‘Ballard’: Maggie Q, Courtney Taylor & John Carroll Lynch Talk New Team Dynamics and Season-Long Case

Michael Connelly, the writer who adapted his Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer novels into popular shows, has now brought his new series Ballard to Prime Video, with all 10 episodes dropping on Wednesday, July 9.

This gritty show centers on the LAPD Closed Case Unit: Maggie Q plays the scrappy title character Detective Renee Ballard; Courtney Taylor portrays her right hand Samira Parker, a cop newly returned to the force; and John Carroll Lynch is Ballard’s former partner Thomas Laffont, a retired detective, who’s now a volunteer Reserve officer. An added bonus: The beloved Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), last seen on Bosch: Legacy, recurs to help Ballard out with a case he had worked on.

Below, Maggie Q, Taylor, and Lynch introduce the new team dynamics and case.

Where is Renee Ballard when the show opens? Is she already heading the Cold Case Unit?

Maggie Q: She is, and we peel away the layers to reveal, as the season goes on, why that is and the circumstances behind how that happened to her. But we know right away that she’s been demoted to a unit that she is not happy about and is trying to make the best of the very underfunded unit. [Her team] is really trying to make miracles happen, but the LAPD is not making it easy on her.

Are there any higher ups in the department who cause trouble specifically for Ballard? There always has to have a pain-in-the-ass boss.

Maggie Q: Oh, yeah. Ballard has to answer to a lot of people, but she knows how to talk to those people to get what she wants. She knows exactly what to do. And the good thing is it’s not ego-driven, it’s victim driven. So, to get what she wants means to be able to get access to solve a case, and in order to do that, you have to work people, and she knows how to do that.

How do the unit members get along?

John Carroll Lynch: Tom Laffont comes back to work on the cold case division really to support her, so their relationship has a level of trust that I think is different than other people in the division.

Courtney Taylor: Parker, a veteran of Robbery/Homicide, butts heads a lot with Renee Ballard when she agrees to work for Cold Case. But there will be wonderful moments when we see them warm to each other, learn about each other, and end up working well together.

How is the Cold Case Unit treated by the brass in the department and other cops?

Maggie Q: Renee calls it the ass-end of the LAPD. It’s a demotion, but in real life, it’s actually respected.

Lynch: It has respect, but on the show, it’s also underfunded because they don’t have enough resources to do it well without volunteers. Luckily, there are volunteers and they’re doing incredible work with what they have. In a way, I think Renee’s point of view on it has to do with where she’s come from and not necessarily what the unit is.

Maggie Q: It’s a very respectable job, and the detectives who run cold cases are well-known; they’re very experienced. It’s not exactly how we portray it in the show, but the point was to show her demotion from the top — RHD — to Cold Cases, being a stark difference in what she wanted, and what ended up happening.

Taylor: Parker was in RHD for a short period of time, and she comes back and joins the Cold Case Unit after years of being off the force because of a case that went on soft, due to a relationship between her and another police officer. It was just a lot of layers that were happening that pushed her out of this job that she truly loved, and so coming back feels like this kind of bittersweet reunion of her finally being able to get back into the thing that she loved — solving cases and helping people.

How important are the volunteers to the work reopening unsolved cases from the past?

Maggie Q: They’re actually vitally important to the unit. Volunteers are always coming through, and the variety that come through for cold cases is really interesting. There are very wealthy men who want to help solve crimes, housewives, retirees, you name it. People come into this unit trying to perform community service, which I think is so cool, and something that I would have never thought to do. They really want to help on the show and, apparently in reality, that is also the case.

Lynch: It also sets the show apart from other shows I’ve seen of this nature, where they have dedicated officers to a cold case division. This has people helping to solve the crimes that the audience wouldn’t expect to be involved.

Maggie Q: They’re good!

Lynch: They’re really good at it. And I appreciate how that’s been handled, both in terms of the writing, but also in terms of reflecting the actual LAPD cold case division.

Can you talk about some of the cases, starting with the first episode?

Maggie Q: It’s an “A” storyline major case that’s overarching through the 10 episodes .We do have sort of side cases that they deal with — there’s two episodes where we do that — but really, the entire season is dedicated to this “A” storyline.

Please explain that “A” storyline.

Lynch: I think it’s best to avoid spoilers, but it starts with basically a video with a murder victim in a cold case, and we start pulling on that thread. It opens up a whole world of other cases that may or may not be involved. What’s so fascinating about the way it happens is that this is a person — a case — that no one really cared about. It wasn’t something that the police devoted a lot of energy to solve in the past. This was one that was forgotten, and it turns into something so huge and so uncomfortable for not just the people involved, but for the police department itself. That’s what makes the show so compelling.

What can you say about the big baddies running through the 10 episodes? Any hints?

Lynch: You will be satisfied with the ending of the [season]. You will be satisfied with the case, but there is also a series of questions of who else may be involved that could lead to other seasons and other stories. So, it’s a beautifully written mystery.

Maggie, we talked a bit back about filming scenes on the beach in Malibu because that’s Renee’s home. Is that still happening?

Maggie Q: She lives in Malibu, yeah. It’s a very, very sad thing when this airs that we’re going to see a lot of Malibu that no longer exists and a lot of Malibu that, even if rebuilt, will never be the same. That coastline was my daily commute in the show, and we spent a lot of time there, and I’ve been back since and cried the whole way from PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] all the way up to deep in Malibu. They called it the Palisades Fire, but half of Malibu’s gone, and though it’s not in-name, it’s a Malibu fire. So, we’ve immortalized this part of the West Side of LA that will never be the same, and I think it’s going to be very bittersweet to see what we captured — and I know what we captured because I was there — and what currently no longer exists.

Ballard, Series Premiere, Wednesday, July 9, Prime Video