The first episode of ABC’s crime drama “Will Trent” raised a lot of questions when it premiered the “Pilot” episode last week, and fans have waited seven days to find out what more the peculiar eponymous detective discovered. The last we saw of Special Agent Will Trent, he had just lost the last living lead he had in the case of the double homicide and the kidnapping of Paul Campano’s daughter, Abigail. Back at his apartment, Angie Polaski and he were spending a cozy moment together when Paul Campano burst in with blood on his shirt and blurted that he had shot the person guilty of having kidnapped his daughter, Emma. So, who kidnapped the teenager, and what observations does Will Trent make in Episode 2? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
A Teacher With A Dirty Secret
“Will Trent” Episode 2 opens with Paul getting into an argument with someone in their driveway and demanding to know where Emma is, and a scuffle breaks out when Paul accidentally shoots the man. Back at Trent’s place, Paul reveals that he has shot Emma’s English teacher, Evan Bernard, because he knows he had kidnapped Emma and also that he’s a pedophile. Upon further questioning, Paul explains that Emma was in Evan’s tuition until she opted out, and her changed behavior signaled that she was a victim of abuse. Then Paul throws light on a question that “Will Trent” Episode 1 had raised – how Angie knows Paul – by mentioning that the three of them would know best if someone is a predator. As it turns out, all three of them, Trent, Angie, and Paul, grew up in the same foster home, and they shared a lot of similar traumas. The two detectives take away Paul’s shirt – soiled with Evan’s blood, put him in handcuffs, and arrest him, although he just comments on the physical relationship that Angie and Trent still share.
At Bernard’s place, the detectives find that he’s still alive, and while looking for Emma, Trent finds that there’s blood leading to the door and a bloody handprint on the doorknob. The smart man deduces that Bernard got up after being shot, hobbled over to the door, and locked it to forbid anyone from entering. While giving his statement at the Atlanta Police Department, Paul reveals that Bernard was speaking over the phone when he opened the door. He also mentions that thanks to his wealth, he’ll make bail within two hours from that moment. Meanwhile, the news of Angie and Trent being together again is the gossip of the station, and she finds everyone staring at her. While talking to Trent over the phone, Angie mentions Bernard’s burner phone, and the special agent deduces that it’s a burner phone. Gathering a bit of confidence, Trent even asks Angie out for dinner before going into question the still-unconscious Evan Bernard. Meanwhile, Angie’s partner, Michael Ormewood—with whom she shares a history—calls her about a homicide case they’ve found, as Faith Mitchell is sent over to the hospital by Will’s boss, Amanda.
Inside the cabin, questioning Barnard proves to be a very challenging task. He appears to be extremely shrewd and manages to avoid giving a straight answer to every question, although his answer to why he moved from teaching at a university to teaching high school remains a bit shaky. He denies knowing Kayla Alexander personally and also says that Emma transferred from his class because his course isn’t for everyone. Bernard exhibits a power move by using Trent as a crutch to lean his way to the bathroom and is quick to notice that the detective doesn’t understand written instructions very well. Bernard comments that he has never done anything inappropriate with minors, but somehow it’s hard to believe the man. Trent storms off and vents his thoughts on his trusted tape recorder, completely sure that Bernard is the man they’re looking for when Faith arrives, and informs him that Abigail Campano has received a call asking for a ransom of $3 million for her daughter Emma. A video of a weeping Emma who begs his mother to pay the ransom so that she can return leaves Abigail frantic, and she’s not willing to listen when both Trent and Amanda tell her that if she pays the ransom, there’s no guarantee if the kidnapper will keep Emma alive. Desperate to find proof, Trent asks for six hours and heads over to Emma’s school.
Angie’s First Win
Meanwhile, Angie and Ormewood are heading up the stairs of an apartment when he asks why she chose Trent, so she lists all the ways Trent is better than Ormewood. The two arrive at the crime scene and find the victim, Sasha, whose cause of death is blunt trauma to the head. The landlord says that he came in to ask for rent when he found her lying dead. From the get-go, however, the creepy nature of the man screams evil. Imitating a ridiculous version of Trent, Ormewood notices blue hair dye in the bathroom and spots that it heads over to the next room over, where he finds another teenager, Nico, with freshly dyed blue hair. Nico, who goes by they/them pronouns, says that since their shower was broken, they used Sasha’s, and they heard screams and fights and another sound, which was probably the sound of the weapon hitting Sasha. Ormewood understands that they need to take the kid outside for food and finds out that they have run away from their home. Angie gets a call from Trent asking her to check on Betty, his adopted dog, because he feels bad for yelling at her in the morning. He also requests that Angie give Betty some food and water, and play some music for her’. That’s a lot to ask while a detective is working on a case!
Back at Will’s place, Angie brings Nico along to feed Betty, and they immediately form a friendship with the dog. It’s here that Angie has a heartfelt conversation with Nico to make them feel safe and comfortable. They end up confessing that the landlord—who used to get sexual favors from Sasha—hit and killed her, and Nico saw him throw the murder weapon, probably a hammer, into the dumpster. Outside the apartment, Ormewood and Angie are going through the garbage to find the murder weapon when he apologizes for the time when they got drunk and slept together. Angie doesn’t pay too much attention because she has discovered a bloody hammer—the murder weapon—and cracked her first case of homicide.
The Special Agent’s Observation Skills
On the other side of things, at Emma’s school, Trent quickly finds out that Bernard and Kayla were sexually involved, but conclusive DNA reports proving the same won’t be arriving for two more days. Trent and Faith meet the guidance counselor, Mary Clarke, who seems legitimately shocked that Bernard might have had sexual relationships with the minors in the school. She assures him that an investigation will be launched, and Trent investigates Bernard’s office. It’s no secret that the guy is a definite creep. Suddenly, Bernard walks in and pokes fun at Trent’s learning disability that he had picked up on earlier, when Trent takes a gamble and says that his blood and the DNA sample found on Kayla were a match. Without losing his air of arrogance, Bernard gloats that the age of consent in Georgia is 17, and he didn’t coerce her, so he cannot be charged. However, the quick-witted agent mentions that Bernard was supposed to be her guardian because he’s a school faculty member, and that’s enough to arrest him, although the terrible man still rants that he’ll be released within a day. Faith walks in to inform Bernard that the lab results won’t be back before the next day, and Bernard realizes that Trent’s hunch worked out. It was a bit of a “gotcha” moment for the detective! Bernard’s house looks like it has been washed with bleach to remove every trace, except for one room that has been arranged to look like a predator’s dungeon. Trent realizes that the pervert is playing games with the detectives.
Despite having apprehended the pedophile, things aren’t looking too well for Trent, as the overbearing Bernard grills the detective from the other side of the bars, poking fun at Trent’s past life. Trent barely holds it together and runs off from the holding cell after blurting out that he will find Emma and send Bernard to prison. To make matters worse, Trent’s borrowed time of six hours is over, and Abigail has decided to pay. Before leaving for the Campanos’ residence, Trent asks Faith to go through anything that connects Kayla and Emma to Warren Grier (the dyslexic music studio owner) or Bernard. At the Campano residence, Abigail records a video of herself saying that she has sent the money and just wants her daughter back. The police are alerted of the location, and as they rush to the location, Emma is shown to be dragged and put inside the trunk of the car, which the kidnapper drives away in. The police and Trent arrive at the location to find it empty as the kidnapper gets out of the car and pushes it towards a river with Emma still inside. Trent gets a call from Faith telling him that Emma, Kayla, and a few other girls had recorded a song at Warren’s studio, and their chaperone was Mary Clarke, the guidance counselor. Realizing something is off; he heads over to Mary’s house and, while talking, notices the wood in the cupboards resembles the same that was in the background of the video where Emma was being held captive. Under the pretense of going to the bathroom, Trent investigates around to find the exact room and hurries outside with his gun, only to find Mary pointing a gun at him already. A scuffle ensues, and Trent survives because Faith rushes in and tasers Mary. Back at the bureau, it was established that Mary’s parents had wanted to slap rape charges on Bernard when she was still a student, but she didn’t agree. She still refuses to speak, so Trent asks yet another favor of Angie, a rather serious ask that immediately ruins her delight at having solved her first case.
Trent To The Rescue
Trent asks Angie to speak about her mother, so the agent tells Mary how Angie’s drug dealer mother would rent the five-year-old Angie to older men just to pay for her drugs. The experiences didn’t hurt little Angie because she was desperate for her mother’s love until she found her dead when she was seven. Moved by this, Mary reveals that Bernard did horrible things to her but, like many sexual predators, was charming enough to keep her attracted to him. He wanted her to kill Emma, but she couldn’t go forward with it, so she pushed her into the creek inside a car at Old Mill Road. The cops arrive at the scene, and Emma’s parents find her inside the trunk, still alive and unharmed. Trent delivers a devastating monologue to Bernard, the main criminal, before letting him know that he will be going to prison after all. Later, he asks Angie when they’re going to dinner, and she tells him that their relationship won’t work because they remind each other of the traumas they’ve experienced. She informs him that Nico will be walking Betty from now on. Trent doesn’t go out of his way to compliment Faith, whom he’ll be teaming up with for quite a while now but appreciates her silently. Later, Paul Campano arrives at Trent’s home and offers to have his car repainted at Paul’s car dealership, pro bono. Before leaving, he thanks Trent for saving their daughter, addresses him by his name, and even gives him a hug. Trent is taken aback, but it’s clear that he appreciates this gesture of kindness as he goes back to painting the ceiling of his room.
Did The Case Close…A Little Too Soon?
The case of the kidnapped daughter of the Campanos comes to an end in the second episode of the detective series. Although we enjoyed watching the unpredictable detective get some comeuppance on the awful pervert, Evan Bernard, and the Campanos can rest easy now that they have found their daughter, it’d have made the series more interesting if the case didn’t get wrapped up so quickly. For instance, Bernard’s character development left a lot of gaps, and as diabolical as he may be, some of his key actions are never explained, and the audience is meant to assume things. Trent deduces him to be the one who made Warren kill himself, and his atrocities aren’t explored to a great degree. Additionally, we’ve only scratched the surface of the past history of Angie, Trent, and Paul as children growing up together in a foster home, so it will be disappointing if this is the last that we see of Pal, more so because he seems to have cleaned up his act and appears less vicious towards Trent, probably because he saved his daughter’s life. Lastly, Angie and Trent aren’t going to be seeing each other anymore, so does that mean that she and Ormewood might hit it off again now that they’re partners? Probably the third episode of “Will Trent” will unravel the mystery further.
