Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 finale of Will Trent, called "Do You See The Vision?"
Will Trent proved last year that it's not afraid to go above and beyond for emotional cliffhangers, but ABC's hit drama may have just upset its whole status quo with the twist at the end of the Season 2 finale. The authorities figured out the identity of the serial killer who was murdering sex offenders, beginning a series of events that ended in a devastating choice by Will about Angie herself.
Will's Decision In The Season 2 Finale
What a way to end Will Trent's time in the 2024 TV schedule! The FBI and APD joined forces in "Do You See The Vision?" to track down the killer who was taking out sex offenders and leaving toys in their mouths. Amanda made the point early on that they needed to catch the bad guy before the press (and public) dubbed him a hero for killing criminals... before Will made the connection that they weren't looking for a bad guy or a him after all, but a female serial killer.
And the more paranoid among us might have immediately assumed that Angie somehow was behind the kills, since she was on leave and not actively involved in the APD/GBI investigation for an alibi. After all, something had to go wrong after Amanda floated the idea to Angie of her leaving APD for the GBI, right? It always seems that Angie's life can only go well for so long.
Well, the good news was that Angie wasn't faking her injuries to the point that she could secretly be killing sex offenders en masse. The bad news was that Crystal was the real killer, and Angie hadn't realized until it was too late. Then, to make it worse, Crystal's attempt to flee Angie by jumping across a river resulted in her slipping on a rock, cracking her head, and falling facedown into the water.
Crystal died, and that wasn't even the end of the bad news. Will started to make some connections about what happened, including that how Angie covered up Crystal's murder of Lenny meant that Crystal was free to go on her subsequent killing spree.
And Will had a choice: he could do his duty by arresting the woman he loved for her crimes or let it go. In a sequence that totally had me fooled in the first moment, Will seemingly confronted her, only to pull out a ring and suggest that they rush to city hall and get married right then and there. I initially thought that it was a ploy so that Will could avoid testifying against her, but what followed was such an emotional sequence that the final gut-punch hit a lot harder.
Will imagined what it would be like to marry Angie and build a family and happily-ever-after kind of life with her, completely with fantasy flash-forwards with Ramón Rodriguez and Erika Christensen aged up. Then, reality replaced fiction, and Will announced that he had to arrest Angie. That didn't mean he'd go back to business as usual, though; Amanda discovered at the end of the episode that Will was nowhere to be found, having left with just a duffel bag and Betty, although he left Nico with an envelope of cash to cover utilities "for a while" and an invitation to live in the main house.
What Will's Exit And Angie's Arrest Means For Season 3
Who could have guessed back when the Season 2 premiere was dropping Avengers jokes with Clark Gregg guest-starring that this is where we'd end up? The Season 2 finale ended with more questions than answers, with Will leaving without any on-screen goodbyes and Angie presumably headed to prison.
It seems that there's plenty of evidence against her, but if Will remains nowhere to be found, could the case be closed on her without his testimony? Will any and all APD stories in Season 3 be anchored by Ormewood, of all people? And what will bring Will back, since surely the show named after him won't be missing him for too long?
Basically, unless there's a time jump that solves all of these problems off-screen and reverts to the status quo, I'm not sure how Season 3 can answer these questions and move forward without looking very different. I couldn't help but notice both Will and Angie were without their partners in the last portion of the Season 2 finale. While I'm not sure Ormewood would have done any good for Angie, I do think Will might have benefited from a conversation with Faith like others in Season 2.
And given that ABC is holding Will Trent Season 3 for a midseason premiere (along with The Rookie Season 7), it could be well over half a year before we get any details. All of this said, I'm actually very excited about how the Season 2 finale set up what comes next.
Since it's a given that Will Trent will return to Will Trent, it's fun to not have many ideas about what can come next after Will made that choice to arrest Angie and then go MIA. That's not to say that I won't revisit this episode streaming via Hulu subscription to try and pick up on any clues I might have missed, though! All in all, I loved getting a cliffhanger with no obvious resolution, and this was a solid end to a solid season of the ABC drama.
