‘Bosch: Legacy’ Season 2: Can Bosch Save His Kidnapped Daughter?

For Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), everybody counts or nobody counts. However, that mantra takes on a deeper meaning in Season 2 of Bosch: Legacy as the retired homicide detective turned private investigator is on a desperate search for his daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz). The budding LAPD police officer was taken from her apartment by a lucha-masked assailant during the cliffhanger from the Freevee series’ first season.

Time is of the essence for Bosch, who enlists the help of attorney Honey “Money” Chandler (Mimi Rogers) and other familiar faces including his old partner Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector). As Bosch fans know, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come. Here we gather intel from EPs Tom Bernardo and Henrik Bastin. They’ve been among those who have played an important role in developing the Bosch universe for streaming alongside the book series’ author Michael Connelly.

This looks to be a big season for Maddie the character and the actress who plays her. What can you say about what she will be going through? 

Tom Bernardo: Good question right off the bat. We went out on a powerful cliffhanger. I love cliffhangers if you’re invested in a show, but they are very frustrating. That’s the kind of reaction you want as a storyteller because you want the audience to wonder what will happen next. We wanted to dive right into it and try to resolve it in the first two episodes. We wanted to treat it as if its own movie. With respect to Madison, we dramatized something the audience wasn’t privy to at the end of Season 1, which was the attack and abduction itself. We leave the question open of what happened to her until about the midway point.

Then we see Madison Lintz at what seems to be the height of her creativity and powers. She has to sit in this box for the bulk of episode 2. She is an active, resourceful, tough character. As an actress, she is doing all this by herself given the circumstances of her character’s predicament. That’s a tremendous amount of acting because she has to play a whole menu of emotions and be an agent in her own rescue rather than just be a passive character. We were excited as storytellers to see where this goes emotionally, spiritually, and dramatically for her through the rest of the season. How do we give the right justice to this storyline emotionally and the aftermath of it?

Freevee

It’s so fun to see Honey and Harry’s dynamic play out over not only the seven seasons of Bosch but on this spinoff as well. They are now really leaning on each other for support. 

Tom: We love taking these two people who otherwise would not want anything to do with each other and forcing them to under circumstances where they have to depend and rely on each other and trust each other. Let’s not forget they were adversaries not too long ago in the story world, became uneasy allies and now have to team up to take on a common foe. The foe is the consequences of a story they were entangled with in Season 1. They now have the full force of the federal government after them as a result of the Carl Rogers investigation.

Henrik Bastin: There are small things that I find enjoyment in with other shows where you can be certain enemies to a certain point. At the same time when sh*t hits the fan and Harry needs a helicopter, Honey gets things sorted out. I love moments like that where it’s like I have your back no matter what. Then we can go back to bickering and fighting and absolutely everything else in the world. But right now this is your daughter, so let’s go. I think that’s where their relationship is. If this hadn’t happened, they’d probably be on a different side of a court case somewhere fighting like before. They have developed this symbiotic relationship, especially since they’ve changed. What “Money” went through in Season 1 [surviving an attempted murder]. Those emotional effects started dipping her into that gray zone legally. Something she has criticized Harry for doing. She sees that sometimes you’re forced to go there for the greater good. She saw some of what she criticized Harry and the LAPD before. Now in this season, the federal government comes after them. They are a very different thing than having some local PD after you. They can really hurt you.

Tyler Golden

Speaking of which, Anthony Michael Hall joins the cast as Will Barron. How fun was it having him onboard playing this special agent out for blood? 

Tom: I have to tell you it was a little surreal for me because I grew up with his movies. So the first time we worked together on set it took me a few minutes to get past the fact I was talking to Anthony Michael Hall. He couldn’t have been more delightful as a person in terms of how nice he was and how serious he was about his craft. He was all in. I remember seeing him in a movie called Foxcatcher. I thought he had this presence as this older actor. It’s that presence that fits perfectly in terms of story. As soon as you see him, he comes with a sense of authority and performability. That’s what we need from that character. He was terrific and carries this history, so it was an honor to have him be part of our show.

How was it digging deeper into Mo’s (Stephen A. Chang) character after he was introduced last year? 

Tom: We love Stephen Chang and what he brings. We’d always envisioned this character as more than a sidekick to Bosch. We wanted him to have his own sense of independence and be able to justify it dramatically. We found the story this year in a way we hope surprises people with where it all goes. It just doesn’t put him in a tough predicament. He gets a chance to reveal this character in a new way that gives him an emotional depth that maybe we didn’t see coming or only saw hints of in the first season.

This season pulls from the book The Crossing, which has Harry working with his half-brother Mickey Haller, the defense attorney at the center of The Lincoln Lawyer. Was there any discussion of involving him? 

Henrik: We can’t go there as much as we have wanted to. These are two iconic characters in the Bosch universe. That Lincoln Lawyer lives its own life on Netflix, so we couldn’t go there. The blessing is having those talented writers look at the storyline in the book and being able to modify and give it to ‘Money’ Chandler to serve our universe. It’s cool if we could do something like that, but we just legally can’t go there.

What was it like having J. Edgar back in the mix? 

Tom: It was something we were really excited about. When we got into Season 1 and started figuring out what Bosch: Legacy was as its own show, we tried to be judicious and smart about what characters we wanted back from the original series. We wanted it to be only under circumstances that worked storywise. It was exciting to have Jamie Hector back as we love and miss him just as the audience does. We thought the situation that kicked off in season 2 justified his return big time. We thought about who could be leading this investigation. It had to be J. Edgar. What was interesting to us is we’ve seen this relationship and the textures and colors of it in different seasons, but now it’s a new vein. J. Edgar is in this new position, and there is a new power dynamic between him and Harry. Then there was all the personal history. We knew he would play a major role in the Maddie story, but being able to explore this different dynamic between him and Harry under the most heightened circumstances possible was really exciting.

Greg Gayne

There is lots of excitement for the reported spinoffs with Jerry Edgar and Renee Ballard. Any updates on those? 

Henrik: It’s a conversation for another day about where we are going with things, but I think we’ll see an expansion of this world. How it will look is not yet decided exactly. The proof is in the pudding. The fans love this universe we’re in. We would love to see it expand.

The Bosch family sadly lost Lance Reddick, who played Irvin Irving, this year. This season honors his memory in a lot of ways. 

Tom: We had started work on season 3 and were in the writer’s room when the news landed. It was devastating. It does feel like family when you get to know these people. I got to work with Lance so closely in all those seven seasons of Bosch. I can’t tell you how many conversations we had and how seriously he took his craft. I was able to witness his journey as an artist and the gift he gave us in his performance. He was a beautiful person and a wonderful artist who graced our story world. All of a sudden that person is gone and you suddenly have this whole world that you shared with him gone too. It hits. I can tell you one of the great gifts we had was bringing him back for one more scene. I’m so thankful we hit on this idea because you never know what will happen to people you love. We had that devastating news hit, but we still have that last moment together. We’re thankful for it.

Tyler Golden

How would you say season 2 plays into season 3? 

Tom: We’re still figuring that out. After five months of striking, I had to reacquaint the ideas we had. There is a major announcement with Chandler at the end of the season. That’s something we’re interested in as we grow the show. We will pursue that storyline. We just get to pick up and put Bosch, Chandler, and Maddie in all l these stories and circumstances and see where things go.

What are you most excited for viewers to see this season? 

Tom: I’m interested to see how people respond to the aftermath of Maddie and Harry after those first two episodes. The thing we take pride in is when we do commit to a storyline that has some weight to it, we hope that we can follow through and honor the consequences of those dramatic decisions. When something serious happens, you carry that with you emotionally and psychologically. It affects your life going forward. We hope we did justice to that ethos dramatically for Madison because she delivered as an actor. We hope where we see it all land in episode 10 it feels like those seeds were planted even in the first two episodes. It’s that relationship between father and daughter under these new circumstances. As they live in that emotional aftermath from the first two episodes.

Bosch: Legacy Season 2 premieres October 20 with the first four episodes dropping on Freevee.