Title: The Overlook
Directed by: Daisy von Scherler Mayer
Written by: Eric Ellis Overmyer and Tom Bernardo
Air Date: April 17, 2020
Previous: Creep Signed His Kill
Next: Good People on Both Sides
Guest Starring: Lynn Collins, Julie Ann Emery, MC Gainey, Mimi Rogers, Linda Park
"The Overlook" is the 1st episode of the sixth season of Bosch. It is based on Michael Connelly novels The Overlook and Dark Sacred Night.
It has been eleven months since the end of Season 5. The season opens with one Stanley Kent, who is a medical technician at St. Agatha's Hospital, picking up a metal container (later identified as a "pig") containing radioactive material. Stanley is acting under duress. He goes to an overlook on Mulholland Drive where another car arrives, driven by a masked gunman. The gunman forces Stanley to his knees, opens the trunk—and the pig is not there. When the gunman points his gun at Stanley, Stanley says that first he has to know if his wife Alicia is all right.
Cut to Harry Bosch, still sifting through the files of the Daisy Clayton cold case. He and Edgar are called to the overlook, where they do in fact find the body of Stanley Kent, shot twice in the head. Pierce and Vega, the first officers on the scene, follow Stanley's ID badge to St. Agatha's hospital, and they find that a whole bunch of cesium used in cancer treatments is missing. Bosch and Edgar, meanwhile, go to the Kent home and find Alicia Kent bound and gagged in her bedroom. After they free her, she tells them that two masked men entered her home and demanded her cell phone and password. On her cell phone, still in the garage, are the texts to Stanley Kent demanding the cesium. The only other thing she can tell them is that one of her attackers had the number "308" tattooed on his wrist.
Enter the FBI, in the persons of Special Agent in Charge Jack Brenner, and Agents Clifford Maxwell and Sylvia Reece. The danger is clear. Radioactive material such as cesium can be used to make a "dirty" bomb that can be exploded to spread contamination over a wide area. Anyplace in the city (Dodger Stadium and City Hall are suggestions) could be made uninhabitable for up to 300 years.
An LAPD detective clues Bosch and Edgar in to what "308" means; it's an obscure piece of federal code related to the "sovereign citizen movement
". So-called "sovereign citizens" believe that they are not subject to federal or state laws.
Meanwhile, Jerry Edgar is still pursuing Marcos and Arias, the dirty cops who got his informant, Gary Wise, killed back in Season 5. He is on an IA stakeout watching Marcos and Arias when he's called out to the Overlook. Marcos and Arias sniff out the investigation, call a meeting with their contacts in Avril's crew, John Winston and Robert Marvel, and tell them that they're going to have to dial back on criminal activities for a while (not knowing that Dwight Wise is secretly photographing them). This turns out to be a bad idea, as that night, Winston and Marvel ambush and execute Marcos and Arias in their car.
Maddie is interning at Honey Chandler's law firm. In her spare time, she's dating Antonio, a handsome nurse at a pediatric hospital.
Irvin Irving's campaign for mayor continues. His campaign manager matches him up with one Ray Thacker, a much sought-after fundraiser. Irving insists that he won't be beholden to any donors. And Irvin's girlfriend, Jun, is pregnant.
Tropes:
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Kent is shot twice in the back of the head execution-style
- Marcos and Arias are killed with single shots at point-blank range.
- Bound and Gagged: Bosch and Edgar find Alicia Kent bound and gagged in her bedroom.
- The Bus Came Back: Bosch's old partner Rodgers (MC Gainey) shows up as a contributor to Irving's campaign. He'll pop up again later in the season.
- Continuity Nod: Stanley Kent is found dead at the very same overlook where Bosch and Pierce, then a patrolman, found a suicide victim way back in the pilot. Pierce tells Vega about the case.
- Dirty Cop: Marcos and Arias the dirty cops return for season 2, just long enough to get murdered by the Jamaicans, complicating the investigation into the Gary Wise murder.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: The masked gunman cocks his gun when demanding that Stanley Kent hand over the cesium.
- Eye Scream: Marvel's bullet for Arias blows out his left eye
- Foreshadowing: When Barrel is wheedling info out of the "sovereign" guy in the park, the sovereign guy says that they have some cops in their movement. In fact they do, and this will prove crucial in the last episode of the season.
- Internal Affairs: Another sympathetic portrait of IA, as Edgar is working with them to nail Marcos and Arias.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Bosch and the FBI lock horns, with Bosch telling Special Agent Brenner, "This you bigfooting my case in the name of national security?"
- One Drink Will Kill the Baby: How Jun lets Irving know that she's pregnant, by refusing a drink.
- Time Skip: Eleven months since Season 5.
- Western Terrorists: The FBI thinks that the sovereigns have become this.
