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There is always a moment of melancholy. It filters into my awareness just as the camera pans back and the familiar end theme music strikes up. It’s over. Time to say good-bye.
I am left sitting in my chair, suddenly empty with questions remaining. I’m talking about the final moments at the end of every season of Bosch, an Amazon Prime series based on the novels by Michael Connelly.
Bosch is not a real person but I wish him to be. Suddenly a hole in me needs filled. Just as when there is a break up or a lost friend.
Bosch has become mythic for me. After being completely enveloped in the world created on the streaming service, I have come to admire, respect, even in a way adore a completely fictitious character played by actor Titus Welliver. But played with such perfection, such authenticity, it doesn’t matter that Harry Bosch is not real. I need and admire him just as I do my father-in-law who, while he is not really like Harry Bosch the L.A.P.D. detective, is just as authentic.
Bosch has become mythic for me. After being completely enveloped in the world created on the streaming service, I have come to admire, respect, even in a way adore a completely fictitious character…
I think it is this authenticity written into Bosch that so captivates me. The truth is I admire authentic people, even if I don’t like the stubbornness that sometimes comes with that authenticity.
I have been thinking about Harry Bosch and Welliver’s portrayal a lot lately. Ever since I finished Episode 10, Season 6. It is my openness to creating and believing in myth, I think, that leads me here. Maybe I need to believe in something totally outside my experience. Then again, maybe I just need a hero to believe in. I know no one like Harry Bosch. I don’t even know any cops. It is this blending of my real life need to believe in authentic, sometimes contradictory characters and the ability of Hollywood to create such myths that has me locked in.
Maybe I need to believe in something totally outside my experience. Then again, maybe I just need a hero to believe in.
As I look forward to each new season of Bosch with child-like anticipation, perhaps the same way I looked with glee toward Christmas and the visit from a certain cherubic, red velvet-clad and bearded chimney-dropper as a kid, my heart races. I start looking for spaces in my Google calendar to devote focused, uninterrupted time to watching the new story unfold.
I know, I’m a little obsessed but I’m not alone. There are a couple fan pages on Facebook devoted to Bosch.
This has led me to examine why I’m so captivated by a fictional character and why I build him up as if he is real. Why do I get so lost in a story presented over my TV or laptop? There are plenty of other cop shows and series and movies where I’m not caught up, where I don’t identify with the character. Why Bosch?
I don’t know, but I have some ideas.
Bosch stands out for me because he is a blend of qualities I admire in real people. First he is authentic. Harry Bosch as portrayed by Welliver is unapologetically himself. He is not deterred by others whom he angers or frustrates. Not his daughter, not his police partner nor his colleagues, not even his police chief. He doesn’t stray from an intrinsic sense of right and wrong no matter what the consequences, even for him. Granted, an LA cop fighting bad guys in a fictional TV or novel series has plenty of opportunities to face these questions. But what about the rest of us?
I don’t know about you but I don’t have to make a lot of life-and-death decisions:. Do I want blueberries or strawberries with my almond milk yogurt? Will I take the time to put coconut oil in my coffee or skip it? Bow tie or regular tie?
What Bosch has done for me is make me more attuned to my decision-making process and whether there are ramifications for choices I make.
What Bosch has done for me is make me more attuned to my decision-making process and whether there are ramifications for choices I make.Most of the time, of course not. Like everyone else, I make hundreds, thousands of decisions each day. The majority of them are inconsequential. Most of them. But what about those that are more significant? Do I recognize them? Watching and thinking about how Harry Bosch navigates his world has made me more aware.
Secondly, Bosch is imperfect. He has flaws and that makes him more real. His sense of right and wrong blinds him perhaps to traits that cause problems for him and those about whom he cares. I have found few TV characters who are so flawed yet so endearing. Idris Elba’s portrayal of the character DCI John Luther on the BBC series is similar.
Bosch is imperfect. He has flaws and that makes him more real.
My thinking points me to real people in my life who also are authentic. My father-in-law is definitely one. And I admire him for it. And my wife too.
Part of what I see in Bosch and in my wife and my father-in-law is a confidence that is not governed from the outside. Meaning, they don’t react to what other people think about them. While they are compassionate and empathetic, they possess a rock-solid and honest measure of who they are that is not shaken by circumstances. In the heat of a decision crossroad, they know what to do and how to decide, even if the consequences aren’t pretty. I’ve seen it over and over.
It might be that in endeavoring to live their lives without trying to be anything other than who they are, it is I who elevate them to myth. It might just be a need to believe in better, higher character that motivates me to strive to be more, regardless of whether they are people I know and love or some LA cop created by a novelist.