Title: Good People on Both Sides
Directed by: Alex Zakrzewski
Written by: Daniel Pyne
Air Date: April 17, 2020
Previous: The Overlook
Next: Three Widows
Guest Starring: Lynn Collins, Julie Ann Emery
"Good People on Both Sides" is the 2nd episode of the sixth season of Bosch.
Cooperation between the LAPD and FBI on the Kent case is grudging. At a meeting, Chief Irving calls the feds out for not sharing info on the "sovereign citizens" of the 308 group. SAC Brenner tells his people to cooperate and agrees to provide access to Alicia Kent, currently being held in protective custody by the FBI. On the second go-round Alicia tells the detectives that Stanley Kent owned a gun... and when they go looking in the garage, Bosch and Edgar find the gun missing.
Agent Maxwell of the FBI provides some intel from his source, Ben Craver, who is part of the 308 group. Their leader is a fellow named Travis Strout. Also in the group are Travis's brother Waylon, Travis's wife Heather, and her brother Charlie Dax. The cops and feds form a plan in which they will take Waylon in on an outstanding warrant for failure to pay child support, and use that leverage to get him to cooperate.
Everyone goes to the Strout residence. Travis Strout pulls up in a truck as Bosch is talking to Waylon. Maxwell intercedes with alpha-male aggressiveness, a confrontation ensues, and Travis pulls a gun and begins shooting. Officer Powers is hit in the hip and wounded before Maxwell and Bosch fire back, killing Travis. Searching the Strout house, Bosch finds a large cache of guns in the attic, which includes a small-caliber pistol that could be good for the Stanley Kent murder. A little later, the cops go to the Strout family business, an auto shop, and find Alicia Kent's car.
Both Waylon and Heather Strout, at the police station, say that they were with Travis at the time of the Kent murder. Cliff Maxwell's overaggressive questioning leads Waylon to clam up and demand a lawyer. The cesium is still missing, but the gun found at the Strout place is confirmed to be the Kent murder weapon—and to also be Stanley Kent's missing gun.
Bosch remains dissatisfied and Maxwell grudgingly agrees to let him and Edgar talk to Craver, the CI. They go to Craver's apartment and find him lying on the floor, murdered.
Edgar is still pursuing his Gary Wise investigation, which has now expanded to include the murders of Marcos and Arias. He discovers from the IA cops on the investigation that Gary Wise's father Dwight has been tailing Marcos and Arias. Dwight admits it and tips off Edgar to a particular restaurant/club where the dirty cops were accustomed to meeting Jacques Avril. Edgar stakes out the nightclub and confronts Jacques Avril, and tells Avril that he knows Avril's father wasn't the one who murdered Edgar's uncle in Haiti.
Back in Honey Chandler's office, intern Madeline Bosch is reviewing the records in the wrongful conviction case of Chandler's client Dante Crow. She discovers that the DA entered into a plea deal with one of the witnesses in the Crow case—one which was not entered into the record.
In other news, Detective Vega is getting annoyed by Lt. Billets' touchy-feely habits with both herself and Pierce. And Crate and Barrel, still stuck doing CAPs, have to deal again with Hobbs the wacky panhandler, who apparently was panhandling in the nude.
Tropes:
- Anticlimax: The last episode of Season Five seemed to be setting up a Sequel Hook, when Pierce and Vega find a suitcase full of missing limbs in an alley, followed by a severed head in the abandoned building next to the alley. Yet in this episode the audience learns that the body parts investigation is already over, that the LAPD arrested a suspect and said suspect is currently on trial.
- Cowboy Cop: Maxwell inserting himself into the serving of a warrant on Waylon Strout in an aggressive, cowboyish way, when they'd agreed to let the LAPD lead, provokes the shootout. Bosch, who is furious about Travis Strout getting killed before he could be questioned, says Maxwell went in "too fast, too fuckin' hard."
- Dies Wide Open: The unfortunate Ben Craver, found on the floor of his kitchen, eyes wide and staring.
- The Informant: Ben Craver is a CI for Maxwell. It doesn't work out for him.
- Match Cut: From a shot of Dwight Wise's photo of the nightclub, to the next scene and a camera shot of that nightclub.
- Naked People Are Funny: He isn't naked anymore, instead clad in a blanket, but Hobbs said that he just needed to air out. He blames "manopause" for him being hot all the time.
- Take That!: Episode title "Good People on Both Sides" is a very obvious Take That! to President Donald Trump, who used just those words in describing the Virginia white supremacist rally.
