Renée Ballard is back on her board, sitting where the sea is calm. She’s thinking about a lot of things in that moment. About her late father, who instilled in her a love of surfing. About how calm itself is the most elusive thing. And about how so often, when men do terrible things, it’s women who must carry the consequences. But the workday calls, so it’s back to the beach to grab Lola. And at the house, when Tutu shows off the “BYOB” surfboard kit she purchased for her granddaughter – building their own boards was something dad and daughter loved to do together – Renée tells her to send it back. Just like her traumas, she’s not yet prepared to unpack that.

The cold cases on the team’s whiteboard were already popping off. Suspicions of a bullet in the John Doe murder gone unrecorded into evidence, and the murder of Councilman Pearlman’s sister possibly connected to a serial killer. But when Ballard gets to work, the terrifically-mustached Captain Berchem (Hector Hugo) puts her on an entirely new cold case. A woman whose brother Nick died in a fall from his fraternity house balcony years before has been all over social media calling out the LAPD’s lack of response, and the department wants the case contained. So Laffont and Ballard head to the frat’s reunion to question The PItt’s night shift senior attending. Wait! Sorry. It’s only Ken Kirby, the terrific actor who plays Dr. Shen. And in Ballard, he’s Joey, the former fraternity brother who lets slip the secret about his asshole college crew’s “Body Count Book.” 

Ballard finds the book, and it’s like a Trapper Keeper for toxic behavior. Polaroids of young women with quality ratings in accompanying scrawls. As awful as it is, some of the women tracked down for interviews say it was a different time then. That they tolerated and were even curious about their ratings in the Body Count Book. But it’s different when Ballard and Parker interview Meredith (Lindsey Haun), Nick’s girlfriend at the time. Ballard recognizes the woman’s own buried trauma. Sees her carrying the weight of what really happened like an anvil on her back. Putting together the torn-out pages, and Joey’s statement that the book was found where Nick fell, Ballard carefully addresses Meredith. Women can have their reputations ruined by men simply for sport, and there is no accountability. “Instead, we carry it. We get called names.” Meredith finally admits she pushed Nick off the balcony, in her rage and sorrow over what he wrote about her. But this is one cold case getting closed that doesn’t feel like a victory.

It’s an emotional scene, with Ballard’s own traumas, what she carries, guiding Meredith to uncover her own. And it’s bookended later in the episode. All Renée wanted to do was grab wings from Patrick’s Roadhouse in Santa Monica. But her old RHD partner Ken Chastain is waiting there for her, and he’s a drunk mess. This is the man who, despite their close professional relationship, didn’t back her when she made the accusation which led not to action but her Robbery-Homicide dismissal. And Chastain is here now to blubber over his guilt. It’s so impossibly little, so impossibly late, and it makes Renée so sad and angry all at once. He’s still not standing with her. Only wants undeserved absolution. She pushes Chastain to the street when he goes in for a sloppy hug. “You’re not here for me, you’re here for you!”

The toxic hits keep coming in Episode 3 of Ballard. Trying to track a lead on the missing bullet from the John Doe case leads Ballard and Laffont to a retired vice detective who insinuates she “brought down a good man” with her accusation. And he speaks to Laffont only, except for when he refers to Detective Ballard as “Honey.” It’s insulting and tiresome, but they at least can say the apparent cover-up is growing. Somebody forged this piece of shit’s signature to remove the bullet from evidence. And in a small but important win for gender dynamics in the workplace, Thomas Laffont takes time to make an important point to his partner. “I’ll always have your back.” 

Speaking of Laffont, this episode introduces a bit of his home life. The retired detective lives in an absolutely gorgeous Craftsman house, where he gracefully endures the lavender baking experiments of his loving husband Leo (the always wonderful Jim Rash). Elsewhere outside the cold case team’s basement, Zamira Parker is meeting with her father, played by Frankie Faison. And his experiences as a Black beat cop on the LAPD during the Rodney King era puts into perspective her own trepidation over returning to the force. The racism, the further lack of accountability, once you recognize it, you have a purpose. “Someone has to watch the watchers.”  As she continues to push Ballard on actualizing their suspicions of an internal police cover-up, Parker is ready to stop running from her time on the job and start taking it to the watchers.

And as for those watchers, the boys in blue who think they’re above it all, they’re targeting Ballard’s handpicked team with their criminal toxicity. The Follower we learned about last episode is seen in his LAPD black-and-white, using its computer to look up information about Martina, Ballard’s pre-law Gen Z intern. He finds her at the sports bar where she’s studying. And oh, he’s just so charming. This guy is as good at being a two-faced predator as he is at tailing the Land Cruiser. Ballard’s investigative team is being infiltrated, with the whiteboard case information and Martina’s very safety in their crosshairs. 

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.