Renée Ballard sits on her surfboard in the tranquil sea, her mind filled with reflections. She thinks about her deceased father, who passed his passion for surfing down to her, and the elusive nature of tranquility. She also contemplates how, when men commit wrongful acts, it’s often women who are left to bear the consequences. However, her work is calling, so she heads back to the beach to fetch Lola. At home, her grandmother Tutu proudly displays a “Build Your Own Board” kit for her granddaughter, a nod to the father-daughter activity they once cherished. But Renée, not ready to face those memories, tells her to return it, just like her unprocessed traumas.

The team’s cold cases are brimming with activity. There’s concern over a bullet in an unsolved John Doe murder that may have slipped through the cracks, and a potential link between Councilman Pearlman’s sister’s murder and a serial killer. Upon reaching the station, Ballard is assigned a fresh cold case by the sharply mustached Captain Berchem (Hector Hugo). The case involves a woman whose brother, Nick, died after falling from a fraternity house balcony. She’s taken to social media to criticize the LAPD’s inactivity, prompting the department to resolve the matter. Laffont and Ballard attend the frat reunion to probe The PItt‘s night shift alum. Misleadingly, it’s Ken Kirby, the actor who portrays Dr. Shen, but in Ballard, he’s Joey, the ex-fraternity member who inadvertently reveals his mates’ “Body Count Book” and its secrets.

Ballard locates the book and discovers it’s a record of harmful conduct, complete with Polaroids of young women and their ratings. Shockingly, some women they interview dismiss the book as a relic of its time, admitting they accepted or even anticipated their placements. This narrative changes when Ballard and Parker speak to Meredith (Lindsey Haun), Nick’s girlfriend back then. Ballard senses Meredith’s hidden trauma, noticing how she bears the truth like a heavy burden. As she pieces together missing pages and considers Joey’s remark about the book’s location near Nick’s fall, Ballard cautiously confronts Meredith. She explains how reputations can be tarnished by men for mere sport, without any repercussions. “We carry those burdens and get labeled,” she notes. Meredith confesses to pushing Nick in her grief and anger over his words about her. Closing this cold case feels like anything but a triumph.

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.