Summary
It’s been an exciting week for fans ofBosch: Legacy, with the release of the long-awaited trailer for the upcoming third and final season. Amazon is promoting the upcoming season as Harry Bosch’s final case, but it was never intended that way.An old interview with twoBosch: Legacyproducers has resurfaced, which illustrates the assurances Amazon gaveBosch: Legacy, in terms of giving them the opportunity to tell their story right.Amazon’s promises have since been broken with the controversy surrounding the cancelation of the show.
The creative team were not informed the third season would be the last until filming had been completed.This was in stark contrast to previous seasons ofBoschandBosch: Legacy, when Amazon had given the go-ahead for more seasons in advance, to allow the team to plan future storylines.The creative team did have plans for moreHarry Bosch solo crime cases, but Amazon’s attitude towardsBosch: Legacyhas taken a significant and unexpected turn.
Amazon Used To Back Bosch: Legacy When It Came To Planning For Future Storylines, But They Failed To Do So For The Upcoming Season
Let’s be fair to Amazon for a moment: they backedHarry Boschfor nine seasons, by allowing the creative team to plan ahead for future seasons with swift renewals ofBoschandBosch: Legacy. In addition to this, when it came time for Harry Bosch to hand in his LAPD badge in the seventh season of the originalBoschseries, the creative team knew in advance that they were working towards an ending.Why couldn’t Amazon giveBosch: Legacythe ending it deserved, after over a decade’s worth of investment?In an interview withColliderback in November 2023,Bosch: Legacyexecutive producer, Tom Bernardo, commented on the support they’d received from Amazon:
Oh, it’s an enormous amount of faith, and it’s a great gift that we never take for granted, that we try to honor. From a storytelling standpoint, knowing that you’re gonna have real estate to build these stories and that you can naturally build up to certain moments.
Of course, as Bernardo says, the creative team didn’t take Amazon’s support for granted, but they were very consistent in the past, so it must have come to a shock whenBosch: Legacywas canceledafter filming had been completed on the third season.Amazon were clearly planningBosch: Legacy’s cancelation for a long time, so why didn’t they inform the creative team of their plans, so they could plan for a proper ending?There is a very simple answer to this:Renee Ballard. IfMichael Connellyhad known what Amazon were plotting behind the scenes, there is no chance he would have agreed to move forward withtheBallardspin-off, at the expense ofBosch: Legacy.
Bosch: Legacy Season 3
Starring
Titus Welliver, Mimi Rogers, Madison Lintz, Stephen A. Chang, Denise G. Sanchez, Scott Klace, Gregory Scott Cummins, Troy Evans, Orla Brady, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Cortes, Dale Dickey, Paul Calderon, Anthony Gonzales, Tommy Martinez and Maggie Q
Based on the books by
Created by
Tom Bernardo, Michael Connelly, and Eric Ellis Overmyer
Bosch: Legacyseason 2ended on a cliffhanger, when Maddie Bosch answered a collect call fromPreston Borders, who claimed her father,Harry Bosch, ordered the hit on Kurt Dockweiler. The creative team knew they were getting a third season, so they were able to set this storyline in motion.Bosch: Legacyseason 1did a similar thing, and during the same interview, Tom Bernardo made an interesting point that feels even more relevant now:
To do that cliffhanger we did in Season 1 [when Maddie was abducted by rapist Kurt Dockweiler] and not knowing if you’re able to pay back on it, you can’t do that really, because that would be screwing our audience and the fans over, and that’s something that neither we nor Amazon Freevee wants to do. So, it’s huge for us.
The fans do feel screwed over by the abruptend ofBosch: Legacy.Season 3 wasn’t supposed to be the end of the main story and there will be unresolved plots, and possible cliffhangers that won’t be paid off.Bernardo claimed Amazon didn’t want to screw the fans over, but they clearly did. The final episode ofBosch: Legacywill be a standalone story involving the introduction of Renee Ballard, and it’ll act as a backdoor pilot for the spin-off series. The penultimate episode ofBosch: Legacywill probably feel more like the last episode of season 3, but significantly, it won’t feel like the ‘final’ episode of the whole series. In the same interview, fellowBosch: Legacyproducer, Henrik Bastin stated:
I think the consistency for a show over many seasons comes with the trust of a network to invest, so to speak, literally and figuratively, into the show and let the creatives, to a certain point, know that, ‘It’s okay. If you do something big in this season, you will have time to explore that and make it go on in the next season.
There won’t be any future opportunities to explore the many plot threads inevitably set up inBosch: Legacyseason 3.Even though theBallardspin-off will feature Harry Bosch, and potentially fellow co-leads,Maddie BoschandHoney Chandler, their roles will be significantly diminished. Something big is bound to happen inBosch: Legacyseason 3, but it’ll never be paid off properly.
