Season 3, Episode 13 of the ABC police procedural show Will Trent continues the story presented in Episode 12, in which the GBI had come across an organization named Olas Collective, which was suspected to be a cult pretending to be a wellness center. At the end of last week’s presentation, the titular detective, Will Trent, had decided to infiltrate this supposed cult as an undercover agent so that he could gather enough incriminating evidence for the GBI to build a case against them, and also probably to deal with his inner demons, following his accidental killing of a young boy. In Will Trent season 3 episode 13, the protagonist gets into immense trouble as he is caught snooping around, while the GBI and the APD prepare to intervene and rescue him.
Spoiler Alert
What are the oddities that stick out to Will at the wellness retreat?
The GBI special agent, Will Trent, had earlier had to deal with the treacherous emotional turmoil that came with him mistakenly shooting a young boy dead while on a mission, because of which he had also been sidelined by the GBI authorities for some time. However, when the bureau came across Olas Collective, the wellness organization run by Rain Woods that was in all probability stealing babies from their rightful mothers, Will decided to step up and go undercover into this organization, knowing well that it was extremely risky. Taking on the false identity of Bill Morales, Will had signed up to be a part of the wellness retreat being held in the organization’s facility in the woods. Therefore, season 3 episode 13 begins with him going through a cleansing ritual, in which the inner members of the collective bathe him in holy water, and this baptism of sorts is supposed to be a new beginning for him. Everyone affectionately refers to Will as brother, which is really the first obvious sign of the group being a cult. Although Will knows that he is, in all probability, dealing with a dangerous cult, he still decides to give the collective a chance and so puts some faith in its principles and the words of the founder, Rain. The woman is very supportive and helpful towards Will, explaining her philosophy about the world and how exactly her Olas Collective is different from other self-help groups.
She differentiates between guilt and shame, stating that while guilt is generally felt for any specific circumstance or instance, shame is a more overarching feeling, and makes people genuinely believe that they are bad or not worthy of anything positive. It was noticed earlier as well that Olas Collective easily lets their members accept their shame and believe that they are bad people, seemingly only to make them realize their self-worth later on. At present, Rain assures Will that her collective has welcomed him in whatever broken form he has come to them in. Will also does a fine job keeping up with his story, as he convincingly narrates how he is haunted by the memories of the young boy he killed in a road accident. The detective is perhaps much more convincing because he is actually telling the truth, to a certain extent, about his guilt over having killed Marco during a regular mission earlier.
Although everything about Olas Collective initially seems quite normal and believable, the first major oddity that Will notices at the place is with regard to a member named Quincy. During his first few visits to the wellness center, Will had heard Quincy open up about his past trauma, which was holding him back in life, and he felt that the man’s account resonated with his own. However, Rain now announces to everyone that Quincy has decided to leave the retreat and return to his normal life, which surprises and disheartens a few of the members, Will included. Rain tries to reassure everyone it’s alright and says that she understands people will want to return to their normal lives, and not everyone will want to stay on at the camp forever, but a slight tinge of passive aggressiveness can be felt in her tone. When Will walks up to Quincy and asks why he has suddenly decided to leave, the man acts quite strange and says that he has realized there is something terribly suspicious about the retreat. Before Quincy can elucidate further, another member named Gabriel intervenes upon the orders of Rain, and so Will cannot learn anything more about Quincy’s findings.
A little later, Will visits the nursery building inside the camp to meet a young woman named Naomi, with whom he has already grown quite friendly. Naomi is the one responsible for taking care of infants, and at present, she is seen nursing a baby that she reports to have been abandoned by its mother. It is very evident that this is the same baby that Rain had carried to the GBI station and that it actually belongs to Jade, who had tried to escape from the cult in the previous episode and had been nearly killed. Therefore, collecting DNA evidence from the baby’s body is crucial for Will, and this is what he manages to do through his genuine friendship with Naomi. The woman, just like the other kids at the place, is very fond of music, but she is unable to listen to or play any because no objects from the outside world can be brought to the retreat. Believing that harmless musical instruments like guitars are agents of corruption that destroy the souls of humans is pretty solid proof of Rain being a cultist. Therefore, Will smuggles in a banjo for Naomi, possibly through his GBI friends, with whom he is still in touch secretly, and immediately cheers her up. This allows him to get the chance to hold the baby and rub his handkerchief over its arm, which is currently erupting with rashes, so that he can collect DNA from it. Will then leaves the DNA sample at the designated spot from where representatives of the GBI will collect it and send it for examination. He also calls up Amanda and informs her of the whole situation but gets caught in the act by the teenager seen in the previous episode, Finn.
As the young girl was basically being manipulated into working for Rain, she is all the more dangerous as she blindly follows the rules. However, Will manages to befriend Finn as well by sharing stories about his pet dog, with the girl telling him about her secret pet rabbit, which she has to hide from the world because keeping pets is not allowed by Rain. Ultimately, Finn does not report Will’s phone to the authorities, but she does destroy it in order to ensure that he does not get into any trouble later on.
What proves to Will that Rain is indeed a criminal?
While the very suspicious beliefs and rules set in place by Rain Woods had made it almost certain that Olas Collective was basically just a dangerous cult, Will still needed to find definitive proof in order to have the GBI intervene. He soon gets hold of such clues and also lands himself in serious trouble after the banjo he had smuggled in for Naomi is found by the authorities. In typical cult-leader fashion, Rain first informs everyone about the banjo that had been found in the forest and then asks the responsible person to step up. She threatens that everyone will have to face the consequences if nobody speaks up, and so Will decides to take the blame in order to protect the scared and timid Naomi.
However, Rain somehow realizes that he is lying, and she immediately states that there is no reason for him to be a hero and protect Naomi, for she knows that the instrument belongs to her. Rain perhaps makes a very logical deduction here, since Naomi is the one who is openly very fond of listening to and playing music. Although she lets Will off with a warning, Rain is not so lenient on Naomi, and she decides to punish the young woman for having flouted the rules. This is precisely when all gloves go off and Olas Collective is truly revealed to be a cult, with Rain as its egoistic and almost maniacal leader. She has her men drag Naomi to a building in the forest that is clearly a place where members are taken to be tortured, and in an effort to save her and also to find out more about the cult, Will follows them stealthily. Very close to the building, he finds something sticking out of the ground, and as he digs up the place, Will realizes that Quincy had been killed and buried there after having expressed his desire to leave the cult.
This is enough evidence for Will to alert the GBI, but he gets caught by the other members, leading to Rain making him forcefully drink a liquid that she calls spiritual water. The liquid turns out to be a cocktail of some strong hallucinatory drugs, which make Will go into a trance and experience a really weird sequence in which he dances around with his colleagues at the GBI office. On the other side, Amanda and Angie are quite concerned when Will can no longer be communicated with, as his phone had been shattered by Finn. They had already received the DNA sample that he had collected, and now the test results reveal that the baby indeed belongs to Jade. By now, Jade had also recovered to a great extent, coming out of her coma, and so when Angie spoke to her, she admitted how she had joined the Olas Collective cult, given birth to her baby, and then had to flee when Rain wanted to take her child away from her.
Who is Ike, and how does he help the GBI?
While the investigation is ongoing, Michael and Angie intercept a man who suddenly turned up at the hospital to try and kill Jade, and they start interrogating him. The man, Ike Cass, is incredibly cold, as he openly admits that he had come to kill Jade, clearly because he had failed to kill her earlier and so was sent to finish the job before she could speak to the police. When asked about Dermot Park, the man who had earlier died in mysterious circumstances after getting associated with Rain’s group, Ike once again states that he had killed the man. There is no remorse or guilt in him whatsoever, and this is revealed to be a direct effect of Rain’s influence in his life.
While Rain Woods essentially runs a cult based on her strange beliefs and perspective on life, the reason why she takes in criminals and convicts so easily is because she turns them into soldiers to fight for her and protect the cult against all danger. This is exactly why she keeps stressing how her group takes in everyone, no matter how broken they are, and then keeps convincing the members to acknowledge the fact that they are bad. In this manner, Rain breaks the moral compass of her members and then can get literally anything done through them. She tries doing the same to Will as well, and she drugs him in order to make herself sound more convincing to him.
Although Amanda and Angie decide that they must raid the wellness retreat, the fact that the GBI has no information about the layout of the place or even the guns that they have makes it very difficult to come up with a plan. This is where Michael steps in, as he believes that he can make Ike turn to their side by talking to him about his past. Michael had realized that Ike had once served in the US Army, just like him, and so he used this connection to try and break the manipulation that Rain had roped him into. Despite getting violent at first, Ike ultimately breaks down and admits that he had been cheated by Rain, who had made him commit horrific crimes, and Michael makes use of this situation. Ultimately, Ike gives the detectives valuable information about the layout of the grounds at the camp, which leads to the GBI putting together a solid plan to rescue Will and arrest Rain.
Can Rain and her cult be brought down in the end?
Late at night, Faith, Michael, and Angie break into the camp by pretending to be sewage workers, and they take up different roles to bring down the gang. While Angie goes in search of Will and Faith tracks down Rain, Michael is overall in charge of their security. Angie soon manages to rescue Will, although he is still in a drugged state and does and says some rather unusual things. On their way out, the effect of the drugs starts to wear off, and Will immediately states that they need to rescue Naomi as well, who is being tortured in the barn. Faith and Michael also happen to come to the same spot, and they try to bring down the perpetrators, although doing so is not very easy.
Rain orders Finn to shoot Will, and although Faith and Angie are ready to take first action, Will asks them to not hurt the teenager, since she still does not realize exactly what she is doing at the cult. This, as well as the previous acts of kindness, prevents Finn from taking the shot, and Rain is brought down in this while. Ultimately, Will is able to arrest Rain and her henchmen, while Naomi and Finn are rescued, and Jade is reunited with her baby. At the end of Will Trent episode 13, Will is finally back to his confident self, with Faith also forgiving him for getting her son in trouble, as she has realized that Will had done so only to protect Jeremy. With the significant information about Rafael Wexford’s gang that Jeremy gives to his mother, it seems most likely that Will and Faith will be finally taking some action against the protagonist’s old friend in the next episode.
