This interview contains major spoilers from Bosch: Legacy Season 2, now streaming on Amazon Freevee.
Audiences were riveted during Bosch: Legacy Season 2 -- which made the jaw-dropping conclusion to Season 1 seem quiet. The Amazon Freevee series kept turning up the heat until the season finale changed Bosch and Chandler's lives permanently. Bosch's daughter Maddie learned that her father seemingly had Kurt Dockweiler killed in prison, while Chandler declared that she was going to leave private practice and run for Los Angeles County District Attorney. In just two seasons, Bosch: Legacy has upended its entire status quo.
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After the season finale, CBR spoke to stars Titus Welliver (who portrays Harry Bosch) and Mimi Rogers (Honey Chandler) to get their reaction to an intense ten episodes. The actors discussed their most intense and emotional Season 2 scenes, as well as what they feel sets the Bosch universe apart from prototypical crime dramas, and Welliver's love-to-hate-him performance as villain Rob Miller in Law & Order: SVU. Bosch: Legacy Season 2 is now streaming on Amazon Freevee.
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CBR: Bosch creator Michael Connelly has spoken about how the series is able to keep up its suspense and not fall into traditional crime drama plot holes. From an acting perspective, what do you see that makes the series so distinct?
Titus Welliver: It's just better written. I think it speaks to the source material -- you've got these great books written by Michael Connelly, and in lesser hands, [the TV series] could be completely destroyed. But you know, it ain't broke, so nobody tried to fix it and [they] stayed true to it. And I think that's what gives it its guts.
Mimi Rogers: I would say it's a combination of things. Michael Connelly and the world that he's created, and the fact that they've been able to be faithful to that [while] putting it on screen. You have a show which is so specific to the city that it's in, to who Harry Bosch is. What sets this show apart is the level of specificity. And how layered and how complex [it is]. One of the great things about the show is that it's always attempted to depict the world of police work in a very realistic way -- showing both the good side and the bad side.
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And then it's always been about the character of Bosch and exploring who this man is. There's a very deep emotional well, in terms of who he is and what his backstory is, and the sense of justice that he has. In the idea that this is what he's always pursuing and what's the most important thing to him. There's a lot to emotionally connect into as well.
It's also very serialized, almost like the series of Bosch novels. The Legacy Season 2 premiere picked up exactly where Season 1 left off and Season 3 will have to resolve plot points from Season 2. Does that incredible continuity enhance your performances?
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Rogers: As an actor, it's a luxury to have so many years to inhabit a character, because it gives you an opportunity to always be finding new corners and new perspectives and new elements to put forth. It's really wonderful, because most of the time you don't have that opportunity. You don't have that much time. We could be eight seasons in and you're going oh, my God, this is something about Chandler that I had really never thought about before. And obviously it's very much enmeshed with your own personality, but to have the time to keep creating and expanding and expanding, it really has been a gift.
Both of you were asked to deliver scenes that were not only suspenseful, but incredibly emotional this season. Bosch: Legacy Season 2 really kicked off when Bosch had his emotional breakdown. How challenging was that scene to film?
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Welliver: The first two episodes were the most emotional. It was time to allow that veneer and Harry's protective coating to break, because his child's life is in peril. Part of the thing of Harry is that he's not an emotionally demonstrative guy, right? He's very poker-faced; he's always in a state of observation. And that's my intent -- we allow the audience to see see his wheels turning, but not telegraph anything specifically. And so that's why those scenes with the cops and Harry going to the morgue, [they were] without question, in all the years of doing this show, that was the most difficult. Thankfully, it was in the capable hands of Sharat [Raju], who's a wonderful director, and we kind of went against the grain on that.
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That scene was originally written [as] he comes out of the morgue he punches the car; it's more of an outpouring of rage... That's there, but I said this has to be something else -- that we have to allow this to land on him. I just said set up several cameras; this is not going to be a multiple take scenario. And so they placed the cameras, I walked it through where I was gonna go, where I might land and and we did it. What you see on the show is a single continuous take... It had to be a breakdown and a real primal howl. After all these years, you see a guy who's so contained, and that was definitely the hardest stuff to do.
Chandler had her own difficult moments as well, being betrayed by people close to her and dealing with tremendous blowback from the FBI investigation. Mimi, what stood out to you as the hardest scene to put together?
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Rogers: Chandler has a lot going on. But for me, the scenes with David [Moses], who plays Martin Rose, and watching the kind of disappointment and sense of betrayal and the fact that I've blown that whole thing up. That was emotionally painful. This is a man that I that I love, who has meant so much to me and who has been so supportive and been there for me. And just having to put him in a position where I've let him down on every level, that was really hard.
It's particularly interesting to watch this series given that both of you are familiar faces to crime drama fans. Titus, how was the contrast between playing Harry Bosch and then going off and recurring as one of ?
Welliver: That's the beauty of it, though. That character was horrible. (laughs) [SVU star] Mariska Hargitay is an old friend of mine, so any time you get to work with people that you're close to and that you love, that makes [for] a lot of fun. He was a horrible, horrible character -- but a nice departure from Bosch, because I always want to keep the wheels rolling.
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Bosch: Legacy has been renewed for Season 3. Season 2 is now streaming on Amazon Freevee.