Bosch: Legacy (Season 2) Episodes 1 & 2: While there is a subtitle in this iteration of Bosch, Bosch Legacy is a direct continuation of Bosch rather than a clean jumping-on point. Similarly, Season 2 of Bosch Legacy follows that suit. The legacy subtitle is necessary because it follows both members of the Bosch family as they solve crime in LA through their tactics: Madeline within the police force and Harry as a private eye. While Bosch and Bosch: Legacy still follow the template of the procedural cop shows, there is consistency within all these seasons because the showrunners attempt to maintain the standard of quality throughout. Unlike most procedurals, Bosch usually tackles two cases, adapted from Michael Connelly’s series of novels featuring the titular character, and the cases are usually intertwined with each other or mostly kept separate. But it is ensured that the procedural and emotional themes are kept intact for the entire season, both acting in service of each other.
But Season 1 of Bosch: Legacy ended with a huge cliffhanger where the “screen cutter,” a serial rapist who targeted Asian American women and wore a Luchador mask, finally kidnaps Maddie from her home. When Bosch finally comes to meet his daughter at night, he finds her taken.
Bosch: Legacy (Season 2) Episode 1 “The Lady Vanishes” Recap:
The episode opens with Maddie Bosch entering her house that night, freshening up, and checking the water in her tub before she is suddenly attacked by the black luchador mask-wearing intruder who had been hiding in her closet. The fight is ferocious, with Maddie almost managing to get over her much larger opponent until the man chokes her with a chloroform-applied scarf. As Maddie loses consciousness, the man opens his mask, revealing the same city inspector that Maddie had questioned regarding the screen cutter rapes.
As the show returns to the present timeline, Harry Bosch is understandably harried and scared. Upon learning that none of the tenants had seen the intruder entering Maddie’s house, he angrily instructs the forensic team to get the fingerprints through the whole room. J. Edgar is the lead detective in the case, and because of his history with Bosch (and the viewers), allows him to be part of the mobile bullpen, but even then, inevitably, Harry is more inclined to jump through the hoops because currently the officer missing is his daughter, so everything counts. And while he is finally instructed to go home and rest, Bosch isn’t the one to follow orders—never has been, never will be. Thus, his only pleading request to J. Edgar is to “not shut him out.” As Bosch sets out on the return trip to his house, he calls Mo (Stephen Chang) and instructs him to comb through all of Maddie’s social media and web footprints to find any clues about the kidnapper. He almost gets totaled by an oncoming truck and barely manages to swerve himself to safety.
The episode then mostly goes through two parallel tracks. In the case of Harry, he tries at night to contact all his old connections in the departments throughout LA and even asks Mank to keep him posted about official investigations. The night, however, takes a dark turn when he gets a call from the coroner’s office about a Jane Doe that came across the coroner’s table, and he believes it might be the missing Maddie. Thankfully, as Harry drives out and takes a gander, he discovers that it is not, in fact, Maddie, but the same hair color and a similar build as Jane Doe scared him enough that he almost broke down in front of his car at the parking lot. As he retraces himself mentally and through the investigation, he calls Mo, asking whether any calls stood out. Of the two that do, one Harry realizes is from a burner phone. The other he knows is from Chandler, and thus, he heads over there.
It’s from Chandler that a slow sort of light at the end of the tunnel comes into focus. Chandler remembers seeing someone outside Maddie’s house a day or two before her kidnapping. Taking that hunch as gospel, Harry calls J. Edgar and tells him to send an artist for a sketch. The parallel track following J. Edgar shows the police doing the typical diligent search via a radius pattern. While Edgar instructs two detectives to check security feeds for “anything suspicious,” he also takes the assistance of Officer Raina Vasquez (Denise G. Sanchez) to check the list of people Maddie had interviewed in this case. Vasquez had also been questioned by Bosch regarding the case, and inadvertently, without any knowledge, he had come across the actual identity of the “Screen Cutter,” the city inspector Kurt Dockweiler.
The episode doesn’t implicitly reveal Dockweiler’s identity immediately. But it is pretty evident in slowly revealing that he is resourceful and has done it before, as shown by him packing Maddie in a duffel bag, driving out far into the desert, and managing to inject her with chloroform again, barely avoiding getting hit by her, who had just come. He also has connections in the police department, as evidenced by his calling up an old contact and, through conversation, managing to parse that the police are still investigating him, but they are still nowhere near the case. Finally, we see him washing his truck well enough, such that even if the car were hauled in for observation, there wouldn’t be any evidence.
However, as he was returning to his house, he drove past it and saw J. Edgar and his partner, Det. Bennett walks up to his house, presumably to ask him questions. While Edgar and Bennett see the house closed, and thus Edgar leaves his card, he notices the cigarette butts and takes one of them for evidence. Something about the presence of cigarette butts at the crime scene stuck with him enough that he took it into account.
Both Harry and Edgar’s investigations finally collide when the artist shows the facial reconstruction to Edgar, and Edgar and Bennett finally go through Maddie’s chest camera recording of her interrogations and land on Dockweiler. Dockweiler’s face sparks immediate recognition for Chandler, which spurs Bosch into action. Requesting Edgar to give him a few minutes of a headstart before the cavalry arrives, Bosch drives over to Dockweiler’s apartment to confront and hopefully find Maddie. Mysteriously, Dockweiler had been undressing and then dressing himself up in a suit and a tie as if to go to a funeral. When Bosch ironically breaks through the back door, he makes the first mistake of calling out Maddie’s name. As Bosch searches through each room, he barely misses Dockweiler, who starts his laundry washer as a distraction to escape. Bosch goes through the house, finding his safe where he had kept the gun and particles on the bathroom mat, before being messaged by Edgar that the cavalry had arrived. However, so much cloak and dagger had been for naught.
Two events happen that throw the whole episode for a loop. For one, Dockweiler surrenders himself to the crimes and lawyers up, refusing to ask any questions. Mank and Edgar barely manage to stop Bosch from entering the interrogation room himself and throttling Dockweiler if that would provide answers regarding Maddie’s location. The other more terrifying event that is shown is Maddie locked in a coffin, “Buried” style, out in the desert, and considering there are no apparent airways in the coffin, time is running out for her.
Bosch: Legacy (Season 2) Episode 2 “Zzzyx” Recap:
With Maddie being trapped in a coffin tailor-made to her specifications, the episode opens with her realizing her imprisonment and panicking, crying out for help, before suddenly calming down as if realizing that she needs to conserve air. She soon realizes that there is a small water bottle attached to her hip, from which she drank a sip; a long black pipe near her foot that is rising to the surface; her only source of air; and finally, she finds a video camera over her head, which is currently turned off. She tries to find a wire or any connection but is unable to.
James Rafferty, the attorney for Kurt Dockweiler, meets outside the interrogation room with Emmitt Archer, the DA, where he informs him that Dockweiler would reveal the whereabouts of Maddie in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Archer informs us that the charges of rape and aggravated kidnapping would stack up to almost a century of life in prison. The two negotiate such that the DA wouldn’t charge him for the rapes, and Rafferty would advise him to agree to the kidnapping. But again, Dockweiler ominously states that Maddie doesn’t have long. And when pressed by Rafferty to submit proof of life, Dockweiler reveals that he knows that they have a partial print and DNA of the luchador mask. This was Dockweiler’s way of striking first instead of waiting for the inevitable, and he is not going to let the DA wait around until Maddie is found.
Outside the station, Harry is beside himself, unable to understand the next step forward. J. Edgar’s advice to stay positive falls on deaf ears, but as Edgar states that he should go back, Bosch informs him to check forensic lab reports on the bathroom mat because Bosch has seen dirt and foxtail. That could be a clue. He then places a call to, we learn, Crate and Barrel, to follow James Rafferty and find out any detail they can about him. Crate and Barrel, no strangers to assisting Bosch in stakeouts, agree.
At Bosch’s office, Mo reveals that RHD, while confiscating Dockweiler’s laptops, had backed up the data to the cloud. Mo had managed to crack the cloud server but found that Dockweiler had wiped it pretty well. All he could find were search results for rhohypnol and ketamine, the dosage specifically required for the cocktail to take effect for 4 to 6 hours. Utilizing that time, Mo calculates a search radius, which is a start. But before they could think about advancing, the video camera at Maddie’s coffin automatically turned on and started transmitting. The live feed gets transmitted to all the news channels, causing Bosch to hyperventilate.
He thus takes the most “logical” way out (according to Bosch), which is impersonating an RHD detective to ensure that Dockweiler is taken to the interrogation room. Following a fire truck into the police station, Harry enters with the RHD badge of Detective Batson, where he immediately threatens Dockweiler, asking him for Maddie’s location. When Dockweiler doesn’t budge, Harry uses a ballpoint pen to threaten to blind him into revealing that information. One can surmise that Harry could have gone far enough that he actually would have blinded Dockweiler had J. Edgar did not enter the room. Barely managing to keep Bosch from making a grave mistake, he reminds Bosch that he wouldn’t be of help to Maddie from a holding cell. As Bosch and J. Edgar leave a shouting Dockweiler in the interrogation room, Bosch informs Edgar that Dockweiler’s knowledge of how cops clear rooms and his boasting about it to Harry showed his own affiliation with law enforcement, and he asks him to investigate. In return, J. Edgar informs him that lab reports had come in, showing high levels of salt, gypsum, and borax, which Harry deduces to mean that Dockweiler had taken him to the desert.
Meanwhile, in the coffin, Maddie manages to take out a piece of wire from her tracksuit and uncuff her hands. Having freed her hands, she overturns herself and starts using the open handcuff to carve a message on the coffin floor. She had realized she was calming herself and slowly recollecting the events of her abduction. What had immediately struck her was the time Dockweiler had opened the duffel bag to re-inject her with chloroform, whereby she had seen a jet-engine flyby. That gave her a clue to the message she needed to carve. While the whole world watched Maddie turn herself, most people, including Mo, thought that she was crying. But her training officer, Vasquez, who had been stewing because she was unable to help and was currently off the clock, had gone to Bosch’s office and met up with Mo to help him scour social media for clues. Vasquez had realized that Maddie was carving a message.
Meanwhile, Bosch is having a conversation with Chandler on the phone, where Chandler reveals that Rafferty is a child welfare lawyer based out of Kern County, which makes Bosch suspicious. Why would Dockweiler hire someone like this to handle such a complicated court case? Both he and Chandler agree that they need to follow up on the connection between Dockweiler and his lawyer, with Chandler following up on the location that Crate and Barrel had traced Rafferty to. Bosch, having arrived at the office, learns from Mo and Vasquez about the message carved on the coffin: “EDW.” Deducing that Maddie must have seen a fighter jet, Bosch reveals that EDW is the airport code for Edwards Air Force Base and instructs Mo to check the flight paths of the fighter jets from yesterday. He also asks Mo for “the solution to the other problem,” to which Mo hands him an envelope that is revealed to be a keycard to a hotel room.
Things become more dire at the coffin as a scorpion manages to enter through the airway pipe. Maddie realizes something is moving and tries to stay perfectly still, managing to move and smash the scorpion to bits when it has finally crawled to her shoulder. But in that process, she had hit the airway, which ultimately fell inward into the coffin, blocking the airflow. Now, time is truly running out for her.
At the hotel bar where Crate and Barrel are keeping watch over James Rafferty, Honey Chandler walks in and accuses Rafferty of keeping information about Madeline Bosch, stating that she would personally hold him responsible if anything happened to Maddie. Rafferty reveals that he has no idea where Maddie is and wants her back as much as they do. He reveals that he had been Dockweiler’s attorney long before these “allegations” since he had been a minor. As he reveals that he had said all he could, he walks up towards the elevator to his room.
Unbeknownst to Rafferty, Chandler had been a distraction while Bosch had entered the hotel and managed to enter Rafferty’s room using Mo’s keycode. After searching through the hotel room and finally his briefcase, he finds adoption documents revealing that Kurt Dockweiler had been Adam White before being adopted. White’s original parents had been members of a cult, “The Order of Tranquility,” which had been subject to allegations of sexual assault of minors. Bosch’s perusal gets interrupted when he is warned by Chandler about Rafferty’s return. He barely has time to put all the items into their default positions before hiding behind the bed when Rafferty enters. He waits until Rafferty goes into the bathroom before managing to sneak out.
On the drive back, Harry reveals to Chandler and a listening Mo on the phone that the cult “Order of Tranquility” used to operate out of an area of the Mojave Desert called Zzyzyx. Forwarding a map that had been in the file to Mo, Bosch learns through Mo that the flight path over Edwards lines up over Zzyzyx, three square miles of desert. A VPN connecting the camera to the internet would need a power feed, which needs to be nearby. But as Bosch realizes, it’s a five-hour drive, and he wonders whether she even has five hours. Chandler, however, chooses to assist in shortening the time by dispatching a chopper and accompanying Harry toward Zzyzyx.
The chopper lands a couple of miles away from the location where the coffin had been buried. Chandler and Bosch choose to explore the different outhouse-like structures and abandoned caravans in that area. Upon closer inspection, Chandler locates one of the outhouses with a solar-powered panel on the roof, supplying an electric connection. Harry enters the outhouse, guns drawn, and finds the feed, which is connected to the video camera, currently knocked out. He gets a final bout of assistance from J. Edgar.
At the interrogation room at Hollywood Station, J. Edgar tries a different tactic of letting his guard down and trying to hear Dockweiler out. Dockweiler reveals that he is ready to go to prison, but not as a sex offender, to which Edgar reveals that he could go for eight years on a kidnapping charge. Of course, all that leverage is for naught if Maddie dies, to which Dockweiler reveals that he had left enough food and water for Maddie to survive. And because Dockweiler is inherently a psychopath, he can’t resist giving a hint that Maddie’s time is running out like sand trickling down once an hourglass is overturned. J. Edgar excuses himself, pretending that he had received a call from the D.A. Outside the interrogation room, Edgar calls Harry and tells him that she might have been buried underground.
Bosch: Legacy (Season 2) Episode 2 “Zzzyx” Ending Explained:
Bosch realizes that Dockweiler might have buried her in the Zzyzyx desert. He takes his binoculars out and climbs up the windmill-like structure. Hanging from the top end, he starts scouring the empty desert. Inside the coffin, Maddie is furiously pushing the airway pipe for movement so that it is noticeable. Her actions start becoming slower and weaker as air runs out, but Harry notices that the pipe is moving. Immediately climbing down, he rushes back to the first outhouse, where he had seen shovels. Breaking the glass, he takes out a shovel, runs towards the pipe, and furiously starts digging, calling out for Maddie. Chandler follows him. Harry keeps on digging until he hits the coffin, uses the shovel to break the lock, and uses all his strength to push the cover over. The sand had increased the weight, but Harry was stronger, and the leverage was enough for the cover to topple over. Harry finally drags Maddie out of the coffin and holds her close, sobbing, “It’s over.”
In the next scene, we see Maddie at the hospital, being treated for dehydration and general exhaustion and fed through an IV drip. Bosch, having stayed all the time beside her, finally comes out of her room upon seeing J. Edgar. Conversing with Edgar, he reveals that Bosch’s motto, “Everybody counts, and nobody counts,” might need a bit of correction. Because family does count, just a little bit more. Bosch is overcome with emotion and can only croak out thank you to his friend and former partner. The episode ends with Maddie being discharged and Bosch informing her that he had found her a nice Airbnb, and she just wanted to crawl inside a bed and sleep. She gets a nice, pleasant surprise on her homecoming upon seeing their dog, Coltrane, and Coltrane’s trainer, Sam, welcoming Maddie home.
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