Title: Brazen
Directed by: Alex Zakrzewski
Written by: Eric Ellis Overmeyer
Air Date: June 25, 2021
Previous: Some Measure of Justice
Next: The Dog You Feed
Guest Starring: Bess Armstrong, Eric Ladin, Linda Park, Reed Diamond
"Brazen" is the first episode in the seventh and final season of Bosch.
The story opens on New Year's Eve 2019, four months after the end of Season 6. Maddie is still dating Antonio and interning for Honey Chandler. Bosch, it turns out, is dating Judge Donna Sobel. Edgar is a mess, drinking heavily, his job performance suffering, as he is wracked with guilt after murdering Jacques Avril in the Season 6 finale.
On the way home from a New Year's party, Harry has to turn down Donna's invitation to come upstairs for sex, because he gets a call. Someone driving by an apartment building not long after the stroke of midnight threw a Molotov cocktail through a window and into the manager's apartment. Four people were killed: manager Eduardo Rojas, an upstairs neighbor, the neighbor's friend, and the neighbor's daughter, Sonia Hernandez, who died of smoke inhalation when she was trapped behind a fire door that was illegally locked.
Edgar does not make the initial call because he was passed out drunk on his couch, and the next morning he and Bosch argue about this. Together, they interview another neighbor in the apartment building, who tells them that he believes the crime is connected to a female crime boss, La Mayorista, who runs a drug gang. Rojas was working on behalf of the property management company that runs the building, trying to chase the drug dealers out, and the firebombing may have been La Mayorista's revenge. Later, Crate and Barrel get a lead, finding the last three numbers of the plate on the firebombers' SUV, on a security video.
A detective on the gang unit tells Bosch and Edgar that the Las Palmas 13 gang operates in that neighborhood and "La Mayorista", aka Gladys Rodriguez, is their drug supplier. He also believes that the firebombing was in response to Rojas trying to keep drug dealers out. A visit to the property management company confirms that Rojas was trying to clear the drug dealers out. The property management company denies responsibility for the locked fire door.
In other news, Chief Irvin Irving's wife Jun Park delivered their baby—very prematurely. The baby is alive but being kept in intensive care. Irving's professional career is having difficulties as well: new mayor Susanna Lopez is on the outs with him, even though Irving threw his endorsement to her after he dropped out of the campaign himself. Edgar gets off with a slap on the wrist for shooting Jacques Avril, but Detective Lang of the Force Investigation Division, the initial investigator, doesn't accept Edgar's mild punishment. And Honey Chandler has a new client, a Ponzi schemer named Vincent Franzen who swindled millions of dollars and is now scared to spend a night in jail.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: When Bosch is a no-show for Honey Chandler's big New Year's party, she says that his idea of a fun time is to "curl up with a murder book." Soon after the show cuts to a scene of Harry at a jazz club, seeing in the new year with Donna.
- The Cameo: Cmdr. Cory Palka of the LAPD appears at Lt. Billets' New Year party as himself. (Palka made headlines for kneeling with protesters six months after the time frame of this show, following the murder of George Floyd.)
- Celebrity Paradox: Detective Collins describes Gladys Rodriguez as "a female Stringer Bell." Jerry Edgar immediately gets the reference since he's binged The Wire, but doesn't comment on the fact that Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) looks exactly like him, Marlo's lieutenant Monk Metcalf (Kwame Patterson) resembles Jerry's late informant Gary Wise from season 5, and Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick) looks just like Chief Irving. Presumably Bosch has noticed that and the fact that Ziggy Sobotka (James Ransome) looks a lot like Eddie Arceneaux from season 2.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Edgar is smoking as well as drinking as he wrestles with guilt. The smoking is a new development, and Harry smells cigarette smoke on him the next morning.
- Death of a Child: The apartment firebombing draws extra attention from the press due to the death of a little girl, Sonia Hernandez, dubbed the "Little Tamale Girl" because she was delivering tamales to a neighbor right before the bombing.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Edgar spends the new year at his home, drinking until he passes out, refusing two different invitations to come to parties. He's unable to get past how he shot Jacques Avril in cold blood instead of letting Avril surrender.
- Molotov Cocktail: A gangbanger jumps out of an SUV and throws a Molotov cocktail through the apartment manager's window, killing the manager and three other people.
- New Year Has Come: Season 7 of Bosch kicks off with most of the cast at parties for New Year's 2019-2020, while four people are killed in a firebombing soon after the stroke of midnight.
- Office Romance: It turns out that since season 6 ended, Bosch is now in a relationship with Judge Sobel.
- Orphaned Punchline: Barrel tells his classic "hunter raped by a bear" joke at Billets's New Year party that ends with "...and the bear says, 'You don't come here to hunt, do you?". The others roll their eyes and observe that Barrel tells that same joke every new year.
- Ponzi: Honey's client Vincent Franzen was operating a Ponzi scheme revolving around gold bullion. Franzen spray painted blocks of balsa wood gold and passed them off as gold bricks as part of his scheme.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Mimi Rogers (Honey Chandler) is officially declared a regular and joins the opening titles for Season 7.
- Tempting Fate: "Here's to a happy and prosperous 2020!"
- Villainous Gentrification: The property management company that now owns the firebombed apartment complex is trying to push out all the low-income Latino residents, and is using the drug gang excuse to do it.
- We Used to Be Friends: Irving's former campaign manager, Jen Kowski, now works for Mayor Lopez, but she is still pissed at Irving for dropping out of the race. When she gives him the cold shoulder at the firebombing press conference, Irving says "Oh Jen, still?".
