Title: "The Sea King"
Directed by: Ernest Dickerson
Written by: Daniel Pyne and Michael Connelly
Air Date: April 21, 2017
Previous: Clear Shot
Next: Ask the Dust
Guest Starring: Sarah Clarke, Paul Calderón, Steven Culp, John Getz, John Marshall Jones, Linda Park
"The Sea King" is the 10th and last episode of the third season of Bosch.
Dobbs pulls ashore on Santa Cruz Island, following the GPS to Woody's loot. Bosch hires another boat, and heads for the island himself, having been led there by brochures Woodrow kept in the SUV he used to surveil Bosch's house. On arrival, Bosch hops onto Dobbs' boat and finds the curved knife used to kill Sharkey, a Pelican case full of cash, Dobbs' fake Canadian passport, and bloodstains. On the island, Dobbs digs out Woody's case full of money.
In the hospital, Edgar watches the surveillance video and listens to Bosch's interview of Rudy Tafero. He comes to a horrible realization.
On the island, darkness has fallen. Bosch puts a glowstick light in a shopping bag as a decoy, then sets a tripwire. When Dobbs trips over the wire, Bosch jumps him, puts him in a sleeper hold, and handcuffs him. They motor back to the mainland where Bosch is met by Billets and the authorities and Dobbs is taken away. Dobbs attempts to feign innocence as to what he was doing, only for Bosch to point out that the blood traces establish Xavi Moreno was on board the ship, which is enough to convict him without a body. Also, Dobbs will be taking the fall for Sharkey's murder, since Moreno was smart enough to hide the murder weapon where it could be found, and there's some dried blood on its internal components that hasn't washed out that has been matched to Sharkey.
Bosch takes Maddie home. She's pissed over him risking his life again. Back home, they are surprised to meet Eleanor, who has returned from Hong Kong. Her marriage with Reggie is in limbo and she says she's coming to Los Angeles to stay.
At headquarters, Bosch is surprised to receive an old yearbook from Caffrey's lawyer. It's a 1970s Malibu prep school yearbook. Bosch discovers that Arno Epperson, his suspect for his mother's murder, was high school buddies with none other than Police Commission president Bradley Walker. He goes back to the hotel where he thinks his mother was murdered, and the proprietor remembers Walker was a rich young party boy who liked to bring hookers there.
Bosch meets Irving and tells him the new theory: Walker used Epperson's "Fox Mitchell" alias to hook up with prostitutes, and was the one who took Marjorie Lowe to the motel and killed her. Irving scoffs but grudgingly agrees to get Bosch Caffrey's original copy of the murder book. Reading it, Bosch reads that Caffrey had a meeting with Walker's father, Bradley Walker Sr., a powerful politician who ran the City Council for decades. This meeting was scrubbed from the official book. Bosch is now convinced that it was actually Walker who killed Majorie, and his father had Caffrey misdirect the investigation. But Caffrey kept a copy of the unsanitized murder book in a safety deposit box, for 17 months. In the 17 months since Bosch stopped seeing Caffrey, he'd been making monthly deposits of $5,000 from an unknown source. Bosch concludes that Caffrey sent him in the wrong direction, while also blackmailing Walker for money in exchange for his silence. Walker eventually tired of the arrangement and had him killed.
Eleanor meets with Jay Griffin. She wants her badge back, but Griffin stalls, saying they need her to do more work first.
Bosch goes to see Jerry Edgar, who has been sent home from the hospital. Edgar confronts Bosch with the Tafero interview, and how Bosch knew the Tafero brothers were driving a Cadillac when Rudy Tafero didn't say so and the car isn't visible in the video. The obvious conclusion to him is that Bosch saw the murder and didn't intervene. Bosch is defiant, but Edgar's trust in him has been broken.
The season ends with the ceremony where Irving is formally appointed chief of police, with Walker pinning the stars on his collar. Irving looks up and is startled to see Harry Bosch in the audience, staring intently.
Tropes:
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Irving getting the stars pinned on his collar as he's officially made chief of police. The moment is undercut when Irving looks up and sees Harry Bosch lurking in the audience.
- Briefcase Full of Money: Bosch opens up one Pelican case full of cash on Dobbs' boat, at the same time that Dobbs is opening up a Pelican case full of cash on the island.
- The Bus Came Back: Eleanor Wish makes her first appearance since Season 2. She's back in LA to stay and her marriage to Reggie is in trouble.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Bradley Walker pops up occasionally in Season 3 in a seemingly unimportant role as the head of the police commission. He's revealed in this episode to be the murderer of Marjorie Lowe as well as the man behind Caffrey's murder.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: Dobbs quietly but dramatically cocking his weapon as he heads towards Bosch's decoy.
- Face Framed in Shadow: The last shot of the season is a dramatic shot of Harry's face in the shadows, as he glares from the audience at Bradley Walker pinning the stars on Irving.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Harry says "We do what we have to do" when justifying his failure to come to Edward Gunn's aid.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Bosch's comment about the Tafero brothers driving up in a Cadillac causes Edgar to realize that Harry was there and watched it happen.
- Murder by Inaction: More or less what Harry did when he let the Tafero brothers attack Edward Gunn, the man that Bosch couldn't bring to justice by legal means.
- Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Edgar does this with the Tafero interview and the security footage, as he realizes the implications of Bosch's comment about the Cadillac.
- Sequel Hook: Two plot threads are left dangling. The Koreatown Killer remains un-caught; in one of the last scenes he bicycles right past an idly smoking Harry Bosch. And the Marjorie Lowe murder is set up as a big arc for Season 4, as Harry realizes that he got the case all wrong and Bradley Walker is the killer.
- Shout-Out: Pretty much the only thing that poor unfortunate Sharkey owned was a paperback copy of Dune.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Half a season ago, Edgar was on the receiving end of one from Harry when Harry thought Edgar was investigating him as a suspect. Now Edgar gets to be the one delivering it as he realizes Harry witnessed the murder of Edward Gunn and didn't say a word.Edgar: Don't you see we can't be like them?
