Titus Welliver Reflects on Bosch: Legacy Season 3 and the Series Finale

Harry Bosch has come a long way since helping out in Maddie’s early days of Bosch: Legacy. As Season 3’s case strikes closer to home, Harry has gradually exposed the darker facets of his character over the course of the investigation.

I recently had the chance to speak with Titus Welliver about how the season’s most shocking moments have influenced Harry and Maddie, how Bosch: Legacy Season 3 Episodes 9 and 10 will conclude Harry’s journey, and what the Bosch spinoff, Ballard, will offer. (You can watch the full interview below.)

One shocking moment from Bosch: Legacy Season 3 was the death of Detective Robertson, who’s been one of the most important characters in Bosch. When Robertson was killed off on Bosch: Legacy Season 3 Episode 5, “F***ing Politics,” it left fans very worried.

Welliver also said that this scene was very shocking to see for himself, but it could be real because everything about it felt very sudden, both narratively and on-screen.

“When that happens, you’re going to have to complete that experiment,” Welliver said. “There’s nothing that leads up to that, that in any way, shape, or form indicates that something is going to happen [to] Robertson, and it’s so immediate.”

“It’s definitely between them. I don’t want to say that they’re necessarily adversarial, but we also see that they’ve started to form a bond form. A potential friendship that will go beyond these two cops talking,” Welliver said.

One overarching aspect that fans of Bosch: Legacy have enjoyed is the integration of real-life details from Los Angeles into these characters. Michael Connelly, the original author behind the Bosch series, was heavily inspired by his own personal experiences as well as real cases within the true crime genre.

Watch the full interview with Titus Welliver:

Welliver broke down how these real-life details and inspirations helped the Bosch: Legacy creative team build these characters both throughout Season 3 and the series in its entirety, referring back to the Robertson-Bosch relationship.

“What the show is really about is the human condition,” Welliver explained. “People navigate relationships and how relationships are formed or compromised.”

“It’s always been troubled, and yet what we see is them in a very genuine and natural way. They’re not hugging it out; they’re not ‘buddy-buddy’ in that way. We just never get to see the next iteration of that relationship and how that evolves.”

“We never felt that we had to spell things out for them because for the people — the source material is Michael Connelly’s books, right?” Welliver said. “There’s a lot that’s said in those scenes between each character that’s unsaid, and that is the mastery of writing by Michael Connelly, and Eric Overmyer, and Tom Bernardo.”

Though Harry’s investigation led him down a winding path, Bosch: Legacy Season 3 Episode 7, “Welcome to the Other Side,” finally revealed an important truth about the case. The person Harry had been hunting down was innocent, and now, he’s off to chase the real culprit, Finbar McShane.

Reflecting on the moment that satisfied Welliver with this reveal, he mentioned how the case’s stakes heavily intensified the story, both for the characters and for the audience.

“There’s no resolution. I mean, he finds the bodies of the family,” Welliver said. “And Harry, he has this great saying where he says, ‘closure is a myth.’ Now knowing that Finbar McShane is responsible for this, what’s going to happen? How will he pursue that?”

“We see there’s a kind of darkness to come. It’s very penetrating, and I think it’s palpable for the audience. Despite the fact that it sparks curiosity, and it makes for good drama, the moral conundrum will be interesting to see how that plays for as an audience member.”

Though Bosch’s legacy is coming to an end, another character is set to make their spinoff debut: that being Maggie Q’s Renee Ballard in Ballard. Welliver also gave a little tease as to what that spinoff will have in store for fans.

“We introduce her in [Bosch: Legacy], and it does not feel like it’s a setup,” Welliver shared. “That relationship is very fully realized in the novels of in the last I don’t even know how many novels that they have. They went from Bosch books to Bosch-Ballard books.”

“She’s perfectly realized by Maggie and the nature of that relationship with Bosch. Obviously, in one episode, you cannot delve into the formation of a larger relationship between those two characters in a fifty-minute / hour of television. But it does set it up enough that it creates a thread for Renee to go on her own.”

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Bosch: Legacy streams Thursdays on Prime Video.

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