"A lot of people are finding a voice, and I found that for myself, where I was like, 'Oh wow, I've been complacent,'" Makin tells EW. "I woke up one morning and I was watching the news, and I was like, 'I can't do this. I can't go play a cop on a show and not talk about the fact that I'm a Black cop.' My character hadn't addressed any of that."

He adds, "I had that conversation with Alexi [Hawley], our showrunner, and he was extremely gracious and he totally understood everything I was saying. I did come to that point where I was like, 'If you want to write me out, I politely receive that. I would rather be written out than ignore the reality and not be able to tell the story.'"

But Hawley and his team weren't interested in ignoring that reality and were intentional about addressing Makin's concerns. The result, or at least its beginnings, came in Sunday's episode, "La Fiera."

TITUS MAKIN: It was a bit of a bigger situation than I was able to fully describe at that time. Because it starts back for me, even just playing a cop in the first place, which was a hurdle [with] where I'm from and how I viewed the cops growing up. To play one, I already was wrestling with, "Oh man, people are gonna think I'm Team Cops." And the reality was I was struggling.

What the show does well in general, and what they are leaning more towards with this specific situation, is the aspirational aspect of the show. We're trying to lean everybody in the direction of what policing should look like and what it could look like and what it does look like for some, but trying to push them to a new way of policing. A better way of policing. So we really get to see this unravel within the precinct, within police policing each other. Instead of the public response, we get to see what happens within the police station.