Titus Welliver Compares ‘The Equalizer’ Character to Bosch, Talks Working With Queen Latifah

Titus Welliver‘s Harry Bosch was an LAPD homicide detective on Bosch then a private detective on Bosch: Legacy, which ended its run on April 17. If it had returned for a fourth season, he told TV Insider, plans were being discuss that he return as a cop in a smaller California department.

On April 20, it’s the CIA’s turn when he guests on The Equalizer as a former agency operative named Elijah Reed who could become part of a new series. (CBS announced his casting for the potential spinoff in January. There hasn’t been an update since then.) His character has an adopted daughter Samantha, played by Juani Feliz. Titled somewhat ominously, “Sins of the Father,” Samantha contacts McCall (Queen Latifah) when her father goes missing  She joins forces with the Equalizer to track down the CIA legend and, in doing so, she finds out more about her family’s past in the Dominican Republic.

“The episode really focuses on our characters and our backstory,” says Welliver, “and what’s happening in real time and how she comes in contact with McCall. It was a marvelous experience. Juani is an extraordinarily gifted actor and we have great chemistry together. Latifah and I have known each for a thousand centuries, but we never worked together before, so that was really the cherry on top. We had a couple of scenes together. It was great. I can’t say enough good things about that entire group.”

His Bosch shows were “deeply grounded in reality,” he says. “I get approached so often by members of law enforcement and the military, and the consistent comment always is, ‘I watch your show because it’s real; it’s never goofy or goes off the rails.’ The Equalizer is also very grounded but it has a heightened kind of reality to it, so there may be things that are a bit more fantastic that you’d see on Bosch.”

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As for Eli Reed, “he is very, very different from Bosch. He’s more open and demonstrative than Bosch. And despite the element of secrecy and protection, his relationship with his daughter, who he has raised to basically be another version of himself, is strong. You might say,” he adds, “that Eli Reed is Jason Bourne without the memory problems.”

Welliver also compares Reed to the McCalls (played by Edward Woodward in the original, as well as versions played by Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington). “He is of that same ilk with a high level and dangerous skill set. His daughter, who has been under his tutelage for 20 to 25 years, possesses that same skillset, so they are even more formidable together. I hope people dig it.”

The Equalizer, Sundays, 10/9c, CBS