Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch returns to our screens for a ninth season — or second, depending on your point of view — as Bosch: Legacy comes to Amazon Freevee. Fresh from the conclusion of the spin-off’s first season, in which Titus Welliver’s leading man, now a private investigator after retiring from his work as a detective, faced the terrifying discovery that his daughter, rookie LAPD officer Maddie (Madison Lintz) was missing, having been abducted by a serial rapist. To preview the new season, Collider spoke with two of the key creative figures behind the grumpiest man in Hollywood to discuss where Bosch was heading in his tenth year on our screens.

Tom Bernardo, a showrunner, executive producer and writer on the series, as well as executive producer Henrik Bastin were both generous enough to give up their time to discuss the upcoming season, and we delved into spoilerific territory, removed for this story — once the full series has aired, we’ll post a story about the future of Bosch: Legacy and its third season — but for now, read on to hear their thoughts on what makes Bosch such an intriguing character and why he’s lasted so long, as well as hearing them dish on Bosch’s rule-bending, Maddie’s desire to do good despite what she faces, and lastly, Henrik’s feelings on the critical mauling his directorial work on the in-show movie The Black Echo has taken over the years.

Check out the trailer for Season 2 below before you dive into our interview with Tom Bernardo and Henrik Bastin.

COLLIDER: We’re going into the tenth year now of Bosch on our screens, with the show debuting in 2014. What is it you guys think it is about the character that’s contributed to his longevity on the screen? What do you think makes Harry such a compelling character for viewers in your minds?

TOM BERNARDO: I think Michael [Connelly] has created one of the most compelling detective characters in the contemporary scene. And I’ve said this before, I really believe that character, when it’s all said and done, will stand shoulder to shoulder with the greats, from Raymond Chandler on down. I think he’s built somebody that is archetypal in some ways but also has taken on real flesh and blood in the performance by Titus Welliver. Titus, he’s kind of a throwback actor in the sense that the laconic nature of this character sort of lends itself to his strengths. He conveys a very sort of wounded, damaged world just through his eyes, and I think that makes him, in a sense, mysterious. But with each passing season, we reveal more and more about him, none more than in the heightened circumstances that begin our Season 2. So it’s just been, I hope for our audience, this journey that you go on with this character who has this code; who’s this creature of institutions with his own traumatic past; who’s kind of searching in the darkness of Los Angeles for justice as a homicide detective, and now trying to figure out his life post law enforcement as a private eye, with these things happening with his daughter now out in the streets of LA as a cop.

HENRIK BASTIN: Adding to that, I think why this character works both in Michael’s book world, but also we were able to borrow him over into the TV world is that it doesn’t matter where you stand politically, what you think about it, he is that one character or person that I think you all want by your side. He’s genuinely on the weak person side. He doesn’t care what politics you have, what race you have, what you are, if you’re a cop or a bad guy. He treats everybody the same. And if you have done someone wrong, he’s gonna rectify it for you and go through hell and back to do that. And I think that’s what we all miss, especially in this crazy world, is that stability, someone who doesn’t play for the audience, he just does what’s inherently right, and I think that is rare, especially in the real world. I think that’s why, at least me personally. I remember when I started reading Michael’s books, it was like, “This is a guy I wanna hang out with. And if shit would ever go down and someone close to me would have been hurt or injured, that’s the type of person that you want to come in and say, ‘I’ll fix this for you.’” And I think that, at its core, is what makes Harry Bosch a likable character.

On that note, the way that Bosch will be relentless in his quest to do the right thing, we’ve seen how far he’ll go in cases before, even in his official capacity as a detective, and we’ve seen how far he’ll go for his family when they’re in danger, but now that he’s not constrained by that rulebook of the LAPD, what was the process like for letting Bosch go unchained in his search for Maddie’s abductor?

BERNARDO: Well, I think it was exciting from a story perspective for both Michael and the team after writing for this character who had to be in this sort of institution of the LAPD, right? So, in Legacy, you can give him new, fresh story circumstances, and he can start to step over lines if the story justifies. But to your point, Chris, this is the most heightened, intense scenario this character’s ever been through, and so it was exciting for us as writers to put him in there, to also put him in there at his most powerless because he’s no longer part of the department and can’t use those resources, is on the outside looking in, but is not the kind of character who’s gonna sit and wait for the cops to call him with updates. So he had to be active, desperate, keeping his emotions in check where he could, but also being overcome with them at times. So we were gonna see, and it was exciting for us, and I hope it’s exciting for the audience to see a very heightened scenario and to see our hero in a way we’ve never seen him before, out there emotionally, out there crossing lines. Again, just a whole new Harry Bosch.

BASTIN: And again, to Tom’s point, yes, he’s unchained, he can do things, but he also realizes that being on the inside of that institution, which he has hated from time to time, also comes with perks. You can do things that you can’t do as a private citizen. You don’t have access to a lot of things, and you’re on the outside, and I think that’s what he feels. I think that goes into him as a character in this season and going forward. He slowly is realizing, which I think a lot of people who are retired have, “This might not be exactly what I was hoping for,” and that he actually misses some of the things that you take for granted when you are on the inside.

Image via Amazon Freevee

Given the close shaves that Maddie’s had already, how do you foresee that affecting the character’s psyche long term? Given the positives she’s seen with finishing off the Peeping Tom case, as well as what happens to her as a result of maybe getting too involved in other cases, do you think that will negatively affect her, or is it just going to reinforce her desire to do good?

BERNARDO: It’s a good question. It’s definitely going to affect her. What was interesting to us is she’s her own character, but, of course, she carries a lot of who her father is with her, and her mother, and at the same time is her own person and is in the process of discovering who that person is now as a young adult in this world of LAPD, being a rookie patrol cop out on those streets. So it was interesting for us to look into what happens to your empathy as you’re in this world and seeing the realities of things on a daily basis. If that empathy matters to you and you have a certain code, what happens when you start to feel it numbing because that’s the only way to cope and get through the job sometimes and to do it effectively because you can’t be undone by your emotions on a daily basis? So, one of the things I’ve said that is important to us as storytellers is, what are the consequences when you put a character into something, and she experiences what she experiences in the first two episodes? How does that affect and inform her for the rest of her life, in these given circumstances coupled with these questions that are interesting to us story-wise in terms of, “What kind of cop am I gonna be as I go into this new world?”

I am a huge fan of Crate and Barrel as characters, and it’s always great when they turn up in Legacy. Which other characters from the original series who’ve not yet appeared are you keen to get on board going forward?

BERNARDO: It’s hard to answer that because we try to bring them in when the story justifies it. Since we’re still figuring out where we’re gonna go in Season 3, it kind of comes up in conversation where it’s like, “Oh, what if Robertson were to come back into the fold?” And I’m not saying he’s going to, Chris, but that’s somebody we always keep in the back of our mind because we love Paul Calderón, and we really love that character. He’s very interesting. The moment he steps on screen he brings a kind of world with him and a history because he’s been part of our original series. So that’s maybe one that I’d keep an eye on that maybe we go to explore. But I’m glad to hear that you love Crate and Barrel and that those guys, when they show up, are still fun to watch.

Henrik, the keen-eyed fans out there will obviously know that you were listed as the director of The Black Echo on the poster, which is in Bosch’s home, but given the critical mauling that film takes all through the series, is it still a film you’re proud of having made?

BASTIN: [Laughs] Yes, I am! Very proud.

BERNARDO: Best question of the day.

BASTIN: I’m just waiting for the residuals. I’m hoping the strike will get me the residuals for that.

BERNARDO: Chris, I just went on strike for five months for Henrik’s residuals.

I hope you get exactly what you deserve for it. It’s a real favorite of mine.

Bosch: Legacy streams on Amazon Freevee every Friday until November 10 in the U.S.

Watch on Prime Video