Michael Connelly’s Renée Ballard Gets Her Own TV Spotlight in Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Ballard’
Bosch: Legacy may have ended its three-season run on Amazon Prime Video (following seven seasons of Bosch), but the legacy of Harry Bosch lives on in Prime Video’s new series Ballard, premiering July 9. It takes only two episodes for author Michael Connelly’s iconic detective, played by Titus Welliver, to pop up on the new spinoff, but that doesn’t mean that Ballard is just another continuation of the Bosch story. Unlike Legacy, it’s a genuinely new series, one that has the characters and narrative structure to stand on its own. Bosch is just a bonus.
Connelly introduced LAPD Detective Renée Ballard in his 2017 novel The Late Show, and she showed up at the end of Bosch: Legacy, played by Maggie Q. Ballard sets her up at the head of her own LAPD unit focused on cold cases, and it’s much more of an ensemble show than Bosch ever was. Ballard’s name is in the title, but the show isn’t only about her, and it works because the other main characters are just as interesting.
Following a demotion from the robbery-homicide division after an incident that is revealed later in the 10-episode season, Ballard is now working in the basement of the LAPD training building, leading a team that consists of volunteers, reservists, retired officers and interns. “What better way to keep the troublesome woman quiet than to silo her in the ass end of the LAPD?” she asks one of her team members, but Ballard isn’t interested in staying quiet.
Her department focuses on two primary cases during the first season: One is the murder of the sister of Councilman Jake Pearlman (Noah Bean), who has guaranteed funding for the unit as long as they investigate his sister’s murder. The other is the murder of a John Doe victim who was last seen fleeing with a baby, which motivates the team to track down his killer. In the meantime, there are one or two other self-contained cases, but like Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, Ballard is mainly a serialized show as the characters get closer to the truth in their major investigations.
Unlike the often very macho Bosch, Ballard is a female-driven show beyond just its title character. Four of the six members of the cold case unit are women, including fellow conflicted LAPD veteran Zamira Parker (Courtney Taylor), whom Ballard convinces to return as a reserve officer after she left the force under difficult circumstances. Ballard and Parker share an uneasy relationship to both the department and to a particular fellow detective, and the show gives careful consideration to the complexities of women of color working within a patriarchal institution.
Rounding out the team are housewife and amateur online sleuth Colleen Hatteras (Rebecca Field), law student and intern Martina Castro (Victoria Moroles), private security contractor Ted Rawls (Michael Mosley) and retired LAPD detective Thomas Laffont (John Carroll Lynch), who serves as Ballard’s second in command and moral compass. When Ballard comes across Bosch’s name in a case file, she calls him “another swinging dick,” and that’s not the energy she wants on her team.
That’s not the energy of her show, either; only Rawls fits that description, and he’s been added by Councilman Pearlman as a way for the boys’ club to keep an eye on Ballard. There are plenty of serious, intense situations on Ballard, especially as the central cases heat up, but there’s also more emotional intelligence, with time devoted to all of the characters’ personal lives. Ballard lives with her grandmother (Amy Hill) and has a friends-with-benefits relationship with a local lifeguard (Michael Cassidy), and the scenes of her home life are lively and appealing.
Ballard also showcases the breadth of Los Angeles culture in a way that has more in common with another Connelly-based show, The Lincoln Lawyer, than with the no-nonsense Bosch. Still, it’s easy to see how these shows exist in the same universe, especially when Bosch supporting characters like Troy Evans’ Barrel pop up for brief cameos. Ballard doesn’t need Bosch to be compelling, and hopefully he’ll remain in the background, although he’s never been a team player. Connelly’s fictional world is in good hands if Bosch is going to stay retired.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for the Boston Globe, Vulture, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.