The most remarkable thing about the ABC crime series Will Trent is the ease with which it tackles trivial topics and then quickly shifts to something extremely serious and intense. This week's Season 3, Episode 11, is proof of that. This episode turns out to be one of the most intense ever produced in the series, as it is the protagonist, Will Trent, who is under investigation. But unlike other possible depictions of a similar situation, it's not the annoying police officers or a bogus investigation that worries the protagonist, but the guilt that torments him every minute, as Will knows he's made a grave mistake.
Season 3, Episode 11 opens with a shocking shot of GBI Special Agent Will Trent staring down at his hands, completely covered in blood, with some smears on his face and shirt. As Will absentmindedly wipes the blood off his hands with a cloth, the head of the Atlanta Police Department, Captain Heller, asks him to surrender his service weapon. Both this warrant and the fact that the men are sitting in one of the police station's interrogation rooms make it clear that Will has been temporarily suspended from duty for a crime. They hand him a Miranda waiver form, which is usually given to suspected criminals during their arrest, meaning that Will Trent himself appears to be accused of having committed a crime in this episode.
Creators: Liz Heldens, Daniel T. Thomsen
Stars: Ramón Rodríguez, Erika Christensen, Iantha Richardson
Despite the situation, Captain Heller understands enough to read the form to Will, as Will's difficulty reading due to his dyslexia is a known fact within the police department. But Will simply can't concentrate, his mind still trying to process the day's events and still dealing with the emotional fallout from his actions. Heller's voice fades as a clicking noise invades Will's mind, and the image of a key fob dangling inside a car and the radiator light flickering immediately distracts him. Will is clearly still reeling from whatever he did, and his behavior naturally creates a lot of intrigue surrounding what happened.
To build intrigue and suspense, Season 3, Episode 11 of Will Trent adopts this narrative style, first showing the consequences of Will's action and then revealing what really happened. We flash back two hours to Will and Faith chasing a man named Paco through a crowded residential building. It is later revealed that the Alabama State Police requested the GBI find and question a man named Francisco Ortiz, also known as Paco, for some unknown reason, and so the GBI detectives headed to the address provided. Since the detectives didn't know what Paco looked like, he pretended to be his cousin, but when Will tried to enter his apartment for a routine check, Paco ran, clearly having something to hide.
The detectives obviously began chasing him, and since all this was taking place inside a crowded residential complex, Faith felt the need to separate from her partner, thinking that Paco might try to escape through the back door. As he ran toward the back door, Will chased Paco and ran into one of the buildings where the suspect had just entered. Paco had taken cover in one of the apartments to pull out a gun and point it at his pursuers, but Will saw him and took cover at the end of the hallway. Then, hearing a loud gunshot, Will realized he was being shot and quickly shot the suspect twice, wounding him in the arm and knocking him to the ground. Will ran to Paco and handcuffed him, when a young man from the adjacent apartment ran out screaming for help. Another boy, later revealed to be Marco, had been accidentally hit when the second bullet fired by Will passed through the wooden walls separating the apartments.
Marco was seriously injured and required immediate medical attention, so, understandably, an ambulance was called. However, the authorities had clearly stated that it would take the ambulance twenty minutes or more to reach its destination, and since Will and Faith knew the neighborhood was vastly underserved and abandoned by authorities due to its demographics, they decided to take the injured boy to the hospital themselves. This decision would also be questioned later, as it is generally safer to wait for an ambulance in these situations, but Will had attempted to save the boy by taking him to the hospital himself. But an accident on the road had already congested the entire area, and while Faith rushed to the hospital to try to contact emergency services, little Marco died in Will's arms.
During this investigation, we delve into the past, where an important event occurred between GBI detectives Will Trent and Faith Mitchell. The night before, Will and Marion had gone to Michael's house, where Faith had recently moved, for a friendly dinner. But while they were there, Will's phone rang when Jeremy called, although he wasn't in the room at the time. It was Faith who saw her partner's phone and immediately suspected something was wrong. She found it very strange that Jeremy hadn't received her calls or responded to her messages since he was fired from Rafael Wexford's studio, but that he called Will, and Will hadn't informed her of anything about it. Therefore, she informs Will about the call, and as soon as the protagonist answers, Faith snatches the phone from him and speaks directly to his son. It was then that Faith learned of the agreement between Will and Jeremy, in which the young man was appointed an official GBI informant to find incriminating evidence against Wexford. Faith is understandably very angry and worried about this situation, as it poses a great danger to her son, who still has no idea what he's gotten himself into. Will's only defense against her confrontation was to claim that Jeremy would surely have been arrested and imprisoned if he hadn't intervened and declared the boy his informant, but it obviously wasn't enough to calm Faith. Despite wanting to avoid trouble for his partner's son, Will found himself embroiled in this unfortunate situation only because he had kept the matter from Faith for so long, and she found out the hard way.
So, the next morning, before the detectives arrived at Paco's house, Faith informed Will that she had requested a new partner, making it clear that she no longer trusted him. This came as a huge shock to Will, who was terribly saddened to have been misunderstood in this way, and he obviously might have been thinking about that when he opened fire on Paco. But at Faith's insistence, the detectives didn't mention anything about Jeremy or the terrible argument they had with investigators over Faith's son during the interrogation.
In Season 3, Episode 11 of Will Trent, Angie Polaski is clearly the only one who fully trusts Will and knows he's been telling the truth. For most of the day, what counts against the GBI special agent is the fact that no gun is found at the crime scene, suggesting that Paco wasn't even armed when he was shot in the arm. The only shell casings found at the scene are those from the bullets fired by Will, and while Paco didn't fire his weapon, it's important to prove he was at least carrying one. Without this evidence, it would appear that Will opened fire unnecessarily, and the accidental death of the neighbor would result in his permanent discharge from the service, as well as a prison sentence.
Therefore, the Atlanta Police Department (APD) officers continue searching for more evidence at the crime scene, and that's when they find a video recorded by a neighbor on his cell phone, just after Will ran to help Marco. In this video, an unidentifiable man is seen walking away from the apartment where Paco had temporarily taken refuge, clearly taking something from the apartment. As the man had headed down the hall, Angie and Michael followed suit and reached the laundry room, which has a suspicious vent in the wall. When they open the vent and Michael crawls in to investigate, they find a box full of drugs, which also contains a gun.
Despite finding the gun, it cannot be proven that Paco carried it, as no fingerprints or other evidence are found. Although the episode doesn't clarify it, the most likely theory surrounding this gun is that Paco had actually belonged to a gang that trafficked drugs in the area, and that the gang had given him the weapon. But when Paco was arrested, the gang sent another member to remove the gun from the crime scene so it couldn't be linked to them in any way, and also to make it look like the GBI agent had opened fire first. Upon removing the gun, the gang member also carefully cleaned it to ensure no fingerprints from Paco were found.
Therefore, Will's only recourse was his neighbors, a woman named Ruth and her teenage daughter, Lily. Although Will had seen Ruth run into his apartment when Paco pulled out his gun, the woman refused to speak to the police or cooperate with them in any way. It is later revealed that Ruth not only wanted to avoid trouble but had also had a terrible experience with the Atlanta Police Department in her life.
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