[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers about Will Trent Season 3 Episode 3, “Find a New Pond” (formerly titled, “You’re the One That I Want Watching My Back”).]
Things have been maddeningly slow for Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) in the early episodes of Will Trent‘s third season, wherein she’s been paying her dues for her major Season 2 mistake by working the guard shack at a country club community.
The good news is Tuesday’s (January 21) episode makes it all worth the wait as we finally get to see her fly (almost) solo on a complex case of her own making. The bad news, though, is those hoping for Angie and Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) to reconcile may be in for a much longer haul, as the episode gives clarity on both of their current mindsets about one another … and it doesn’t look good on either account.
The episode finds Will, Faith (Iantha Richardson), Amanda (Sonja Sohn), and the rest of the GBI MVPs investigating the poisoning of a major banking family that hospitalizes one of them and kills another. The case requires the team to track down an estranged sister of this family who just so happens to be in town at the time of the crime, interrogate a lovelorn assistant who’s trying to make it in a competitive world, and get to the bottom of some very disturbing allegations that were about to come to light about the unharmed brother. As is so often the case, the call’s been coming from inside the house, though, as one of the brothers was willing to poison himself to keep damaging information about another one from going public and ruining the family business. (The highlight of the case comes when the crew engages in a little role-playing murder mystery game in the conference room, with masks and terrible British accents and all.)
The real meat of the episode comes when Angie starts doing a little digging of her own after a dead body turns up on the golf course. At first, she’s highly disappointed to learn that it’s just the neighborhood swan who’s gone belly up, but when she finds a human finger in the bird’s mouth, things finally get interesting.
Disney/ABC
After seeing that a member of the Waldorf Estates community named Alma, the mother of a very precocious swan lover, has suspicious bruises on her face, she swiftly connects two and two and goes to her house to seek out the source of both her injuries and the fresh finger. She soon finds that Alma’s brother-in-law David is the owner of that hacked-off digit and enlists a skeptical Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) to help her with the details like fingerprint matches and DNA swabs of the evidence.
Ormewood is reluctant to help Angie get too mixed up in the case since she’s still very much in jeopardy of not being restored to active duty with Atlanta P.D., but when the culture connects to a convicted rapist and murderer who just so happens to be the community repairman Angie’s trapped in a room with, well, he has no choice but to get involved.
Angie really puts her neck on the line, literally speaking, when she learns that David has been hiding immigration papers — and even got physical with Alma to keep them — of the immigrant workers at the family’s poultry farm. After going to the filthy farm, she is confronted by David and gets into a very gnarly altercation with the suspect that ends with her using zip-tie cuffs to take him down. She’s soon restored to her position — immediately resuming being Ormewood’s partner — and she comes back a hero, to wit.
With that, both Will and Angie are back in their strides, with Will’s friends almost willing to forgive him for his extended leave in Tennessee and Angie’s station mates cheering her on.
Unfortunately, though, the episode is a bit less joyful when it comes to the status of their romantic relationship. Not only do they still not cross paths in this segment, but they both give us reason to doubt they’ll ever get back to a happy place together.
Angie says that a reunion with Will will depend entirely on how much they have to work together in a professional capacity, but Will gets even more direct and tells Nico he doesn’t expect him and Angie to have a romantic future together. Although he does get a bit wistful over seeing Betty wearing Angie’s scarf, he’s even willing to “rip off the bandaid” and eat at the dinner table that was their place in happier times.
Perhaps the most telling moment is when Will shares this loaded comment about the brother who poisoned his own self and family to protect their secrets: “Sometimes loving people means letting them take responsibility for the things they break.” In other words, Angie might be forgiven by the department, but Will isn’t there yet (and may never be?).
Will Trent, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC