Author’s Note: As we reach the halfway mark of
this decade I will occasionally go out of my way to give reference to series
that I believe have the potential to be among the greatest series of the 2020s.
I already have a few solid candidates for comedy which I’ve already referred
too. Drama has been harder to nail down, particularly with the recent
cancellations of such potentials as Cruel Summer and The
Old Man. However some strong possibilities remain, some
of them from unlikely sources, and as you will see the series that I’m about to
review is one of them.
The question on viewers
mind at the end of last season of Will Trent was, of course, where was
Will Trent? He had just arrested Angie Pulaski (Erika Christensen) who he was
about to plan a future with, for her role in obstruction of justice that had
led to a series of murders and a total of five deaths. Amanda had gone to his
home only to find Will had paid the rent for awhile and had not left a forwarding
address.
Six months later we get
an answer – and it’s surprising, to say the least. Will ended up in Tennessee
in a cabin, with a scruff of beard, working out and doing a job as a private
investigator. It doesn’t come as a huge shock that his boss tracked him down (there’s
a line in one of Karin Slaughter’s novels that hints she has a gang of crochety
old ladies throughout the country feeding her information) and it was
inevitable Will was eventually going to come back to Atlanta. (Even streaming
was unlikely to have its title character out of action for more than an episode.)
The circumstances, however, are more surprising because it reveals even more
about Will’s childhood then you’d think.
In the opening of
Season 3 Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin)
is attending an Atlanta PD barbecue with his children. When we last saw Ormewood
his wife had announced that she was divorcing him and filing for sole custody,
something he had no intention of letting happen. During this barbecue, two cops
go out to get more supplies and shots are fired. One of the cops dies, another’s
in the hospital. The new mayor of Atlanta (clearly modeled on Stacey Abrams)
was elected on an anti-crime and anti-police platform and has no problem
hanging both Amanda and the GBI out to dry in a press conference. Two rival
gangs are suspected and the Atlanta PD jumps on the ball and surrounds a gang
leader’s house. They clearly have every intention of shooting first and
avoiding questions. It therefore strikes us as odd when that gang leader asks
for Will Trent by name.
We’re not sure of why
until Will agrees to come in from the cold (or the muggy, as is the case) when
he hears the situation. When Will enters the home the two of them look at each
other – and then they start to fight. It is not, however, the fight of cop
versus criminal but rather of two people who used to be friends before an old
feud. (Criminals rarely give cops a wet willy.) And when the criminal’s grandmother
shows up, both of them immediately stop fighting and act deferential. As
becomes clear Will was once places in this family’s foster home – and may have
been more criminal than we expect. (The show is loyal to Will’s juvenile
background as well as the fact that Amanda Wagner basically saved him from a
life of crime.)
Will wants to go back
to Tennessee having done his job but circumstances do not allow it. And Faith
in particular is not happy about it: the first chance she gets she punches her
former partner in the stomach. Perhaps not surprisingly Faith and Ormewood have
bonded the last few months; more surprisingly is that he now seems to be taking
a role as a surrogate father, which leads to some laughs as he worries about
her blood sugar.
As the mystery unfolds
it becomes clear that the cop who was killed was involved in corruption
involving a stolen car ring and that he was planning to be a whistleblower. We
learn this when Will comes to a meeting and finds the new ADA there. (Just to
be clear Gina Rodriguez is no relation to Ramon Rodriguez.) Things
unravel when the gangster confesses to the killings – and we learn at the end
of the first part that his teenage daughter was abducted and is being held over
his head. (Will is surprised by this as he knew the gangster was gay. “My one
experiment with heterosexuality” he tells Will.”)
Much of the first two episodes
have everything the viewer has come to expect from Will Trent both the
show and its title character. Ramon Rodriguez’s Will is making huge strides forward
from his dyslexia (he now has a new app on his phone which is very helpful) but
he still relies on the old standard (he has his portable cassette recorder
handy at all times) Will’s reasons for going into hiding are understandable: he
was torn between his two loves: the law and Angie and his decision to choose
the former over the latter devastated him in ways that are still unclear. Trying
to earn the forgiveness of Amanda (the always wonderous Sonja Sohn) was easy
enough. Faith’s is going to be harder but there are signs they’re getting
somewhere. At the end of the first two episodes both of them awkwardly apologize,
attempt to hug each other and then walk away which for these two is the
equivalent of bawling in each other’s arms.
The larger question is how
Angie will deal with it. The show gives us no easy answers which is natural. Angie
is currently working security at a gated community where the biggest thing she
has to deal with is arguments between dog owners about who refused to clean up
after herself. Her sponsor, a fellow detective, is surprised she’s still sober
and Angie is honest. “I never got high because I was depressed. I got high
because I wanted to do good.” By the end of the second episode she knows Will
is back in Atlanta but the two have not reached out to each other. Angie has
been suspended and is facing a disciplinary board hearing for her actions.
(This is, sadly, probably the most severe punishment she could face in today’s
police environment.) By the end of the second episode she goes before the board
to give a statement of remorse for her actions and essentially beg for her job
back. There’s still no clear indication how the show will land on this - in the books she is dismissed from the
police but the series is far from canon in that regard.
As to the larger
question as to how Will and Angie will deal with this the series seems to be
toying with a new element. In the first two episodes Gina Rodriguez played
Marion, the new ADA who happens to be less inclined to color inside the lines. During
the episode the two of them engages in an interrogation with a shooter, first
by saying they were letting him go and then discussing their various pets.
Marion it turns out is a cat owner and she thinks Betty is cute. Karin
Slaughter’s novels eventually do introduce a third character in the Will-Angie toxic
relationship and the basic goodness of Gina Rodriguez which by and large is
always present in every character she plays on television serves as a contrast
to the behavior we see from Angie. Marion represents the angel on Will’s
shoulder and Angie, more often then not, is the devil. It’s unclear if Gina
Rodriguez’s role is a one season one or just a recurring role. But no TV series
has ever suffered from her presence and I hope she comes around one way or the
other.
The series offers other
wrinkles as well: Amanda ends up trying to foster Sunny, the child abducted and
who she helped rescue in at the end of the second episode. It’s hysterical
watching this tough-as-nails boss performing so awkwardly around a
fourteen-year old girl, in a role that she’s absolutely unqualified for. (“Shoes
off inside the house,” she tells Sunny as she invites her to her new home.) So
much of Will Trent’s brilliance beyond a procedural has been the often
awkward family dynamics with the entire cast. Faith has had problems with her college
age son, who was considering dropping out of college last season, as well as a
potential romantic relationship with a reporter. Ormewood is trying to be a
better father after his wife left him and is trying to figure out whether he
should be proud or afraid his teenage son is interested in girls. Each season
we keep learning more about the complicated family dynamics of Will Trent, and
in this case we learn that the last time he talked with the gang leader was
when he went to jail for manslaughter. There’s clearly a history we’re not
aware of yet, but this show has a long memory and we will come back to it
sometime. The fact that by their final interaction Will has put back on the
mask of a Special Agent and now regards his old foster brother as a criminal
shows that his sense of morality has not been lost.
One of the best moments
of last night’s episode was Will donning his old three-piece suit, putting a
handkerchief in his pocket and mouthing the words to “Midnight Train to Georgia”
with a stone-faced Betty. “I’ll be Gladys, you be the Pips,” he said to his
cute but indifferent dog. The song is iconic and has been used in so many other
occasions but rarely has it been more fitting in the case of Will Trent. The
fact he’s behind the wheel of his fancy sports car during the final scene doesn’t
change the fact that now that Will Trent is back in Georgia, so is one of the
best series on television. And if that’s not worth parading around your room
mouthing the words to Gladys Knight, then, well what is?
My score: 5 stars.
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