Walker star Coby Bell previews what's next for Captain James and Liam's investigation

On last week's episode of Walker, Captain James (Coby Kell) and Liam (Keegan Allen) discovered that Carlos Mendoza (Joe Perez), the man who confessed to murdering Emily (Genevieve Padalecki), is dying. Furthermore, they found out that money is being sent to an art gallery in Mexico that's connected to Mendoza's family, and that Geri (Odette Annable) might be involved.

This week, Captain James and Liam take a little trip to Mexico to (hopefully) get more answers. EW spoke with Bell about the adventure and the experience of making Walker.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you're playing a character that has such established relationships with Walker [Jared Padalecki] and everyone, did you need to know about his past? Did you and showrunner Anna Fricke discuss that?

COBY BELL: We absolutely had discussions. The way the character was first developed, the story wasn't that he was Walker's partner before, and when Anna and I got to talking, we started saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if maybe they had a big-brother-little-brother relationship and he was Walker's mentor when Walker first came into the Rangers?" And then he becomes captain and they have to deal with that dynamic of, "Oh, you were just my buddy and now you're my boss." I had to get the inside scoop on the whole backstory of what was going on with Walker because I gotta know what my character knows. There's even backstory with [Lindsey Morgan's] character and my character. We'll find that out later, how he brought her into the Rangers.

You mention the big-brother-little-brother dynamic with Walker. I get a similar vibe with Captain James and Liam, who of course is Walker's little brother.

Captain James is sort of a part of the family. He was so close with Walker, he was probably with the kids when they were really little, so he's kind of like Uncle Larry to them. He's definitely a very close family friend to the whole family, he has that relationship with Liam, and Keegan is such a cool guy. He's so much fun to work with.

What can you tell me about their trip to Mexico?

I can tell you that it gets crazy. We found out that money from Geri was going down to this art gallery in Mexico, so yeah, next episode Liam and Larry head down south and get into some trouble.

We've seen Captain James on the periphery of some action, but I really want him to get in there.

I can't tell you too much, but I can tell you that it's coming. Jared and Lindsey get to do most of the butt-kicking, but every once in a while I get to kick some butt.

What do you feel is James' motivation to solve Emily's murder? Obviously he cares about Walker, but I would imagine he and Emily were also friends.

Yeah, we've done some flashback stuff that you'll see later on in the season. It was his good friend's wife, and I think he feels a lot of guilt for botching the investigation, especially after what we found out in episode 6. We find out that it wasn't necessarily Carlos Mendoza that killed her, or it starts to look that way. Not only that, he was the one that let Walker go undercover right after it happened, so I think he feels guilt about that, about letting him go away from his family and not solving this crime for his friend.

I'd imagine putting the wrong person away is going to weigh on him.

I think the only salvation here is that this guy was saying that he did it. Why would someone do that? And then we start to get into why and that connects us to episode 7, and then it goes from there. I've been so thoroughly impressed with Anna and the writing team, the twists and turns they've been giving this thing, this early in the run of the show. I feel like each episode there's a moment. They're doing a really good job of that. Then also just giving it the heart. My daughter was saying she feels like she wants to be there for the family.

Walker airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.

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