Highlights
- Season 3 of Bosch: Legacy will focus more on the Crime Reduction Unit (CRU) as Maddie continues her role on the team.
- The CRU investigates street crime and allows Maddie to get involved in juicer crime stories.
- There may be tension between Maddie and Harry, as she follows the law while he works as a renegade private investigator.
Michael Connelly has written over twenty books in the Harry Bosch series, and both Bosch and Bosch: Legacy on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee respectively are based on the books. Each season of the show usually focuses on adapting a mixture of two books in the series, while introducing new aspects into the television version about the LAPD detective turned private investigator.
There are plenty of elements from the books that have been expanded upon, and the CRU is one of those things which Bosch: Legacy season 2 has introduced into the narrative, with Season 3 set to focus more on it when it returns to television screens sometime in the future. But what exactly is the CRU?
RELATED: Bosch: Legacy Season One Ending, Explained
What is the CRU in Bosch: Legacy?
The CRU is the Crime Reduction Unit that Maddie Bosch joins soon after she returns to work after her horrifying kidnapping ordeal. Not content with sitting at the front desk for too long, the daughter of Harry Bosch soon gets recommended for a position on the team by her training officer, Reina Vasquez after her impressive work.
The crime prevention unit largely focuses on street crime, which allows for Maddie to get involved in some juicer crime stories, despite still essentially being a rookie cop in the LAPD. LIke her father, Maddie Bosch looks destined to rise through the ranks quickly, and a role on the CRU seems the next step in her promising career. This doesn’t stop her father, Harry Bosch, being concerned about the step-up so soon after the Dockweiler incident. However, he is proud of her and is secretly delighted that the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The offer to be on the CRU comes in episode 4, titled ”Musso and Frank” and Maddie and Vasquez’s first case together in the unit, sees them on a case near The Chinese Theatre, looking into crimes against tourists in episode 5’s “Hollywood Forever”. Maddie spots a suspicious man in a hoodie, but the man gets away when a fight breaks out. She chases him down and is rather physical with him during the arrest, showing signs she is still struggling in the aftermath of her kidnapping ordeal. This incident raises questions about whether she is ready for the promotion, but Vasquez is loyal to her and offers her support.
Later in the season, the CRU get involved in a raid alongside season 2’s villainous corrupt cop, Ellis, which he has organized in order to find out more information about Harry Bosch. The raid takes place, and the unit arrest the pimps and sex workers they are looking for, and Maddie witnesses Ellis being very heavy-handed towards one of the suspects, kicking him multiple times. Ellis asks Maddie to keep it between them, and she simply responds that the raid was ‘educational’. It was a clever way to link Harry’s case to what Maddie is involved in with the CRU, and his daughter turns up with the Crime Reduction Unit towards the end of the season to save Harry Bosch’s life.
What could happen with the CRU in Bosch: Legacy Season 3?
Regardless of what the Crime Reduction Unit gets up to in season 3, it is likely to link in with whatever Harry Bosch is investigating independently in his role as a private investigator. There is potential for some professional tension between father and daughter, as Maddie follows the letter of the law, while her renegade former detective father has the shackles off him since he left the force.
It’ll be interesting to see the character of Reina Vasquez be expanded upon in the new season, as Bosch Legacy season 2 hinted at more to come from her. She has been very much a side character for the majority of the first two seasons of the spin-off series, acting as Maddie’s guide to the world of the LAPD. Having Maddie join the CRU to team up with Vasquez was a good way of keeping these characters together, rather than ditching Vasquez after her training job was done with Maddie.
No story details have been released for Season 3 of Bosch: Legacy yet, but fans can expect to be seeing a lot more of the Crime Reduction Unit as Maddie’s story weaves in with Harry’s investigations alongside Maurice ‘Mo’ Bassi, and Honey Chandler’s run for District Attorney.
There is also a big question about the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2, which saw Maddie answer a collect call from convicted murderer, Preston Border’s on Harry’s phone, with the suggestion that Harry ordered the hit on Kurt Dockweiler. The fallout from this plot thread could severely affect Maddie’s future role in the Crime Reduction Unit, and her career in the LAPD.
The creator of Bosch: Legacy, teased what might happen in Season 3 in an interview with Collider:
That’s what we’re exploring with these cards back here, and Season 3 is going to step into that world. But to your point, Chris, having Freevee invest in us as storytellers and say, “This is a world we want to continue to explore,” is a gift we don’t take for granted and that we try to honor by telling good stories that we hope are satisfying.
Season 3 will definitely explore the aftermath of all the events in Season 2, and the show clearly benefits from the faith put in them by Amazon Freevee, with early renewals giving the creative team the opportunity to map out stories way ahead of time.
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