(Spoilers for Season 4 of Will
Trent as well as Slaughter's novels ahead)
I had thought that I was long
past the point in my long career of watching TV of being surprised by character
deaths. So it says something that the murder of Deputy Director Amanda Wagner –
which I'll confess I was hoping against hope hadn't happened until the opening
of last night's episode – ranks for me as the most stunning death since Howard
Hamlin was fatally in the wrong place at the wrong time in the final season of Better
Call Saul.
It's not that there have been
more than their share of tragic deaths in that interim but in Will Trent it
had a sting that I really didn't think the show would do and few TV shows that
are based on source material have. Joel's death on The Last of Us was
shocking but fans of the video game franchise had an idea it was coming and
considering that Slow Horses is based on the books of Mick Herron, the
readers had to know that every death is planned to an extent. And as anyone who
is a fan of Slaughter's novels (and I'm one of them) Amanda Wagner is still
very much alive after ten books.
To be fair the series has
deviated quite a bit from the source material in its adaptation of ABC, not the
least in Wagner's character. Not only is she of mixed race, something that was
far from the case in Slaughter's version, Season 4 made it clear she was also
bisexual. (No one knew if Amanda had a sex life in Slaughter's books.) And
considering that in the first Will Trent novel Michael Ormewood was not only
the killer but met his end in that book I've known for a while that this series
is very much a loose adaptation of everything Slaughter has done since the
first episode. Yet despite all of that I still really believed that Wagner had
what is referred to as plot armor all this time.
But the thing is looking at
Season 4 as a whole and where Will has been going since the season premiere,
I'm inclined to belief Amanda's death was necessary to show us how Will has
been spiraling all season and really since the end of Season 3.
At the end of the third season
Will has had to deal with multiple blows: he learned the identity of his
biological father Cal Broussard (Yul Vasquez) he learned that Angie, the woman
he'd had to arrest and torch his relationship with at the end of last season is
pregnant with the child her new boyfriend Seth (Scott Foley) He ended season 3
waiting by Amanda's bedside saying: "You're my family."
Everything that's unfolded during
Season 4 has been taking away every pillar Will has built his life on. It
started when the man who killed his mother James Ulster escaped from prison and
in order to save Cal's grandson he traded himself for him. Will then struggled
with himself whether or not to kill James before they were abducted by one of
Ulster's deranged prison girlfriends and when everything ended Ulster was dead.
His last words were: "See you soon," and its clear they've been
haunting him.
Will has been struggling with his
demons all season, with Ulster taking more and more a position as it
progressed. At the halfway point his Uncle Tony was in danger so Will ended up
going to Puerto Rico and first encountered Adelaide who claimed to be an FBI
agent. While that was going on his uncle was abducted and the two collaborated
down a stretch that made it clear that whoever it was happened to be an acolyte
of Ulster. By the end of the episode the horrible truth was clear: Adelaide was
Ulster's biological daughter and she escaped him with Tony still in captivity.
Will has been getting deeper in
Adelaide's head all season which meant getting into Ulster's. The following
episode he was handed a phone from one of Adelaide's acolytes, perhaps the most
terrifying thing the show has done since when it revealed he was a fifteen year
old boy. Will has spent much of the season going forward waiting for that phone
to ring and never truly letting the GBI in on it. He didn't know of the efforts
Amanda was making to try not only to track down Tony but figure out who
Adelaide was working with. His decision
to keep her out of the loop was a mistake – especially when Adelaide finally
called two episodes ago.
Will spent most of last week
claiming he was sick while he was trying to both get in Adelaide's head and
prepare to track her down. It was clear by the time last week ended he was more
than prepared to sacrifice his life for his uncle's because that's the kind of
man we know him to be. Prior to that Amanda visited him, told him to get
better, and then went on her own mission. As we now know that is what got her
killed.
And in the most horrible of
moments Will found Amanda's body on the ground dead and was horribly broken.
Last night's episode showed not only that he but the entire GBI as well as the
Atlanta police force had to deal with simultaneously.
If there is any justice in this
world (and we all know there isn't) Ramon Rodriguez will be nominated for an
Emmy for his work in 'One Last Dance' (which he also directed) We watched Will
play out this entire episode going through every stage of grief. From having to
close the eyes of Amanda as she was zipped into a body bag to his barely being
able to function as he walked the halls of the GBI to his unstoppable rage when
her superior who has been trying to get her job showed up – to express support.
Will took his rage out on the man
who provided a distraction by beating him so hard he bit his tongue off. Then as Adelaide's acolytes were being killed
he encountered one of the teen ringleaders and gave an impressive speech in
which he made it clear what the boy's choices were: either confess his sins or
go back on the street and die. And he made it very clear considering that
Amanda died because of this child's actions that he was perfectly fine letting
that happen.
Eventually the reason Adelaide
returned was, as always, horribly pedestrian. She'd run out of money and she
came for Ulster's which had been moved. The final confrontation between the two
was incredible. Even at gunpoint Adelaide still had the upper hand. She showed
him his uncle was still alive and made her terms crystal clear: Either he
killed himself and she'd let his uncle live or she'd kill herself and let him
die, knowing the fact that this would torture him for the rest of his life
would be the ultimate punishment.
Eventually Adelaide did break for
it and was killed, making sure she got the last word. But Will did manage to
find his uncle – nearly dead of hunger and thirst but clinging to life.
The thing is the final minutes
made it clear that Will Trent is dead in a way he may never recover from. He
arranged for his uncle to be sent back to Puerto Rico under armed guard because
he is a reminder of guilt of everything he's done wrong in the last few months
and a way to punish himself. He was notably absent from Amanda's wake. In the
last minutes he turned on his tape recorder but couldn't find the words. And
the last image of the episode was the camera pulling back from Will's office
which had bars to resemble the prison he's put himself in.
Every season of Will Trent has
ended with him undergoing a trauma he didn't think he could overcome and each
time Amanda in some form has pulled him back from sliding into the abyss. Now
Amanda is gone forever, Angie is married to Seth and he's pushed his uncle
away. The only things currently tethering him to reality are his job and Faith and
its not clear how much longer he can keep both of them near him.
Amanda's death is a gutting one,
not just because of the loss of Sonja Sohn as part of the cast but because of
the ripple effects it will clearly have on the title character. I don't know how the season finale is going to
play out but its only going to get worse – and for the first time I'm not sure
it can ever get better for Will.
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