Legacy’ ending and what comes next

Over the past decade, Titus Welliver has become nearly synonymous with Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, the fiercely determined LAPD-detective-turned-P.I. he’s played on 10 combined seasons of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy.

But this week marks a turning point for Welliver, 63, and Harry, who first appeared in the pages of Michael Connelly’s 1992 novel The Black Echo and has gone on to anchor some two dozen books. On Thursday, Prime Video released the final two episodes of Bosch: Legacy season 3, which officially concludes the main Bosch saga on screen.

The final episode of Legacy looks both forward and back, with Harry finally closing a case that has haunted him since the earliest days of Bosch — and teaming up with a new ally to do so. The Legacy series finale introduces Maggie Q as Renée Ballard, a cold-case detective in the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division who will get her own spinoff series, Ballard, this summer.

With Bosch: Legacy coming to a close, Entertainment Weekly caught up with Welliver to discuss playing Harry over the years, how he found out the series was ending, whether and how fans might see Harry on screen again, how he feels about passing the torch to Q, and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve played this character for 10 seasons, about 10 years, nearly 100 episodes. How does it feel to be wrapping up the main Bosch saga as we know it?

TITUS WELLIVER: Terrible, it feels terrible. I love Harry Bosch and I miss him. You form a bond with a character over time, and I feel like I keep waiting for him to show up. But I’m extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished in 10 years. I’ve worked with the best writers and actors and producers, and I’ve had the great fortune to be able to portray a character that I think is deeply nuanced and very intense and multifaceted. It’s a tremendous gift, and I think if anything, when I say it feels bad, I just feel sad just because the experience was so incredibly positive for 10 years, and to have such an incredibly devout, dedicated fan base, which is why we lasted 10 years. It’s hard to say goodbye to that, but never say never.

How did you find out that this would be the final season of Bosch: Legacy, and what was your immediate reaction?

I was really taken aback. I don’t think any of us anticipated that at all. So my immediate response was kind of shock, and then deep disappointment, a kind of disbelief. But some of it, as Harry would say, it’s above my pay grade. It was not due to any kind of salary disputes or anything like that. A command decision was made, and that’s the way it goes. But I was able to sort of turn that around very quickly, just in the fact of feeling like this show has a strength that’s going to have tremendous longevity. I think it’ll be a show that’ll run and rerun and find new audiences over the years. And look, if the tide turned and we were approached about possibly continuing in some shape or form, I know everybody would immediately jump into the Boschmobile and go.

A lot of fans were surprised and disappointed by the news that the show was ending, and there’s been an online petition calling for more Bosch. What’s it like to see that kind of support?

I find it deeply touching and moving. The fans have always, from the beginning, been really, really supportive. And I was not a social media guy until I did Bosch. I didn’t know anything about social media whatsoever, and then Amazon asked me to become active on it. And I really enjoyed interacting with the fans, and still continue to do so. People are out there and they’re expressing their feelings in real time, and I’m very appreciative of all that.

You’ve said that there were plans or talks of doing a fourth season of Bosch: Legacy, and there are some unresolved plot threads in season 3. Can you tell us anything about where a season 4 might have gone?

Well, it was funny. We were shooting a sequence in this season and we cut, and Tom Bernardo and Michael Connelly and our technical advisor, retired LAPD Robbery-Homicide Det. Tim Marcia, were there. I had a big smile on my face, and Tom Bernardo said, “What are you smiling about?” And I said, “Because I feel like a cop again.” And I said, “I don’t know if it’s me smiling or if it’s Harry smiling,” but that scene, and I think more so in this season, the nature of the work that Harry is doing feels less like private investigation and more like when he was working a case when he was a cop.

And I said, “Well, come on, Mike. In the books, he volunteers for the San Fernando Police Department as a cold-case homicide detective.” And in that same conversation, I turned to Tim Marcia and I said, “Hey, could Harry go back to LAPD?” And Tim said he definitely could. And so we talked about that for a little bit. We were sort of like, that would be kind of cool because it’d be interesting for Harry to go back to LAPD.

You’ve expressed interest in doing some kind of Bosch continuation, be it more episodes or something feature-length. What’s appealing to you about that?

It’s the character and it’s the experience. And there are a lot more stories to be told. I mean, that’s the thing. There are still lots of books, and even in the process of writing the show, there’s been a lot of stuff that was not in the books that was created by the writers. So there’s so many different avenues. I’ve bandied about fish-out-of-water stories where Harry goes to London to extradite a guy back from London who’s part of the London underworld to stand trial for the murder of — I mean, it’s like a half-off sale at the bakery. My brain sometimes is a very, very busy place, and I get inspired. I have to say, being in the presence of Tom Bernardo and Connelly and company, we were always spitballing ideas.

When you all found out that season 3 of Legacy would be the final season, was there anything you added or changed to make it feel like more of a conclusion? Or is this just the season as it was made?

That’s just what happened. I mean, there’s no ultimate closure. We always left things a little bit up in the air [at the end of a season]. We introduced the character of Renée Ballard, and that was a lot of fun to do, and Maggie will go into her own iteration of the Bosch universe as Renée Ballard. But no, we didn’t go back and do any reshoots or re-editing to give it some sense of finality. It was just what’s done was done. So it ends in the way that most seasons of Bosch do. There’s not definitive finality to it, but there’s no cliffhanger.

Is there anything you didn’t get to do that you would’ve liked for a final season?

Well, I’d have brought everybody back. If I’d known that, I would’ve said, “You know what? Let’s have everybody, at least as they relate to the department, let’s have them intersect with Harry and let’s load it.”

Harry goes to some pretty dark places in season 3, and as a viewer you question which lines he will or won’t cross. What do you imagine Harry’s headspace is like after going through all that?

I think he comes as close to the edge as we’ve ever seen him before. But there’s a part of him, which is also very much part of his whole military background, is that you soldier on. And it’s not that he’s unaware of that darkness and the fact that it can penetrate you. I think he heals himself, in his own way. And I think that, more than anything, would be something that we would see him do. But the only way that he does that is by continuing the process. So it makes perfect sense that you would have Harry just go right back to work. He’d be looking for the next thing because that’s, oddly, his safe place. It’s his work that carries him through, even through the darkness.

We talked a little bit about Ballard coming on the scene. The final episode of season 3 feels almost like a backdoor pilot for Ballard, but it’s also a full-circle moment for Harry, who revisits a cold case we’ve seen in previous seasons. What was it like working with Maggie Q in episode 10, and how does it feel to be passing the torch?

We hit it off right away. We have a million friends in common, but we hit it off right away. They had talked to me about people that they were considering for that role, and when Maggie’s name came into the mix I said, “Oh, she’d be great.” Because I know the real Renée Ballard, who is Mitzi Roberts, and she’s really got it down, and I’m happy to see that carry on. I know it’s in very capable hands with her. Maggie really got the character.

I think more than anything for her going forward with Ballard was to get a sense of what the show did so successfully for so many years, [which] was the tone of the show, the tone of the Bosch universe, now Bosch-Ballard universe. That’s integral to the success of it. You don’t want to take something and extract and then take it to a place where it feels unfamiliar.

Michael Connelly has teased that viewers haven’t seen the last of Harry Bosch, and you’ve confirmed that you’ll be popping up in Ballard. Can you tell us anything about what’s in store there?

I don’t want to spoil anything. Here’s what I will say: I don’t think it’s anything that’s earth-shattering. I think it is just sort of some of the connective tissue between the universes. But I love working with Maggie. She’s also someone who’s a highly tuned machine, so she’s a great pleasure to work with, but she’s very, very funny. There were definitely moments where if this was school, Maggie Q and I would not be allowed to sit next to each other in class. No way. But that’s the beauty of it. That’s what you hope for, and that was the experience of doing Bosch all those years. It was really, really fun.

You recently signed a first-look deal with Amazon, so you’ll be continuing that creative partnership. What sorts of projects are you looking to do next?

It’s a 10-year relationship that we’ve had, and so Amazon put me into a first-look development thing — not only developing, I’m really looking to sort of find my next series. And Bosch is a tough act to follow. If it’s going to be a character, it’s going to have to be a really substantive, interesting character. So I’ve got stuff that I’ve created on my own and with other people, and I bring IP and stuff to Amazon.

It’s in its infancy. We’re just starting to really have real-time conversations with material and where we want to go with it. Is it stuff that I want to act in, or is it stuff that I would want to produce or direct? But stay tuned. There’ll definitely be some great stuff coming down the pike. And Michael Connelly and I and Henrik Bastin and Tom Bernardo, we continue to work together. We’ve got some ideas, so stand by.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

All three seasons of Bosch: Legacy and seven seasons Bosch are available to stream on Prime Video.

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