Spoiling the ‘Will Trent’ Season Finale Because We Need To Talk About It

While some network shows have let us down this season (ahem, Elsbeth and Doc Odyssey ahem), Will Trent had a consistently strong third season, ending in a heartstopping cliffhanger that I’m mad at because SOMEONE MIGHT BE DEAD. And now we have to wait until next January to find out if everyone survived.

The Will Trent two-part season finale is why I let episodes build up to watch in mini-binges and why I time-shift my watching to mornings. I never would have gotten to sleep last week or last night after what unfolded.

Last week, Captain Wagner sent Will and Faith out to the sticks to assist a local sheriff (Yul Vazquez from Severence and Midnight, Texas) with a double homicide that involved one of his deputies. The homicides were just the tip of the iceberg when the investigation revealed a domestic terrorism cell had been incubating in this little town, right under the sheriff’s nose.

That nose turned out to belong to the father Will never knew. Every season, more information about Will’s biological family is revealed. At the end of season one, we learned the circumstances of his mother’s death. In season two, he met his maternal uncle (John Ortiz). And now his dad turns out to be a sheriff that Will has to work with to protect Atlanta from a terrorist attack.

The plot against Atlanta began with distributing contaminated take-out food containers and flooding Dr. Seth’s (Scott Foley) hospital with patients. Even Nico got sick because they were there just trying to be helpful (wear your PPE, people!), and the hospital went into lockdown.

The team split up. Ormewood, Faith, and Franklin (Kevin Daniels) headed out to the CDC to retrieve an antidote. Will and the Sheriff went back to the Sheriff’s hometown to find more information and more members of the terrorist organization, while Angie and Wagner stayed at headquarters.

But why would Angie stay behind at HQ when she’s usually in the middle of the action with her partner? Welp. It’s been a rough couple of days for Angie. Her abusive mother died, Angie fell off the wagon and carried her mom’s cremated remains around in a box for a while, then flushed them down the toilet of a dive bar and got into a fistfight. She wound up in the hospital, and instead of getting an X-ray, she got the news that she was pregnant. Yay? Maybe. Who knows. When you’ve had a childhood like Angie’s, you doubt your own ability to parent.

Dr. Seth confronted those doubts and the problem with leaving abortion rights decisions to the states with one perfect line:

As a physician, I’ll say if you intend to carry this baby to term, you need to stop drinking. As the man who loves you, I’ll say whatever you decide, I’m there. So you let me know if we’re going to a meeting, or North Carolina.

That’s why Angie hung back and it’s a good thing, too. Because all hell broke loose, putting everyone in danger at the same time.

En route from the CDC, Ormewood, Faith, and Franklin drove into an ambush set up by the terrorists. They come under fire and are trapped with a bunch of civilians.

Members of the terror cell took over HQ and held Amanda Wagner hostage. Angie, who was “hiding” in a bathroom, worked out a plan with the members of the APD who were still in the building to rescue Wagner. Ormewood and Faith discovered that the van of terrified teenagers who were bystanders to the firefight was a state championship archery team. The young women were dead shots and blew up a truck with some well-aimed arrows armed with small explosives, providing cover so they could escape.

His gun empty, Ormewood almost saw his hero moment end tragically when he confronted a bad guy. But Will Trent rolled up and saved the day in a stolen van.

At HQ, Angie’s plan to save Amanda seemed successful, but Amanda ended up being shot in the chest before the terrorist threat could be entirely eliminated.

We end up where we began, at Dr. Seth’s hospital, where Nico was recuperating. Will found Angie and Betty waiting for news about Amanda’s recovery. She couldn’t find Dr. Seth; she thought she may have miscarried during all of the action at HQ, so she reluctantly revealed her pregnancy to Will, who escorted her to an ultrasound. It was a magical ultrasound that required absolutely no equipment but did give us the title of the episode, ‘Listening to a Heartbeat.’ They still love each other, y’all. But Will quietly and gracefully exited the room (with Betty) to give Angie and Seth space to celebrate their pregnancy news together. He decided to camp out in Amanda’s hospital room until she wakes up.

That should be the end of the episode and the season, right? It’s a high note; everyone’s good. No one died. The city is safe. But no, of course they can’t leave it there. Remember Ormewood’s brain tumor? Tina Tumor? The episode, and the season, ended with Ormewood collapsing in his kitchen as he’s about to crack open a well-deserved beer. Did they just kill Ormewood? They might have!

Real talk: book Ormewood is a real dirtbag who died in the first book of the series. Show Ormewood has surpassed the source material in every way possible, and he’s also outlived it. Is Ormewood’s time up on Will Trent? Are Jake McLaughlin and his beautiful baby blues leaving the show? It doesn’t seem like anyone knows, or is willing to tell us, what’s in store next season, so I don’t know! And that will keep me up at night.

The finale was exciting, emotional, and had some solidly funny moments of dialogue. With the end of the third season, Will Trent maintains its ranking among the best network procedural dramas on television.

All episodes of Will Trent are now streaming on Hulu/Disney+.