Ballard - Library of Lost Souls
Spinning off from the Bosch series, the opening episode of Ballard introduces us to Maggie Q as LAPD Detective Renée Ballard who fits the classic mode of a smart and tough cop whose obsessive search for the truth rubs some the wrong way. Something, alluded to multiple times in the episode but not yet revealed in full, got Ballard shunned to the ass-end of the LAPD. Newly demoted to head of LAPD's Cold Case unit, Ballard works mostly with retirees and volunteers attempting to solve older crimes everyone else has given up on.
The opening scene sees her close her first case while also presenting two more to the audience. One is the case which provides the unit with its limited funding and support, being the unsolved murder of a local councilman (Noah Bean) frustrated that the case has yet to be solved. The other is a six year-old cold case involving the murder of an unknown transient, likely illegal, and the disappearance of a baby. That case leads Ballard to seek help from former Detective Samira Parker (Courtney Taylor) who quit soon after the case went cold and whose former partner (Ricardo Chavira) is the one who got Ballard stuck in her current situation. Before the end of the episode both cases heat up providing new avenues to explore.
I'm not all that familiar with the earlier series or the characters adapted from Michael Connelly's novels. I'm here for Maggie Q, and on that note the opener satisfies while also stringing together a few mysteries that could be worth sticking around to see solved. The episode does a good job of juggling the various elements needed to be introduced here. We see glimpses of Ballard's personal life (or lack thereof), and we meet the other members of the unit including Ballard's old partner (John Carroll Lynch), a perky volunteer who believes she's psychic (Rebecca Field), the councilman's pal (Michael Mosley) placed there to be his eyes and ears, and a legal intern (Victoria Moroles). And, before all is said and done, we get a reason for the show to pull in Harry Bosch.
- Title: Ballard - Library of Lost Souls
- IMDb: link
