edgar watch the videos, in which an underaged Daisy Clayton enticed men and Sands jumped out of the closet with a camera. Since Alex made the men show their ID, Bosch can start running down names.
One of the names that Bosch runs is one Roger Dillon. A Google search reveals that Dillon runs a crime scene cleaning company, Post-Mortem Cleaners. (He was the one who cleaned up the Craver crime scene.) Harry calls it to Edgar's attention and as they review the crime scene logs, they discover that Dillon cleaned up one of the Backseat Butcher's crime scenes and would have seen the rune.
Later Bosch shows the log to the detective from the Backseat Butcher task force, who agrees that Dillon would have seen everything. He then returns the computer to Alex and shows him a 10-year-old photo of Dillon, who unconvincingly claims to not recognize it.
The Jacques Avril investigation continues as Avril and Hovan meet and agree to the money drop. However, the cops don't know that Hovan has been burned. Dwight Wise for his part marches straight into Avril's Haitian charity and demands to know the names of the people who killed his son.
Soon after, the day of the money drop comes, but no one meets Hovan at the rendezvous. The cops gradually realize that Hovan has been burned, their suspicions confirmed when Jacques Avril himself calls Edgar to his house and reports "Felix Mariama" for the money laundering scheme. Avril also tells Edgar that Winston and Marvel are the ones who killed Marcos and Arias.
Captain Cooper's efforts to screw Billets over gather speed as she gets notification of an IA investigation. Vega makes a sheepish apology to Billets for things getting out of hand. Cooper for his part rather unsubtly pushes Pierce to rat Billets out.
In other plots, Honey Chandler runs into Maddie and tells her that thanks to what Maddie noticed was missing from the files, Dante Crow got a whopping $6.5 million settlement. Scott Anderson, meanwhile, confronts Irving about the embarrassing tape, and tries to blackmail him into hiring him on as a press secretary; Irving blows Anderson off and tells him to give the tape to his editor at the Times. And Elizabeth Clayton, ridden with guilt over her daughter, falls off the wagon, pounding vodka in a bar.
Tropes:
- Blackmail: A mild version of this as Anderson demands a press secretary job in return for burying the tape. Irving refuses.
- Bothering by the Book: Captain Cooper becomes a classic example, coupled with Passive-Aggressive Kombat. Throughout this entire saga, he acts like he doesn't want to push through the harassment complaint, he's just required by regulations, and when called out on it by multiple people he just wrings he hands and claims he's just doing what he's required to do. Nobody actually buys it, and even Pierce, the quintessential By-the-Book Cop, sees through Cooper.
- Honey Pot: Bosch watches the grubby video in which Daisy Clayton and Alex Sands sprung their trap on unsuspecting perverts.
- It's A Small Net After All: Sure enough, a "Roger Dillon" Google search brings up exactly what Harry needs to know.
- Jack the Ripoff: Bosch and Edgar realize that Roger Dillon, who knew the details of the Backseat Butcher's crimes from his job, staged the Daisy Clayton murder to look like the Butcher's work.
- Off the Wagon: Elizabeth Clayton relapses, drinking in a bar.
- Time Skip: Six weeks, to skip the narrative to Alicia Kent's preliminary hearing.
