The police procedural detective show on ABC, Will Trent, has been back for its second season, and this week’s episode 2 already brings back a character who will seemingly be an integral part of the show. In the season opener, Will had grown close to bomb defusal expert Cricket Dawson, but the woman was sadly killed in an explosion at the end of the episode. In an effort to solve the car bombing case and find the real perpetrator, Will now goes to prison, searching for answers. Along with this main plot, Will Trent season 2 episode 2, also brings Angie Polaski back into the action.
Spoiler Alert
Can Will find the real perpetrator behind the car bombings?
Will Trent season 2 episode 2 begins with Faith arriving at the prison where Will has already driven to in an effort to find out more about the racket seemingly being run from the inside. Will had been regularly contacted by James Ulster, the man he had put away in prison at the end of season 1 for having murdered several people, including Will’s mother, Lucy. James has been stating that he is the biological father of Will, but the detective does not believe it and has no intention of finding out at the moment either. Instead, he just wants to get more information about the extortion ring being run from inside the prison and has already done some research on Ulster. Being a lawyer by profession, Ulster has been continuing his work from the outside world in prison, too, as he has been taking on cases. Using his charming behavior, Ulster has managed to make friends with some of the prison guards as well.
On the other side, Faith Mitchell meets with Miles, the son of Arthur Highsmith, who had been a target of one of the car bombs in the previous episode. It was Arthur’s situation and his revelation of the truth that got the GBI involved in the racket, so Faith speaks with Miles to find some more information. However, the young man makes it clear that he is unsafe talking with the authorities, for the criminal gang always listens to conversations inside the cells through the vents on the wall. Faith uses written messages to communicate and learns that some of the inmates in the cells around Miles’ are involved in the extortion racket. She meets up with the warden of the prison, Hawley, and gets hold of a cell map to figure out who occupies the cells around Miles.
In this while, Will interrogates Ulster about a phone call recording found among the belongings of the bombers, in which clear instructions had been given to them about their targets. This call had been made in a foreign language, and Ulster denies understanding it or knowing who had made the call. Will is left with investigating the burner cell phone that must have been used for the call, but is surprised to know that almost every prisoner has such cell phones as the very guards sell them. Once Faith makes a shortlist of the suspects, Will convinces Ulster to walk up to each of the five inmates and talk to them in prison code about the burner phone. After some failed attempts, one of the suspects, Mackie, starts beating up Ulster as soon as he mentions the phone, making it evident that he knows something about it. Will searches Mackie’s cell and finds the burner phone used to make the calls to the bombers. Mackie is interrogated, and he states that a certain Ron Flashwood had ordered him to make the call since he was fluent in the language that the bombers spoke.
The GBI agents obviously interrogate Flashwood next, who is due to be released from prison after six months, making it slightly unclear as to why he would be involved in such a racket. When the man denies all the claims, Faith theorizes that he was probably running the extortion racket to gather enough money to buy himself a kidney from the black market since organ donors would not help him because of his criminal record. She states that the deal must have gone wrong, and Flashwood must have then killed his enemies with the help of the bombers. This theory is not actually proposed by Faith in a very honest or serious manner, for it does not answer the bombing at the GBI headquarters, but she talks of it mostly to catch the reaction of Flashwood. The suspect does not budge from his earlier statements, though, denying all the claims and stating that he had nothing to do with the racket.
Very soon, a nasty fight breaks out in the prison courtyard, and Mackie is killed by some angry cellmates in this fight, making matters more difficult for the GBI agents. Will finds a syringe hidden under one of the windows, and this was used to kill Mackie, with some sedative inside the syringe in large quantities. As Faith goes to check with Flashwood, she finds him dead, too, seemingly having hanged himself to death. However, the marks on his throat and the manner in which his body is found make it clear that he, too, had been murdered, as someone must have strangled him from behind. Will realizes that he must solve these murders first in order to get to the main perpetrator, for Flashwood was clearly only a pawn in the racket.
How does Angie protect her sponsor from trouble?
Will Trent season 2 episode 2 also shows Angie Polaski returning to action as she reaches the GBI office after learning about the explosion there from the TV news. She tries reaching out to Will but cannot do so as he is in prison on his own mission, and so Angie meets with Amanda Wagner instead. During this time, Angie also receives a call from James, a young man she had been sponsoring in his recovery from drug addiction. Since Angie has gone through similar struggles with drug addiction in the past and is also, in fact, on the brink of getting addicted even at present, she has been sponsoring different teenagers and helping them to break their addiction. James is one such sponsor of hers, but the boy now calls in an intoxicated state, asking for her help.
James had recently started working for a businessman named Coleman Walsh, and he stated that it was his boss who had coerced him into substance abuse once again. Despite being sober for quite some time, James has taken drugs at a party at Walsh’s house, where he also is at the time. While still under the influence of the drugs, the teenager realized his mistake and called up Angie, asking her to come and help him. Angie immediately decides to respond to the call, and Amanda also decides to accompany her, since the former is not really fit to serve in the APD yet. Amanda overhears the name of Walsh and reveals that the man already had a long record of trying to force and coerce teenagers at parties, and yet he could not be pinned with any considerable prison sentence. During their drive to Walsh’s house, the two women grow rather friendly with each other.
Amanda takes the lead at the offender’s house, as Angie has not yet been declared fit for service and also because she has a tendency to turn aggressive towards individuals who abuse youngsters. The GBI chief is much more composed, though, and once she gains entry to the house with her charms, she decides that the best way to get Walsh arrested is through some other crime of his. Coleman Walsh kept a pet snake in his house as a means to show off his wealth and power, but it is illegal to keep such a dangerous snake residentially. Amanda simply walks out of the house and then informs the concerned authorities about the matter, and police soon raid the house and arrest Walsh. Even though he had been able to walk out of prison because of his previous crimes, a strict case regarding animal cruelty would surely be enough to keep Walsh in jail for a significant amount of time.
Through this experience, Angie becomes friends with Amanda and also regains confidence in getting back to her job at the APD. She also spots a known face among the teenagers detained from the party, for it is Crystal, whom Angie had saved in season 1 from Lenny Brousard. Crystal reveals that her mother had abandoned her, as she considered her responsible for the death of Lenny, and so Angie decides to directly keep in touch with the young woman. This relationship might also be developed more in future episodes.
What does the file at the end suggest?
Back at the prison, Will and Faith find themselves in an utter mess when suddenly a prison break starts to take place. By this time, Will had figured out that the syringe used to kill Mackie had come from the infirmary and that the only other patient present there during the interrogation of Flashwood must be the perpetrator. As they check the security camera footage, it is revealed that the other man, Jack Richards, had actually managed to win over the nurse who looked after him, Edina. Richards was serving his prison sentence for serial killings, and had a natural ability to win over people through his words. Therefore, he had won over Edina, perhaps promising her a better life, and so she had committed the murders for him. Now amidst all the chaos, Edina also helps Richard escape the prison.
As it turns out, Jack Richards had indeed been talking to James Ulster, but the latter refused to reveal their conversations to Will, saying that he needed to maintain the attorney-client privilege. Around the same time, Edina reaches out to Ulster via the vents and informs him to meet at the underground parking lot. Although Ulster helps Will escape the prison cell, which had been locked after the loss of power, there is clearly an ulterior motive in his mind. As Will rushes to the parking area, Faith also runs to the place for a completely different purpose, as the prison warden Hawley had fallen sick out of stress and anxiety, having a heart attack. At the parking lot, Will finds Edina dead, and soon Richards prowls around, intending to attack and kill the detective. Faith manages to save the life of Hawley with the help of another prisoner, but Will is cornered by Richards and is about to be killed.
However, right at the last moment, Ulster once again comes to the rescue of Will Trent, bringing Richards down and then shockingly killing him as well. This makes it clear that Richards was also not the head of the crime racket and was probably working for someone else whom Ulster also works for. Ulster clearly kills Richards so that the latter cannot reveal anything to the authorities, but the exact reason for such an act is not explained in the episode. But as Will is about to leave the prison, stating that he will never see Ulster again, the vile criminal reveals that Will still has a living relative—an uncle named Antonio Miranda, who is the brother of Lucy. Will is a bit surprised that his uncle does not use the Morales last name, but Ulster refuses to reveal the reason for this change of names. He encourages Will to find Antonio and ask him about it directly, still exercising some control over the protagonist. At the end of the episode, Will is indeed seen with a file beside him, on which the name of Antonio Miranda is written. This reveals that the detective has started gathering information about his uncle, with the hope of meeting him soon and learning more about his parental identity.
