ABC’s beloved TV detective, Will Trent, is back on the screen once more, as Will Trent season 2 has now started to air, with all the familiar faces returning from a break. Six months have passed in the show’s world, and GBI Special Agent Will Trent continues to solve cases, using his unique and extraordinary skills in observation. But the protagonist has also been equally involved in developing his inner self and acknowledging the mental struggles in his life. Will Trent season 2, episode 1 brings the detective back on our screens in an explosive manner, quite literally, as a series of car bombs cause menace in the city of Atlanta.
Spoiler Alert
What is the case that Will and Faith are now working on?
Will Trent season 2 opens with the titular detective in a setting not exactly associated with him, as he is seen in a Spanish class, of all places. After finding out the name of his mother, Lucy Morales, and knowing that she was Puerto Rican, Will has decided to embrace his original identity and heritage. Taking lessons in Spanish and practicing to speak the language is Will’s first step, as he states that he wants to know the language of his mother, even though he could never meet her. Lucy’s murderer, James Ulster, is now in jail after being found and arrested by Will. But at the present moment, a sudden emergency situation forces Will to leave the Spanish class, and he has to rush to the crime scene, where a car bomb has just killed a man. As soon as Will reaches the place, he reunites with the old faces from season 1, starting with Nico, who still works as the dog-sitter for Will’s beloved pet, Betty. APD’s Michael Ormewood and Franklin are also back, as they were on the crime scene at the time, while GBI head Amanda Wagner and Will’s partner Faith Mitchell soon arrived.
Will steps into the crime scene and immediately finds a single earring, which is not directly connected to the crime at first glance. Only some time earlier, a man living in an affluent neighborhood had been suddenly killed when his car exploded as soon as he started the engine. Will keeps the earring away and continues learning more about the case, which seems to be some sort of terrorist attack. However, when bomb squad specialist Cricket Dawson investigates the car, she is certain that it did not look like a big-scale terrorist attack, but a hand-made bomb had indeed been placed inside the car. She states that the explosives were most probably Russian C-4s, and that is the only piece of information that the authorities have to work on. Will instead focuses on the victim, trying to figure out why he had been attacked and killed. He has a word with the grieving wife and son of the man and is unable to find anything significant.
However, Will notices a pool catalog on the counter inside the house, despite the fact that there is no swimming pool in the compound, and he questions the wife about it. The catalog was actually intended to be for their neighbor, who lives in the house right opposite theirs, but mailmen often get confused between the two houses because of their very similar house numbers. Will suspects a new turn, and as he glances across the road, he spots that the neighbor’s car is maroon as well, just like that of the victim. It is clear to the detective that the attackers had made a huge mistake, confusing their original target with the man they had just killed. The attackers had only been given the house number and told to plant a bomb on a maroon car, which is in itself a very rare car color in the USA. Thus, the goons had got the numbers confused, and they had accidentally killed the wrong man. This means that the neighbor, the original target, is still in danger, and Will immediately reaches out.
The neighbor, Arthur Highsmith, is seen shoving bags inside his car’s trunk, as if readying to flee town, and he indeed makes a run when Will starts questioning him. Arthur is arrested and brought in for questioning, but the man does not say or reveal anything. He keeps claiming innocence in the matter, stating that nobody was after his life, but he also cannot answer why he tried to flee. Both Will and Faith try their best to interrogate Arthur, but they can find nothing from him, despite it being very evident that the man was quite scared and shaken. They have to release him, but the detectives keep following Arthur and find him to be a rather sloppy suspect, never even noticing that he was being tailed. Meanwhile, Arthur withdraws a lot of cash from his bank account and stuffs it all inside a bag, as if going to pay someone off. As he leaves a diner along with the two detectives, Faith is informed that neighbors had seen a blue Dodge car on the morning of the explosion, and the same car drives by the diner at present. A man tries to shoot and kill Arthur, who is saved only because Will was with him at the time.
Why is Arthur Highsmith in trouble?
It is only now, after the direct attack on his life, that Arthur Highsmith finally opens up to the detectives about the truth about his trouble. The man first emotionally asks Will to take the bag full of money from him and deposit it at the Southern Bedrock bank, or else someone would kill his son. When comforted by Will and Faith, Arthur reveals that it all began when his son, Miles, was sent to prison a year earlier, due to some drug-related trouble. Ever since then, he had been receiving threats from an unknown person, who ordered Arthur to pay five thousand dollars every month, or else his son would be beaten up and even killed inside prison. Arthur had no other option than to accept the demands, and so he has been depositing five thousand dollars every month at the Southern Bedrock bank, despite facing severe financial struggle because of it.
Will is confused as to why Arthur was still being attacked if he kept up with the regular payments, and the man reveals that he had actually spoken about this matter to someone else. Although the goons had warned him against telling anyone about this arrangement, a woman in the bank had noticed Arthur and had struck up a conversation with him, saying that she knew about the extortion as well. This was why a hit on Arthur’s life had been called, and although he is now kept safe by the authorities, it becomes clear that the woman from the bank is now in grave danger. As the APD and GBI go through security camera footage and find the identity of this woman, Emily, she is indeed found to be in immense trouble, for a bomb has been fitted to her car as well.
Can the bombers be caught?
Fortunately, Emily is alerted right before she turns on the engine, but the design of the bomb ensures that she cannot leave the car either, which would trigger the explosive. Emily has to keep sitting in the vehicle as Cricket, and her team rush to the place and defuse the bomb. Even in the tense minutes before the defusal, Will interrogates the woman and learns how Emily was also being threatened by the same gang. Her brother was in the same prison as Miles, and in a similar fashion, an unknown caller kept informing her to pay two thousand dollars every month, failing which the brother would be attacked and killed inside the jail. She also tells Will that she had discussed the matter with three others as well, who were also facing similar extortion and were all part of the same support group for families of prisoners. This further causes great alarm, as these other individuals would now be targeted by the bombers, and the APD is told to track them down and save them.
During all this time, an investigation into the possible suspects had also been going on, and it had been stated by Cricket that one of the suspects had a missing thumb, based on the way the bombs had been fitted inside the cars. This detail, along with the Russian connection, comes in handy, and interestingly, an outside source helps the investigation further. A journalist by the name of Luke Sullivan had been trying to get close to Faith for some time, and he tells the detective about some Eastern European gangs in a place called Mechanicsville, suggesting that they could be the suspects. A little while later, Faith also manages to retrieve the flyer of a restaurant from inside the car, and believing that the bombers must have dropped it, she calls the store near Mechanicsville. As she asks whether some Russian men, with earrings similar to the ones Will had found, and with one of them missing a finger, ever hang out at the restaurant, the GBI finally finds their targets.
A group of young Russian men are arrested and put behind bars, as hard evidence proves them to have been the bombers. Their notes, which reveal how they had made the bombs, also include a cryptic voice note, which the detectives deduce to be in prison code. Although the bombers are caught, the real perpetrators behind the crime are not found, for nobody in prison is ready to talk, and the Russians have been able to get hold of some good lawyers to represent them as well.
Who does Will go to meet in prison?
Will Trent season 2 episode 1 also features the occasional romantic angle to the characters’ lives, starting with Faith finally letting Luke start dating her. Michael finds out in this episode that his wife Gina is indeed having an affair with the father of their son’s friend. Angie Polaski also features in the episode, revealing that her injuries have not been as bad as the doctors had feared at the end of season 1, but she is still on the path to recovery. Although Angie is not supposed to return to police work in the next few months, she prepares to rejoin the force immediately, stating that she would get back to drug abuse otherwise. But the most welcoming, and yet saddest, romantic development in the episode is between Will Trent and Cricket Dawson. It is Cricket who shows an interest in Will from the beginning, but within some time, Will also reciprocates, and the two fix on having a date after this case is over.
However, things take a very serious turn at the end of the episode, when the authorities figure out that a bomb had been fitted inside a car parked right under the police department building as well. While the others help everyone rush out of the building in the few remaining minutes, Will and Cricket go down to the basement, locate the car, and attempt to defuse the bomb. However, the bomb this time has multiple circuits, meaning that it cannot be defused, and the detectives can only attempt to reduce the impact of the blast by taking the bomb away to a relatively safer space. Cricket ultimately makes the sacrifice of physically carrying the bomb to a nearby room and letting it blast inside, but the woman cannot make it back in time. Although she manages to save the lives of everyone else, Cricket Dawson dies in the blast.
This makes Will extremely vengeful, along with the grief he feels, and the detective decides to solve the case no matter what. Despite being told that nobody in prison would speak to him, Will visits the prison, stating that there is a prisoner who is very willing to have a word with him. This man is indeed James Ulster, whom Will had put behind bars last season, and it is revealed that Ulster had also been sending gifts and letters to Will for all this while, trying to get the detective’s attention. Despite stating otherwise earlier, Ulster has now been claiming to be Will’s biological father, but the protagonist still does not believe him. Although Will had been trying to avoid Ulster for the last few months, he now finally reaches out to the man, knowing that he might be of help in solving this violent extortion case. This meeting will also possibly shed some more light on Will’s biological parents in the episodes to come.
