Title: Hard Feelings
Directed by: Hagar Ben Asher
Written by: Jeffrey Fiskin
Air Date: April 17, 2020
Previous: The Ace Hotel
Next: Copy Cat
Guest Starring: Lynn Collins, Mimi Rogers
"Hard Feelings" is the 7th episode of the sixth season of Bosch.
Honey Chandler arrives for the meeting with Bosch, Edgar, and DDA Kennedy. She formally accepts the plea bargain issued to Alicia Kent, only to be told that the plea has been revoked, after the cops found that highly incriminating audio recording of Alicia and Cliff. Later, Chandler meets with Alicia, who still denies everything and says that she was recorded without her consent. (Unfortunately for Alicia, criminal conspiracy voids the consent rule.)
While this goes on, Bosch and Edgar try to figure out who killed Ben Craver, Maxwell's informant. It turns out that Maxwell outed his own CI, sending Charlie Dax a photo of Maxwell talking to Craver. Eventually, they get a break when the foreign DNA on Craver's shirt is matched to the late Travis Strout. In other words, while Travis was framed for the Kent murder, he did kill Craver after finding out that Craver was a snitch, the DNA being from when he spat on Craver after shooting him dead.
At the memorial party for the late Ryan Rodgers, Barrel talks with Rodgers' daughter Melissa. It turns out that Melissa is pretty bitter towards her father (for neglecting them) and the LAPD (for putting Rodgers on night shift duty at Pacific station, which was the end of his marriage). Melissa found something odd in her father's possessions: a cassette tape of an interview from 1996. Since she doesn't even have a cassette player she gives the tape to Barrel.
The Kent case being closed gives Bosch time to focus fulltime on the murder of Daisy Clayton. Bosch gives Alex's old computer to the police IT techs. Bosch goes back to Elizabeth's apartment and tells her about the badger game that Daisy and Alex were running. Then Bosch talks with the detective who led the Backseat Butcher task force ten years ago. The cop tells Bosch that the Clayton case was assumed to be the work of the Butcher because of the rune written in blood on the wall, which was the Butcher's way of signing his kills. But it turns out the Backseat Butcher was in jail the night Daisy was killed, meaning that the killer was likely a copycat, and how the copycat knew about the rune is a mystery.
Edgar's investigation into Jacques Avril is also ongoing. Dwight Wise complains that his son's murder has been forgotten now that the cops are looking into the murders of Marcos and Arias, but Edgar says to trust in Charlie Hovan's DEA infiltration. Edgar and Hovan then lean on Winston, Hovan's CI, to find out who killed Marcos and Arias—but they don't know that it was Winston himself. Winston, caught with no exit, then goes to Avril and reveals that Hovan is a DEA undercover agent.
Barrel listens to the 1996 tape and discovers that it's a recording of Rodgers grilling one Justin "Beto" Frank, then a police cadet. Beto, who is now a Sergeant in Hollenback Division, went riding with some friends who chose that moment to engage in a drive-by shooting. Beto's career was finished, and he was facing prison time, when Irving, then a lieutenant, shut down the interview. Barrel is well aware that back in 1996 Beto's father, Bill Frank, was a Deputy Chief, and that Irving got put on the command track soon after the interview. Barrel, well aware of the damage the tape could do to Irving's campaign, reluctantly gives it back to Melissa Rodgers after meeting with Beto to get his side of the story. In other campaign news, Irving's campaign manager gets Honey Chandler to give Irving her endorsement.
Meanwhile, Heather Strout is up to illegal activities. Someone in her underground internet chatroom says that she can trust "the courier" and that she'll "have time to get away." Later, Heather talks with her brother-in-law Waylon and heavily implies that she's going to take some sort of revenge against the FBI.
In other plots, Pierce, Mr. By-the-Book-Cop, tells Captain Cooper about Vega complaining about Billets's touchy-feely habits. Cooper then grills Vega, who says it was nothing, but Cooper then starts leafing through LAPD sexual harassment policy. And Maddie Bosch quits her intern job with Honey Chandler, feeling a conflict of interest so long as Chandler is defending Alicia Kent.
Tropes:
- By-the-Book Cop: Pierce betrays his partner's confidence and tells about Vega's complaints to Cooper, because the regulations say he has to.
- Institutional Allegiance Concealment: Hovan's infiltration of Jacques Avril's operation is ruined when Winston, who after all is not about to expose himself as a Cop Killer, chooses to burn him to Avril.
- Jack the Ripoff: It turns out that whoever killed Daisy Clayton copied the rune in order to make the police think she was a victim of the Backseat Butcher. The question is who, as the task force cop insists that he vetted his team and nobody on the outside knew about the rune.
- Match Cut:
- There's a match cut between Chandler taking notes as she interviews Alicia Kent, and Barrel doing the Crossword Puzzle as he lurks, waiting to get a DNA sample from Charlie Dax.
- Another match cut between Liz chopping onions in an agitated manner as Bosch chats in her kitchen, to Barrel typing on a keyboard as he searches about Beto Frank.
- Sarcasm Mode: Edgar and Bosch are sitting at Kennedy's desk when Honey Chandler enters the room. When all they do is eyeball her she snarks "Please, don't stand on my account."
- Shout-Out: Barrel, previously established as The Movie Buff, puts on a Robert Mitchum flick at home.
