Title: Sabes Demasiado
Directed by: Alex Zakrzewski
Written by: Jeffrey Alan Fiskin
Air Date: June 25, 2021
Previous: The Dog You Feed
Next: Triple Play
Guest Starring: Linda Park, Reed Diamond, Vanessa Born, Bess Armstrong
"Sabes Demasiado" is the third episode in the seventh and final season of Bosch.
The man who seemed to be representing la Eme (Mexican mafia) is actually wearing a wire as he harshly interrogates Pedro Alvarez in the cell. Bosch, Edgar, and Collins watch from a video feed. Alvarez is visibly frightened by his cellmate but refuses to name anyone in Las Palmas as ordering the fire. He claims that he had no intention of hurting anyone. He says it was La Mayorista’s idea but then claims she did not give the order. Alvarez will definitively not assign the order to anyone else.
Collins has some intel on where La Mayorista may be. Armed with a search warrant, Bosch, Edgar, and Officers Hunter and Morgan swoop in as she's leaving the place. Gladys claims to be house sitting for a friend. While on the street, Officer Hunter searches Gladys’ purse and finds a handgun, which she claims is legal.
Bosch and the two uniforms search the apartment while Edgar holds Gladys out in the hall. They uncover another gun and some drugs. When Bosch returns to the hall, Gladys is talking with another woman while Edgar is distracted on his phone. Edgar says he was working out logistics for the boys with LaTonya, which does not go over well with Bosch, who fears that Gladys took advantage of Edgar not understanding Spanish to get word on to her lawyer.
As a precaution, Bosch shuts Edgar out of the interrogation of Gladys and asks Spanish-speaking Vega to join him instead. Gladys reveals nothing and then, sure enough, as Bosch feared, her lawyer arrives demanding her release. But the detectives have enough probable cause to keep La Mayorista locked up at Van Nuys for the weekend. Vega gives Gladys her card, should she have a change of heart and decide she wants to provide them with information.
At City Hall, Irving has a short debrief with Lopez at her office about the case. Lopez pledges her support in finding the killers. The mayor emphasizes that the people want closure. She inquires about Irv's lunch with Francis Alexander in the previous episode. Irv admits that Francis is a longtime friend. Lopez mentions Francis stepping down (on account of his cancer diagnosis), and Irving feigns ignorance about the subject. Later, Lopez holds a press conference demanding that Irving find those behind the arson. She looks into the camera and condemns Irving, saying he “must do better” and that it is “time for change”. Irving is not happy about this provocation, so he reaches out to an old friend of his, Sgt. Cletus Brown, and offers him a “special assignment” to serve as Lopez's driver and find dirt on her.
At Hollywood Division, Billets confides in Mank about the homophobic slur written on her car. He agrees that it looks like the work of another cop. He promises to investigate it discreetly, but is shocked and concerned when Billets counters that she has already reported the vandalism, and filed a 128 to get an Internal Affairs investigation opened. Lieutenant Thorne is pissed at Billets for filing the complaint against his patrol officers. But Billets points out that she never said it was one of his officers who were involved, meaning that the complaint must have merit. Cooper's not happy either about Billets going outside the chain of command. Suspiciously, he neglects to show concern for Billets until she points out that he only said he felt bad about the damage to her car.
Later, Billets gets some interesting information from officers Hunter and Lloyd. Apparently, Officers Leonard and Norris are problematic officers. Hunter and Lloyd recently had to deal with those two officers ghosting them when they put out a help call for what was feared to be a dicey gang situation. While they tried raising a fuss with Lt. Thorne, nothing came of it.
Honey Chandler has her work cut out for working for Franzen. Not only is he a fraud, he's also pretty uncooperative. Chandler takes him to a safehouse in Beachwood Canyon where he can hide away from the media and any potential arrest for new charges (the first wave of media about his case, combined with the relatively light bail he got, has led to a bunch of new victims coming forward). It is a beautiful cottage packed with all the essentials he needs to stay put for a few days. She gives Franzen a burner phone to call her...but only if he needs something. He is not to call anyone else or bring anyone inside the home, not even food delivery, because Chandler can't take any chances. He suggests she does not trust him when she makes him surrender his personal phone.
Honey meets with Burton Devore, an investigator from the SEC, to inform him that Franzen has information to trade. Franzen then joins Honey at her office to rehearse his testimony about the insider trading scheme. Maddie runs the camera as Miller, who would normally be doing this, is out sick. After recording the testimony, Chandler has Maddie make copies of the video, one for Franzen and one for Chandler. As Franzen leaves the room, he tries to act all fatherly, telling Maddie to learn all she can from Chandler. He then pats her on the arm a little too long and leaves.
Of course, Franzen fails to comply with Chandler's request to lay low and not reach out to anyone. He contacts his mistress, Alessandra Dowd, who arrives by a car service. Franzen hushes her while he answers the door for Maddie, as she stops by the house to drop off paperwork, a thumbdrive with his video testimony, and a laptop to watch the video. As Maddie returns to her car, and noting that Franzen did not even say “thank you”, we see someone watching the house from another car parked across the street.
Antonio joins Maddie and Harry at the Bosch house for dinner. As a pediatric nurse, he talks about the pain of losing patients at the Children’s Hospital. Antonio asks Harry about the pain he experiences with homicide victims. He wants to know if it “ever get[s] any easier”. Harry is quick to say no. He goes on to talk about Sonia, not just as “Little Tamale Girl” (like the press are nicknaming her), but as a real person who enjoyed life, did well in school and loved her parents.
The following day, Bosch and Edgar drive to Sonia and her mother’s funeral. The homicide partners watch the funeral from a distance with Detective Collins. Mickey Pena of Los Palmas is there. Collins points out that Pena purchased the lavish cross flower arrangement. Bosch walks away, telling Collins and Edgar that he is going to “rattle [Pena’s] chain”. Pena replies he has no problem sleeping and curses at Bosch.
Collins, Bosch, and Edgar go for tacos after the funeral. Bosch assures Collins that they are monitoring any phone calls from La Mayorista and Alvarez in their respective jails. Edgar gets a call and says he must leave for an appointment with Dr. Garcia as part of his therapy. He lies, claiming to be doing well, and denies that he's self-medicating or has insomnia or depression.
As La Mayorista walks to her cell, a fellow prisoner quietly tells her, “You know too much.” Gladys looks nervous. Sometime later, she decides to swallow her pride and make the call to Vega. The same woman who told her she knows too much stares at Gladys in the phone line as she makes the call, but only gets Vega’s voicemail and hangs up. Shortly thereafter, Gladys is killed in her cell when someone slits her throat, meaning there's no chance of her providing more information.
Tropes
- Call-Back:
- Harry taking the “befores”, photos taken before the search of La Mayorista's residence, invokes the non-matching before and after photos at the Danielle Skylar crime scene in season 5.
- With Pierce considering applying for a D2 spot, Billets cautions him on the difficulty of the orals section. This was the section that Billets struggled with on her Captain’s exam in season 3.
- Coincidental Broadcast: Justified in that Jun Park calls Irving and tells him to turn on the TV, which is how Irving turns the TV on just in time to catch the mayor making unflattering comments about him at a press conference.
- Dies Wide Open: How Gladys meets her end, in a pool of blood on the floor of her cell.
- The Faceless: Somebody knows where Vincent Franzen is hiding and is watching the safehouse, but all the viewer sees is a hand tapping a steering wheel.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Lt. Thorne says that if Billets thought the obscene message on her car was written by his officers, she should have come to him. She points out she never told IA it was one of Thorne's officers, which brings him up short.
- The Infiltration: The gangbanger who tries to get Alvarez to tell who gave the order for the firebombing, is actually a cop wearing a wire.
- Internal Affairs: Billets makes a 128 report to IA about the obscene message painted on her car. Cooper and Thorne are pissed.
- The Mistress: Vincent Franzen has one, and he invites her to the safe house where he's hiding, against Chandler's strict orders.
- The Shrink: Jerry makes his last visit to the shrink he has to see about the Avril shooting. He lies to Dr. Garcia that his life is going just fine, and that he is not self-medicating and things are going great with his ex-wife.
- Title Drop: Another inmate says "Sabes demasiado"—"You know too much"—to Gladys as Gladys is passing down the hall. Sure enough Gladys is killed at the end of the episode.
