‘Ballard’ Episode 2 Recap: “Haystacks”

For us, Renée Ballard’s tidy little home with Tutu, as it looks onto Paradise Cove in Malibu, is actually second place in coolness to her tan 1980s-era Land Cruiser FJ60. With power stripes! We’re glad she chooses to drive the rig on the job – she’s also got a city-issued unmarked, a Dodge Charger, but it never starts – because this is TV, she’s a detective in Los Angeles, and LA is a car town full of individuals defined by their ride. The Land Cruiser’s a nicely dialed-in detail of Ballard, because it differentiates the series from any number of “murder show” police procedurals – looking at you, CBS – that favor placeholder characters defined only by their professional roles. Renée Ballard was also created by author/series exec producer Michael Connelly, who had Harry Bosch driving a ’90s Cherokee Classic, and though he doesn’t exist in this universe, built the character of Mickey Haller around his penchant for lawyering in signature Lincolns. So there’s even more precedent. 

The FJ60 is as distinctive as the metallic sound its doors make when they open. But a standout vintage ride also makes for an easy follow, as we learn here in Episode 2 of Ballard. There’s a guy in a pickup tracking Ballard’s movements and making calls to someone unseen, saying stuff like “This won’t come back on us.” What won’t come back on them? Well, the murder of a maid at the Sunbeam Motel, to start with. When Detective Ballard arrives at the crime scene, she cuts through the lead detective’s macho static to quickly connect the killing to one of her ongoing cold case investigations.

Councilman Pearlman has his pet theories about who killed his sister in 2001. He also has an attack dog on his staff, Nelson Hastings (Alain Uy), who is so sneeringly awful toward Ballard that we’re wondering if he’s actually working against her. But for all of these political creatures’ interference, and the continued dismissals by her former colleagues in the LAPD Robbery-Homicide boys’ club, Ballard’s gonna orient her investigative team how she sees fit. And together with Zamira Parker, she’s hunting links between the gun that killed the maid and the unsolved John Doe murder on the cold casers’ whiteboard. 

Quick! To the LAPD forensics lab, where Ballard encounters “Firearms Freddie” (Andrew Hawtrey), an exotic plant-loving technician. (Just like Honey “Money” Chandler in Legacy; the Bosch Universe loves a punchy nickname.) Freddie’s analysis links the gun to the John Doe case, but there’s a glaring issue in the system: crucial ballistics info is missing, and its absence feels purposeful. Like somebody left it out, as Parker suggests. If she’s right, Ballard says, “we are headed for some dark fucking waters.” 

On the way to her department-mandated session with a staff psychologist, Ballard runs into Detective Olivas again. Just like last time – remember “I plan on burying it in your goddamn back”? – her features turn cold. With him is Ken Chastain (Brian Letscher), another former RHD partner of Ballard’s, and while Chastain’s at least somewhat civil, she’s not happy to see him, either. These men, her supposed fellow cops, represent feelings that are still raw within her, and it’s something Dr. Sandoval (Romi Dias) gently tries to probe. Is the detective’s cold case work proving to be a “secondary trauma,” in addition to the incident she won’t directly address? “I wasn’t raped,” Renée snaps at Sandoval, who clarifies that’s only because she fought off her attacker. And the session ends abruptly on this sharp note.

Back at her Malibu home, and sporting a freshly bruised eye from chasing down a perp related to the Sunbeam situation, Renée is in a slightly better mood. She invited Lifeguard Guy for dinner, and he ends up staying over. But while he’s respectful of her boundaries and distance, he also notes how deeply she holds her traumas. “Sometimes it’s better for me to keep you in the dark,” she tells him. “Because maybe I can join you there.”

Hey, it’s Harry Bosch! When the retired LAPD detective and former investigating officer on the Pearlman-connected murder drops in on Ballard, they repair to Rutt’s Hawaiian Cafe in West LA for lunch, and honestly the plate Renée orders looks delicious. Just like her Land Cruiser and pad in Malibu, we love these little proper noun details. They lend such a strong sense of place to the TV universe Ballard is working within. Unfortunately for the cold case, Harry can’t offer much more insight. But he does make an observation. Detective Ballard picking her own team of outsiders, and working in their basement lair at least mostly away from prying LAPD eyes – in a way it’s a choice assignment for lone wolf-coded cops like them.

(Will Titus Welliver continue to surface in Ballard? It was never ruled out, but it’s also undefined. Additionally, this episode features Welliver in a voiceover, reading the murder book notes as Bosch, so perhaps he’ll appear in different ways throughout. Related fast fact: Welliver also narrates the Harry Bosch audiobooks.)

We’ll call him The Follower for now, because he hasn’t been officially introduced. But we do learn a little more about the guy in the pickup tailing Ballard, and none of it is good. “I could have a little fun with that – she won’t know what hit her,” he’s saying into his phone. This guy seems to have more in mind than just tracking Ballard’s movements. And when he gets out of his truck, he flashes an LAPD badge on the chain around his neck before casually walking into work. Funny – and suspicious, and probably dangerous – how members of the same organization that ostracized Detective Ballard are so goddamn interested in her cold case work.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.