Ballard, the latest expansion of Michael Connelly’s celebrated Bosch universe, is a police procedural, lead by the maverick detective Renee Ballard.
In the books featuring her, Connelly created a fearless cop, who, at the start of the series is homeless, sleeps in a tent on the beach and spends her spare time surfing. The lifeguard is soft on her and allows her to use the public facilities. As punishment for complaining about sexual harassment by a senior, she is pushed into a dead end assignment in the under-resourced cold cases unit of the LA police department Robbery-Homicide Division. But nothing or nobody can keep a brave woman down.
The 10-part series (on Amazon Prime Video) softens her edges, and gives her a female comrade-in-arms in the form of Zamira Parker (Courtney Taylor), who has the same enemy and wants to put him away forever. Also, Ballard’s surfing takes a backseat, she lives with her grandmother (Amy Hill)and has a friends-with-benefits relationship with the lifeguard, Aaron (Michael Cassidy). In the basement office of the unit, she works with a dedicated and loyal team of volunteers, and keeps up her fight for justice, even when the victims are long gone.
The narrative structure of Ballard is a familiar but effective one for the genre. Each episode typically features a new cold case, allowing for self-contained mysteries that showcase Ballard’s investigative prowess and her team’s dedication. An overarching plot ties the first season together, revolving around a dangerous conspiracy that extends into the highest echelons of the police department. One prominent thread involves the decades-old murder of a city councilman’s sister, and he keeps putting pressure on her to nab the killer. When Ballard and her team—including the avuncular Laffont (John Carroll Lynch) and chatty Colleen (Rebecca Field)– start digging, they find that they have a serial killer on their hands, and he may still be out there, targeting young women.
Just like Ballard made an appearance in the last episode of Bosch Legacy Season 3, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) makes a guest appearance to assist her. In the Ballard books, he has a bigger role, as a sounding board and partner. They are alike in many ways, and she becomes like a daughter to him. Other Bosch regulars like Edgar (Jamie Hector), and the beloved Crate (Gregory Scott Cummins) and Barrel (Troy Evans) also pop in for brief scenes, imbuing Ballard’s life with some warmth, as she and Zamira take on corruption in the police force, and complicity of some of them with drug cartels. Robert Olivas (Ricardo Chavira), the cop who both Ballard and Parker hate, the one who wrecked their careers, is a truly despicable man, whose take down is thrilling and emotionally satisfying.
At its core, Ballard is a character study of its determined protagonist. RenéeBallard is not Harry Bosch, and the show wisely doesn’t try to make her a carbon copy. Maggie Q with her luminous beauty, imbues Ballard with a blend of steely resolve and unconditional empathy, making her a formidable yet relatable figure. This gripping show is worth a watch.
Created by Michael Alaimo & Kendall Sherwood
Starring: Maggie Q, Courtney Taylor, John Carroll Lynch, Rebecca Field and others
