Title: The Dog You Feed
Directed by: Patrick Cady
Written by: Eric Ellis Overmeyer
Air Date: June 25, 2021
Previous: Brazen
Next: Sabes Demasiado
Guest Starring: Linda Park, Reed Diamond, Vanessa Born
"The Dog You Feed" is the second episode in the seventh and final season of Bosch.
Jerry continues to make some bad choices personally as well as ones that can be damaging to the case. Harry is working long hours while Jerry visits a strip club. Edgar arrives to work smelling like smoke and debauchery. Harry scolds him again as Jerry dons the extra shirt and tie from his desk drawer. Later, Jerry appears to be dozing off in the car but claims to just be “resting [his] eyes”. Harry turns up the music to wake him up. At home, he's not exactly father of the year to his kids either, with LaTonya refusing to let him spend time with Joe and Jack after ghosting them for the past few days.
Eventually, Edgar makes a visit to Mama Roux at the pawn shop. She offers him some words of encouragement and gives him a package of tea. While at the shop, another customer who remembers Avril's crimes from the old country sees Edgar and praises him for killing the ruthless drug lord, much to Edgar's discomfort. By the end of the episode, Edgar is seen sitting in his car outside Avril’s old house, drinking out of a paper bag. When he's caught by patrol officers, he flashes his badge and lies about why he's there, convincing the officers to let him go.
The arson investigation continues as Collins gives Harry files on Miguel Pena, Emmanuel Trejo, and Gladys Rodriguez aka "La Mayorista", the big players involved in the drug game in that part of East Hollywood.
Bosch and Edgar later meet with the apartment building owner, who downplays her attempts to push tenants out. It's clear that her agenda is gentrifying the neighborhood, and she doesn't seem all that sincere when saying she's sorry about the death of Sonia. She also tries to play both sides when Harry asks her about a tenant whose grandson was dealing drugs from her apartment. The grandmother is being punished for her grandson’s crimes. Basically, the police are being called to address the drugs and the tenants are being accused of being troublemakers because the police are there. The tenants are the ones who suffer the most.
A break comes when Crate and Barrel identify the SUV used to deliver the firebomb. Bosch and Edgar then go meet with the owner of the car, who says she was attending a seance at the Magic Castle and had parked her car with the valet. She didn't let anyone use her car, although she recalls the car smelling odd afterwards. The detectives impound the car for evidence.
The valet manager at the Magic Castle refuses to believe that any of his drivers would take the car off property for even a few hours, but Bosch and Edgar take the names of the workers anyways. One of them, Russell Barnes, turns out to be an ex-Crip and former car thief out on parole. While he claims he is out of the criminal life and that he did not park that car, pressure from Edgar about Russell’s prints being in the car leads him to admit that two men named Lil' Tre Tre (Trejo) and Zorro (real name Pedro Alvarez) paid him to let them “borrow” the car for a personal fee.
Sure enough, these two guys' names are in the database, and come through as the detectives learn that the gasoline in the car matches the accelerant used in the fire, and find fingerprints in the car belonging to both men. The police proceed to raid a Las Palmas hangout to arrest them. Bosch's arrest of Alvarez is without incident, but as Edgar tries to handcuff Trejo, Trejo refuses and starts antagonizing him, which escalates into a physical altercation. The ruckus gains the attention of neighbors, who videotape the whole thing as Trejo shouts about “police brutality”. Edgar gets Trejo in the car and stares him down while some bystanders throw bottles at the car.
With the two bombers in custody, Bosch is convinced Alvarez is the likelier one to talk as he is a lower ranking enforcer while Trejo is a high-ranking shot caller. So, they are going to keep him in a cell for the night and “give him time to marinate”. As Alvarez settles into his cell he watches fearfully as his cellmate rolls up his sleeves to reveal what appear to be telltale tattoos of la Eme.
Gladys Rodriguez confronts Mickey Pena at a bar. She demands to know if Las Palmas are behind the fire. Pena denies any involvement. La Mayorista insists that he figure out who set the fire. She points out that she cannot run a drug business while the police are poking around. Furthermore, she threatens to take her business elsewhere if he does not take care of the situation. When Gladys gets wind of the arrests of Trejo and Alvarez, she calls Pena from her limousine. Again, Pena denies their involvement and says she can trust him. Then La Mayorista refers to Pena by name. He swiftly reminds her not to use real names. She hangs up, calls Pena a liar, and then tosses the phone out the car window.
Meanwhile, Vincent Franzen is a real piece of work as far as clients go for Chandler. When Chandler informs him that his bail may be set at around $2 million, he shrugs it off as something that he can easily pay, and complains about how poorly he slept while in jail. While preparing for Franzen's bail hearing, Honey encounters J. Reason Fowkkes (Andrew Holland's crooked attorney from season 3) hanging out in the courtroom on a Busman's Holiday. Fowkkes applauds Chandler for getting Franzen as a client. She tells him it is the other way around, and Franzen is lucky to have retained her given the scope of the charges he's facing. His bail is set at $1.5 million, despite ADA Tegan Boyle’s objections that Franzen is a flight risk.
Upon being released, Franzen meets with Honey at her office. He sets some ground rules: first, he can't do jail time, and he balks at the idea of paying restitution to his victims. He's more than happy to throw all his co-conspirators aside to save himself. Honey eventually points out that, if Franzen doesn't want to see the inside of jail, he's going to have to offer something for her to use as a bargaining chip. Here Franzen does have an idea: he has knowledge of a massive insider trading scheme worth about $2 billion, which he has no personal involvement in, but has lots of firsthand knowledge of. As he notes, this will involve getting the SEC on board.
Irving meets with one of the Police Commissioners, Francis Alexander, about rumors of him resigning from the board. Irv tries to persuade Francis to stay long enough to make sure he gets approved for a second term. Irv feels certain that Mayor Lopez wants Irving to be replaced by a Latino chief. Sadly, Alexander reveals that he's dying from stage 4 pancreatic cancer and has chosen to step down so he can spend what little time he has left with his family.
That evening, Irving accosts Jen Kowski as she leaves a meeting about the Hispanic Heritage Fiesta. Irving suggests Jen enter into a quid pro quo arrangement with him. She thinks he is trying to bribe her, but he assures her that he is just requesting a favor now in exchange for a later one, to make sure Alexander's replacement will be someone who will vote Irving's way. Jen reminds Irving that he blindsided her when he dropped out of the mayoral race and that maybe Lopez does not trust him either. With the odds stacked against him, Irving considers not even pursuing a second term, and focus on his infant son’s health as a preemie.
At Hollywood Division, Billets attends a patrol meeting lead by Lt. Thorne. She reminds the patrol officers that they cannot miss court cases that fall on their off days. Two officers in the back row, James Leonard and Clyde Norris, mouth off, complaining that detectives get all the glory even though patrol does so much of the groundwork. Billets swiftly agrees that detectives do get the notoriety and that the officers present would also be able to do so if they stepped up. Sometime later, Billets finds homophobic slurs written on her car window. She tells Anne about the vandalism at lunch, suspecting that a cop was behind it, based on the white shoe polish and capital letters used for the writing. Anne implores Billets to report the incident.
Tropes:
- Bad to the Last Drop: When Pierce brings Vega coffee from outside, she thanks him. He then complains about the police station coffee.
- Bikini Bar: Bosch has shown nudity in previous seasons, even nudity in a strip club, but for some reason it's a Bikini Bar where Jerry goes to drink and then go into the back room with a stripper.
- The Bus Came Back: J. Reason Fowkkes, last seen way back in Season 3 when he was defending Andrew Holland, is in court when Vincent Franzen has his bail hearing.
- Call-Back:
- Jerry Edgar uses the spare shirt he keeps in his desk drawer. Harry borrowed this in season 4 when Eleanor was killed.
- Pierce complains about the station coffee when he brings in good coffee for himself and Vega from elsewhere.
- Jerry says, “just resting my eyes” when he seems to be nodding off in the car. Crate used this same excuse when he was supposed to be listening to the Alicia Kent wiretap in season 6.
- The vehicle used in the arson fire was parked by valet service for The Magic Castle club. “The Magic Castle” was the name of episode 9 in season 1 but referred instead to Raynard Waits’ lair.
- Jerry uses the phrase “goes where it goes” when talking to Russell Barnes, invoking a similar conversation between Bosch and Chief Irving in season 4 at the site of Howard Elias’ murder. Many were suspicious of RHD playing a role in this murder. Bosch asked, “If this goes where the public thinks it goes?” and Chief Irving replied, “That’s my concern. You just follow the evidence. Let the chips fall where they may.”
- Crocodile Tears: Bosch uses this exact phrase when the property manager says they're sorry about the death of little Sonia Hernandez.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Franzen claims he knows of a massive insider trading scheme and will testify against the perpetrator in exchange for avoiding jail time. This seems to evoke shades of how the college admissions bribery scandal
was uncovered, as that was exposed thanks to someone on trial for an unrelated pump and dump scheme giving up information on the scheme. - Mythology Gag: "The dog you feed" is Arc Words from Harry Bosch novel Echo Park, which was adapted for Season 1 of Bosch, not this season.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Irving appeals to Francis Alexander, his friend and ally on the police commission, only to find out there's a pretty good reason Francis is resigning: he has stage IV pancreatic cancer.
