TV Recap: "Will Trent" Delivers a Twisty Episode - A Star Rapper’s Murder and a Fatal Fetish

This week’s episode of Will Trent is a bit of a return to form for the series, with two disconnected cases - one for Will Trent and Faith Mitchell at the GBI, and another for Angie Polaski and Michael Ormewood at the APD. And as a result, for this recap, it makes sense to split them into two separate cases, since there is almost no crossover between them. And so, I present the unlikely pairing of a rapper’s murder with a death at a swinger’s party.

Season 3, Episode 9 - “This Kid’s Gonna Be Alright" - Written by Henry ‘Hank’ Jones

Prelude

Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) has officially moved in with Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), a living arrangement that helps them both out financially. Faith’s son, Jeremy (Deion Smith), took time away from the Atlanta Grooves Festival to help his mom move, He shares an exciting opportunity he has lined up to sell a beat he created to a local record company. But all their plans go out the window when Jeremy gets an alert that one of his favorite rappers, H. Beltline (LaRonn Marzett), was murdered at the festival. And lo and behold, Faith has been assigned to the case. And from there, everyone gets to work.

GBI Story - Famous Rapper Murdered

Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) is first on the scene backstage at the Atlanta Grooves Festival where security guard Marty (Morgan Brown) and a stage manager (Melanie Miranda) explain what happened. The rappers were being led to the elevators to get to the stage for their performance when they got a notification that the elevator was out of order. They were redirected down a hallway to the stairs where the attack occured. It all happened so quickly that they don’t even know what the murder weapon was, but Will does - a broken glass bottle, based on the wounds and broken glass on the ground. The bottle itself, however, is gone. Faith arrives and she and Will interview the other performer, New Milli (Marcus Glacney Jr.), who survived the stabbing and is in shock. Faith gets sent a video of a masked rapper named Slo Blizy (Chris Ruiz) holding a broken glass bottle, taking ownership for the attack. Slo Blizy was just signed to Off the Ropes Records.

The receptionist at the record label, Tanya (Camryn Jade), isn’t very helpful when Will and Faith arrive. They let themselves into the recording booth, finding Jeremy playing his beat for a Producer (Ira Carmichael). Faith has a proud mama moment, until the label’s owner walks in… Rafael Wexford (Antwayn Hopper)!

Will follows Rafael into his boxing room, and his old friend won’t talk unless Will joins him in the ring. It’s like they’re reduced to being kids again. Rafael is excited by how much press his label is getting over signing an alleged murderer. He refuses to give Will any information to help with the case.

Faith is furious at Jeremy for getting involved with Rafael Wexford. She wants him to abandon this opportunity and focus on other music labels, but Jeremy thinks he will have to start at the bottom as an intern anywhere else. But as Will and Rafael return to the studio, the decision is unintentionally made for Jeremy. Rafael doesn’t want to do business with anyone that keeps him closer to Will and Faith. He fires Jeremy, and when Faith’s son says that’s not fair, the song is his, Rafael pays him $100 and tells him since the song was made on his equipment and at his studio, it’s his now.

Following leads, a rapper named Peanut (Josue Charles) is brought to the APD for questioning. Bribed with gift cards, he reveals that a lot of Off the Ropes artists are also drug dealers. They all coordinate through a man named Frankie Sanchez.

When Will and Faith go to the GBI conference room, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) is watching a live stream of Slo Blizzy. Faith thinks she recognizes a wall in the background as a defunct restaurant called D’Souza. She and Will race there, only to find that Slo Blizzy is dead, also killed with a broken glass bottle. Looking at the rapper’s phone, it shows evidence of having been hacked. Turns out that live stream was actually a recording.

Frankie Sanchez (Phillip Garcia) is brought in for questioning, and he’s either incoherent or deliberately noncompliant. He chalks all the guns found in his home to being prepared for a zombie apocalypse. He claims to not be involved with drugs, but then they reveal what else was found at his residence - 500 lbs of meth.

Will and Faith solve H. Beltline’s murder case pretty quickly after speaking with Frankie. New Milli is brought back in, and Faith confidently lays out the sequence of events. It was New Milli who murdered his performing partner, tripping the elevator so they’d have to go down the hallway where things could get more chaotic. New Milli broke a bottle in the skirmish, stabbed H. Beltline in the neck, and then stabbed himself in the leg to deflect blame. New Milli confesses, saying H. made them take their music in a different direction that was losing their fanbase.

Jeremy returns to Off the Ropes Records, finding Rafael in the studio and begging him for his job back. Rafael agrees, provided Jeremy can pass a test - delivering a duffel bag with no questions asked. Jeremy seems nervous to do it, even more so as his phone rings with a call from his mom, which he ignores.

We get to see Faith leaving her son a voice message, telling him that she’s proud of him no matter what. Will recognizes how stressed out Faith is about her son and he compliments her parenting, saying Jeremy is lucky to have her. Will heads to his car, but before he can head home, he gets an unexpected call… from Jeremy… whose been arrested and begs Will not to tell his mom!

Jeremy was pulled over for driving too slow, and a Narcotics Officer (Alex Bernadotte) was called in when the duffel bag was searched, which containing enough meth to put Jeremy away for two decades. Will has to play hardball with the officer, joining Jeremy in the backseat of the squad car to talk. Will doesn’t go easy on Faith’s son, telling him that there’s really only one way out of this, and he’s not going to like it. Stepping out with Jeremy, Will tells the officers that Jeremy is a GBI informant and that, as such, this delivery needs to proceed uninterrupted. The officer is angry, vowing to file an ethics report against Will Trent. Will agrees to take the heat, provided the officer leaves Jeremy’s name out of it.

Jeremy cries, not wanting to continue the job, but Will sternly tells him he’s now helping the GBI build a RICO case against Rafael Wexford. “It’s either this or prison," Will tells Jeremy. “This stays between us."

APD Story - Swinger’s Club Death

The APD is buzzing with a sense of immaturity when Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) and Michael Ormewood arrive, the halls lined with suspects from a swinger’s house party that ended with the suspicious death of a woman named Lilith. Pete Chin (Kurt Yue) tells them that her neck showed strong muscles and scar tissue, indicating that erotic asphyxiation was a common pastime for the victim. But the most unusual aspect of her death is that her windpipe was still intact.

Ormewood questions the party’s leather-clad host, Keir (Sekou Laidlow), who tells him about the various rooms and comfort levels for guests to explore. He also shares the guest list. Angie, meanwhile, questions Lilith’s grieving boyfriend, Albert (Ptolemy Slocum), who explains that he’s a sub and that Lilith had ordered him to stay downstairs, so he wasn’t present when she died. Before breaking for lunch, Ormewood realizes that one name on the guest list wasn’t brought in, a man named Clint Lewis.

Breaking for lunch, Angie meets Dr. Seth McDale (Scott Foley) at a diner. With his right arm still in a cast, he makes small talk about his family and how his parents are about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in Nantucket. Angie deflects when Seth asks about her parents, and when Seth steps away to use the bathroom, Angie notices something odd on his keychain - a wedding band as a keychain, with a loving message inscribed on the inside.

Seth came out of the restroom to find that Angie was gone, leaving behind a slice of pie she ordered. He brings it to the APD and Angie is cold to him, telling him to give the pie to his wife. She reveals that after seeing the ring on his keys, she opened his wallet and saw a photo of her. Seth is upset, and reveals that he’s a widower. Since Angie didn’t ask him about the ring and instead snooped through his wallet, he decides to end their fling.

Clint Lewis turned out to be Tom Doberjack (John Adrian), a CFO of a big company who fled the party as soon as he heard about the incident for fear of being linked to the event, which could ruin his career. However, he had nothing to do with Lilith’s death and was only present as a spectator. However, he is helpful because he saw Lilith, and he saw the man who was strangling her. Asked to identify a man from all of the attendees, he singles out Albert, Lilith’s boyfriend!

Albert shares new details he kept to himself. Lilith had told him to stay downstairs like a good sub, but she was unsatisfied with the timid way the other men applied pressure to her neck. She wanted Albert to show them how it’s done, so he did. And according to him, everything went smoothly. She was smiling, enjoying it. And then all of a sudden, she was no longer breathing.

Feeling like they hit a dead end, Angie and Ormewood argue about what to charge Albert with. Their tiff ends with Ormewood walking away, so Franklin (Kevin Daniels), who observed Angie’s conversation with Seth, steps in to console her. He reminds her that she has also kept her darker past from Seth, and that since he understands sobriety, she should give him another chance. So Angie uses it as an opportunity.

At the hospital, Angie finds Seth with a group of first-year residents, and he uses this as a teaching moment for them. Angie explains the case, that a woman seemingly died of asphyxiation, except her windpipe was fine and she didn’t seem to be in peril. Lilith didn’t have any allergies or underlying conditions, and her toxicology report was clean. With input from two residents (Cassie Brown, Amanda Young), they discuss how toxicology reports can often be out of synch with the latest party drugs, and Seth offers to give Angie the most recent list.

In private, Angie apologizes to Seth and opens up about her rough childhood in the foster care system. He is touched by her apology. So touched, in fact, that he not only wants to resume their courtship, but he wants a kiss.

Back at the APD, Angie and Ormewood visit Albert with an update. Using Seth’s revised list, they ran another toxicology report and found that Lilith had tried GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate) that night, a drug that, when mixed with alcohol, can cause respiratory arrest, which seems to be Lilith’s cause of death. He is free to go.

Next Episode: “Regarding the Death of Whitney McAdams" - Airing Tuesday, March 18th, at 8/7c on ABC

Will investigates the disappearance of a teenage girl, uncovering betrayals among those closest to her. Meanwhile, Angie and Ormewood explore the death of a regular at the local sandwich shop, while Faith and Elijah’s relationship deepens.

Songs Featured in This Episode: