[Like most of
us, my lockdown
has offered the opportunity to check some TV shows off of my list. One of
the best I’ve seen is Amazon Prime’s
original show Bosch, based on the
longstanding series of police procedural detective novels by Michael Connelly
(who is part of the show
as well). The best part of Bosch is
its characters, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy the five most important!]
On what a
multi-generational dynamic adds to our protagonist, and why it’s more important
than that.
First things
first: I don’t want to suggest that the character of Harry Bosch is in any way
singular in having a central and crucial relationship with his kid. Indeed, if
we look at the list of anti-hero characters I highlighted in Monday’s post on
Harry, a fair number of them have kids; and while in some cases those kids
remain a bit too young and peripheral to be main characters on the show (like
with Jimmy McNulty and Vic Mackey, perhaps not coincidentally the two other
police officers on that list), in many others they grow into important
characters in their own right across their show’s arc (certainly the case with
Tony Soprano’s, Don Draper’s, and Walter White’s kids, for example). Parent-child
relationships and dynamics are after all both a universal human experience (not
to say everyone has kids of their own, but we’re all someone’s child) and an excellent
storytelling device, and these TV kids, played by some exceptional young actors
(I’d highlight Kiernan
Shipka’s Sally Draper as a particular standout, but there’s plenty of
talent to go around), have helped create some of the great TV storylines of the
Golden Age. [On that note I have to make a special mention of Holly
Taylor’s Paige Jennings on The Americans,
maybe the best TV kid character and performance of all time.]
But with all of
that said, I would still argue that Madison Lintz’s Maddie Bosch represents
an especially interesting and influential kid character for a couple of
reasons. For one thing, she opens up sides to Harry’s character in ways that
are quite different from the usual “badass anti-hero with a soft spot for his
daughter” trope (see Jack
and Kim Bauer in particular, but certainly also Tony and Meadow Soprano
among others). As I argued in Monday’s post, Harry’s greatest strengths and his
most telling flaws all stem in one way or another from the darkness that drives
him, and the show consistently portrays that darkness and drive through
solitary and quiet scenes, generally set in Harry’s striking and
strikingly isolated home with its bird’s-eye view of LA. But across the
show’s seasons that home has become more and more fully Maddie’s as well, and has
thus featured the majority of the intense, awkward, realistic, intimate interactions
and conversations between father and daughter that define this evolving dynamic
and relationship. In some core ways Harry at the end of season six seems quite
similar to the Harry we met at the start of season one (and that’s more than
okay), but because of and through Maddie he’s in other ways quite different,
and that slow and very moving growth has been a beautiful thing to watch.
If this week’s series
has had a central through-line, however (besides “I love Bosch!,” which also, yes), it’s been that thanks to its core group
of great characters and very talented actors, Bosch is about a lot more than just its titular protagonist. It’s
perhaps most important not to analyze or define—and thus not to limit—the
character of Maddie solely through her relationship with her dad, for all sorts
of reasons but especially because she’s a young woman working to come into her
own despite (or really through) some significant challenges and tragedies. Not
surprisingly, as the daughter of a cop father and a former FBI profiler mother,
she has done so in large part through considering her own possible paths within
the world of law and justice—potential paths that so far have included both
police officer and lawyer (on either the defense or prosecution sides of the
coin). While I’m hopeful that the 7th and final season will give us
a glimpse into where Maddie Bosch ends up, just those questions alone reflect
the show’s ability to create a truly multi-generational narrative, one where
this compelling kid character has become to grow up into and contribute to a
world that she shares with, but that importantly exists beyond, her flawed, interesting,
deeply human father.
June Recap this
weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Takes on this show or others you’d call especially
lockdown-binge-worthy?
No comments:
Post a Comment