By now, it is clear that the crime drama series “Will Trent” will be featuring new cases every week, with the previous case of Emma’s kidnapping now considered solved. Although there were a few elements in the case that could have been explored more, the show shifts Will onto a new case now. In a town named Oakmede, on the shores of Lake Lanier in Georgia, the town mayor is found murdered. Will and Faith are sent to the scene to investigate by their superior, Amanda Wagner, and “Will Trent” episode 3 revolves around this murder.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Will Trent’ Episode 3: Recap And Ending
Inside the GBI office, Amanda briefs the detectives about this new case—the mayor of Oakmede was found murdered and burned on his boat, with two bullet wounds being the cause of death. Will and Faith drive down towards Oakmede but have to make a stop in between to get a puncture fixed at the local garage outside of the town. Reaching the crime scene, which is the mayor’s private dock, they look for clues and find a bloodied nail stuck on the side of the dock. Will uses his extraordinary skills of observation to paint an idea of what had happened. The mayor, named Randy Cordett, was standing on the dock when the murderer shot him in the neck. This shot did not kill him, and he tried to get onto his boat to flee. The murderer then ran towards him in a murderous rage and shot the man dead aboard the boat. During their chase, the murderer did not even notice the nail that had been sticking out, and it caused a deep wound on their leg, which started to bleed out on the boat. Realizing that their blood could be found as evidence on the boat, the murderer decided to burn Randy’s boat with his body still on it. At the crime scene, the detectives also make acquaintance with the town’s current sheriff, Josie Miller. It is the sheriff and her office who then provide assistance to Will’s investigation as they all sit down to talk with Randy’s wife to inquire about any potential suspects. The only clue that the woman is able to provide is that some kid had left a toy car on their porch, which had severely angered and upset Randy. While the detectives wonder why a toy car, an orange station wagon to be specific, would upset an adult man, Josie reveals that the very same toy car was recently found beside another dead body too. This man, a local hunter by the name of Allen Cramer, had been found shot dead in the woods, but the authorities had just considered this a hunting accident.
A check-in with Amanda Wagner confirms the story behind this toy car and the possible motive for these two murders. Thirty years ago, a family of three was found shot dead inside their car, which had been parked in the woods during the 4th of July celebrations. This car of theirs was an orange station wagon, the very same model as the toy replicas left behind at the crime scenes at present. Despite the horrid nature of this act, the crime was never solved, possibly due to the racial tension that it had because the murdered family was Black. The erstwhile sheriff, a man named Merrick, did not do much to find the murderers and even seemed more interested in stowing the case away. A witness had reported seeing a car with four men drive away from the place at the time, and Amanda now digs up the old records to find any link. She does find a crucial one and immediately shares it with Will and Faith—the car that the witness had reported matched with the one registered to the dead hunter Allen Cramer. As everything points to the fact that Cramer and mayor Randy had been murdered as revenge for killing the Black family thirty years ago, it becomes important for the detectives to find out the two other men who were there in Cramer’s car that night. These two could either be the next targets or the suspects for the current crimes, as Will understands. In order to identify the two others, the detectives enlist the help of a local journalist named Theresa, who also happens to be a very good friend of Amanda. From the photographs she had taken during the time, the car which was suspected to be driven by the killers is identified, and a photo of the four men is also found. While Cramer and Randy can be easily identified, one of the other two men is standing with his back to the camera, therefore making it impossible to identify him. The other remaining man is someone Faith claims to have seen somewhere, but she cannot exactly remember where. She sends in the photograph for a digital age progression test, and when the results come, she is shocked to realize that it is the same mechanic she and Will had met earlier at the garage outside the town.
Together with Amanda and sheriff Josie, Will and Faith visit the garage once again to interrogate the man named Otis Granger. However, Otis is an extremely conservative-minded man who stays outside the town because he wants to be by himself with no interference from society. Not only does the man refuse to speak on the matter, but he also waves his shotgun around threateningly. When Will tries to calm him down and asks about the murder of the Black family in the station wagon thirty years ago, Otis is infuriated, and he directly threatens to shoot Faith. Realizing that the man would actually do so, sheriff Josie shoots him dead within a moment. Josie is naturally suspended for being a police officer who has killed a man, but she still helps Faith with the case. The GBI detective now decides to go visit the previous sheriff, Merrick, whom she had also visited previously. Merrick was now an old man with severe dementia and was put up at an old age care home. While he was of no use previously, Faith figures that the photograph of the four men might bring back some memories to the old man, and he might be of help now. This plan does indeed work, as Merrick takes a look at the photograph and shouts out the name of a certain Chip. As it turns out, Chip is the nickname that Merrick uses to refer to his own son, meaning that his son was involved in the murder of the family thirty years ago. In the meantime, Will Trent also manages to find out that the old car, the orange station wagon from the case, has been stored away by the police at Otis’ garage. He finds the car inside the lot, and from clues in it, he realizes that the family also possibly had a young child with them. Old sheriff Merrick had earlier also complained of a terrible noise he could never forget in his demented state, and Will now deduces that this noise was the cries of a baby who was also inside the car on that fateful night.
Along with this new murder case, “Will Trent” Episode 3 also gives attention to detective Angie Polaski and her new partner Michael Ormewood, just like in the previous episode. Here too, the two solve a different homicide case in Atlanta under the APD, and the two of them seem to be a good professional fit with each other. In the previous episode, it was revealed that Angie and Michael had slept together on one occasion a few years back while they were both drunk and out of control. The reason this was so scandalous was that Michael was already married and had children at the time. At present, Michael’s wife, Gina, was now inviting Angie for dinner to keep up with an old practice of having new partners over for a friendly introduction. Despite initially not wanting to visit because of the awkwardness of the whole situation, Angie does end up accepting the invitation. She has a great time with the Ormewood family, especially with their two young daughters, and all seems to go very well. At the very end, though, it is revealed that Gina was indeed aware of Angie and Michael’s intimacy in the past. While Michael is outside of the scene, Gina tells Angie that someone had seen her get into Michael’s car one night all those years ago. The wife now tells Angie not to get involved with her husband ever again, and even though she seems to accept Angie as Michael’s new professional partner, Gina does not seem interested in becoming friends with the woman. Feeling guilty and awkward in equal measures, Angie goes to Will’s house after leaving the place, and she tells him of her involvement with Michael in the past. It is almost as if Angie apologizes to Will, even though they were on a break at the time, but Will takes no issue with it at all. He embraces and kisses her, and the two prepare to spend the night together. Will had earlier fixed a date with a different woman, and he now says that he needs to make a phone call, possibly to this woman, to cancel their date.
Who Was Murdering The Men In Oakmede?
When Will had earlier found the bloodied nail at Mayor Randy’s private dock, he had carefully kept it inside a sealed bag and asked for it to be sent in for DNA analysis. Around the same time that Will Trent makes the finding that there was definitely a fourth member inside the car those thirty years ago and Amanda finds out over the phone that the nail had never been sent in for examination. At this exact same time, on the other side of the small town, Faith discovers the sealed bag with the bloodied nail inside the glove compartment of Josie Miller’s car. When sheriff Josie was earlier asked whether she knew about the case of the murdered Black family, she replied that she did not since she was only a baby at the time and was also from a different town. But as things pan out, it is very evident that it was Josie who was murdering the four men involved with the crime, for it was her family that they had murdered. Josie’s aunt knew about this accident, and then a few years ago the woman was suffering from some serious ailment. During this time, the aunt had told Josie about the accident and her real identity, and since then she made it a point to find her parents’ killers. Now taking Faith hostage, Josie gets hold of Chip and prepares to kill him, too, as he is the only one left.
Chip tearfully admits that he was the one to have shot Josie’s father, as the four of them were drunk at the time and were simply racist. The family had parked inside the woods to feed baby Josie, and when Chip, Otis, Cramer, and Randy approached them, the father refused to speak to them. This was definitely because the four white men were abusive from the very beginning, and the father’s refusal irked them even more. They had then shot the family members dead, leaving the baby alive, and Chip had then called up his father to inform him of it. The sheriff arrived at the scene and cleaned it up to ensure that his son would not get into trouble. This was also the reason he never investigated the crime and let it remain unsolved. Josie had learned all of this from her aunt, who had brought her up and had then joined the police force to find the murderers and seek revenge. After having killed Randy, Cramer, and Otis, she now had the last murderer in front of her, and she shoots Chip in the knee to cause him pain. By this time, Amanda and Will have also arrived on the scene, and Faith is trying to calm Josie down. However, the determined sheriff says that she did not do all of this only to get arrested, and Josie jumps into the lake from the bridge, killing herself in the process. Faith is left devastated by this experience and the racial injustice that was in the works in the backdrop. She makes multiple mentions throughout the episode of historically racist abuse in Georgia, saying that she would not be surprised if such places had actual ghostly occurrences. Although the series does not make mention of it, Georgia’s Lake Lanier, where this murder case plays out, had been built in place of the village of Oscarville, where the 1912 lynching had taken place. This was basically the forced displacement of the Black community living in the area by the whites, who then continued to live on. The events shown in this third episode of “Will Trent” are definitely born out of such a history.
What To Expect From ‘Will Trent’ Episode 4?
As the plot of the series now seems to be restricted to each episode, the only constant is the set of characters and their interpersonal relations. The relationship between Will and Faith has gradually been getting better, so much so that the two now share incidents from each other’s lives, and Will provides support to Faith when she is broken down after Josie’s suicide. On the other side, Will’s on-off romantic relationship with Angie seems to be back on again, as she now seems more willing to be with him. Whether this continues through the season or if the couple breaks up once again, it might be something to see in future episodes. Finally, whether Will’s past regarding the case with Faith’s mother is revealed in the next episode of “Will Trent” is also something to look forward to.
See More: ‘Will Trent’ Episode 4: Recap And Ending, Explained – Who Kills the Men at Stone Mountain Park?
