TV Recap: “Will Trent” Investigates the Poisoning of a Corrupt Tycoon Family in 3rd Episode of Season 3
Will Trent is officially a GBI Special Agent again in the third episode of Season 3. Also returning with this episode is the split-case episode format the show is famous for, with the title even referencing this week’s B-story, which finds Angie Polaski rising above the call of duty as a security guard in a gated community. Let’s recap!
Season 3, Episode 3 - “Find a New Pond" - Written by Karine Rosenthal
A breakfast meeting is being held in a board room at Sovrano Industries. At either end of the long conference table are brothers Marcello (David Shae) and Rocco Sovrano (Chris Cafero). Marcello is so angry at his brother that he gets out of his seat, pacing as he rants about Rocco’s drinking problem. But his anger is stopped when he begins convulsing and stumbles backward, falling on the floor and foaming at the mouth. As board members get up to help him, it starts to happen to their sister, Sofia (Amanda Fallon Smith), too.
Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) waits in Will Trent’s living room for her partner to finish getting ready for his first official day back with the GBI after his six-month absence. Nico (Cora Lu Tran) sits on the couch with Betty, and Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) finally emerges dressed in one of his fancy suits but upset that the matching pair of shoes has been chewed on, an odd behavior for Betty. He asks Nico to call the vet. Things get awkward when Nico asks about Angie’s hearing.
Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) is still working as a security guard at Waldorf Estates while waiting to hear back about her hearing. Today is unlike any other, with Angie responding to a call about one of the gated community’s swans, who died. As the neighbors stand around, a girl named Poppy (Isabelle Alonso) shares animal facts with Angie. Head of the HOA, Kathy Humps (Whitney Christopher), orders Angie to carry the dead swan back to her guard shack to get it off the lawn. Poppy follows Angie, with her nanny, Alma (Viviana Chavez), accompanies them. Angie notices that Alma has a black eye and offers help if needed. Alma looks scared to talk.
Will and Faith go to the hospital to meet with the Sovranos. Rocco is fine, furious that this happened in spite of how much they pay for security. They meet in Marcello’s room, who is recovering, but things aren’t looking good for Sofia, who is on life support with a tube down her throat. Rocco says their company always gets threats from environmentalists over the operation of their hotels and cruise ships. Will asks about the fourth Sovano sibling, Francesca, and Rocco says she’s estranged, living in Europe. A Doctor (Amber Erwin) enters with some bad news - Sofia didn’t make it.
Back at the GBI, Will and Faith assemble a case board in the conference room. Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) enters for an update on the case. Nobody suspicious entered the Sovrano building before the poisoning, so Will believes it came from inside the company. And then he gets an update on Francesco, who he discovers has been in Atlanta for the past two days.
Francesca Sovrano (Sunny Mabrey) comes to the GBI with her lawyer, Manuel Vega (Terrence Clowe), who stops her from answering any of Will and Faith’s questions. Francesca is distraught over the death of her sister. Before leaving, she vents her frustration about how her family never takes responsibility for breaking things and people.
As Angie calls animal control from her guard shack, she notices something in the dead swan’s mouth. Reaching in, she pulls out a human finger! She ends the call she was making and instead reaches out to her old partner, Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin). Shortly after, the severed digit is being examined by Pete Chin (Kurt Yue), who says the fingerprint doesn’t match their database, but he believes it belonged to a man in his 40s, adding that it was likely severed within the past day and that there was rust residue. They found DNA under the fingernail, which they are analyzing. Pete also says there was traces of chicken poop on the finger.
Angie goes to Poppy’s house, where a sign makes it clear this family owns Fierro Farms, home of “Happy Hens." Angie knocks on the door, and Poppy’s dad, Brent (Jose Miguel Vasquez), answers the door with an oven mitt covering one hand. Poppy invites Angie in for a muffin, and in the kitchen, she watches Brent remove the mitt with all of his fingers still intact. But then another man enters, Poppy’s uncle Davis (Will Holland), whose left hand is bandaged, and Angie only sees four fingertips on it. Alma enters with a big duffel bag packed. When Angie asks where she’s going, Davis speaks for her, saying Alma’s mother is ill and he needs to take her to the airport to visit her. Poppy gives Alma a drawing and a beaded necklace she made. Angie tries to help Alma, but Davis won’t let Angie near her.
During a break, Faith reached out to her journalist former flame, Luke, who has since moved to D.C., to ask what he knows about the Sovranos. He told her that there’s been a history of sexual assault allegations for Rocco, all of which seemingly get covered up with hush money before the story can get out or a case can go to court. He also shared that Marcello is an alcoholic who has been having an affair with his assistant, Jacinta. Sharing all of this with Will and Amanda, Faith likens this case to a soap opera, which gives Will an idea.
Meanwhile, Betty finds one of Angie’s old handkerchiefs under the couch and brings it to Nico, who recognizes its former owner. Nico puts it on Betty and takes her for a walk to Waldorf Estates, where the little chihuahua is delighted to see Angie again, kissing her face. During a walk around the property, Nico asks Angie if she plans to ever talk to Will again. Angie tells Nico it depends if she gets her job back or not. Their conversation is interrupted when Betty finds another object - a broken beaded necklace, just like the one Poppy made for Alma. Angie excuses herself, following a trail of broken beads to a maintenance shed where a door is propped open by a brick. Angie enters, using her flashlight to search the dark shed. “Are you looking for something?" John Shelly (Dan Gill) asks as he enters. The brick budges, and the door slams shut behind him. John reveals that the only way to open the door is from the outside, and he has the keys…
Will summons Ormewood, Franklin (Kevin Daniels), Pete, and Caroline (Christina Wren) to the GBI conference room to roleplay as the Sovrano siblings and assistants at the board meeting. Ethylene glycol was injected into juice served at the meeting, but not in every glass. Only one beet juice and one grapefruit glass were poisoned, but all of the glasses of kale juice were tarnished. Jacinta was the only person who regularly drank kale juice, giving Will the assumption that she was one of the intended targets. As the roleplay plays out, he also realizes that the drug wouldn’t have had a big effect on Rocco since alcohol is an antidote to ethylene glycol. But another realization emerges - Marcello was having an affair with Jacinta, and another assistant, Olivia, who had access to the juice, was in love with him.
Out of the meeting, Ormewood calls Angie with an update on the finger she had analyzed. The DNA under the nail matches a parolee who served time for raping and murdering a teenager - a handyman named John Shelly! Stuck in the shed with him, Angie tries to pretend like she didn’t just get distressing news as she calmly tells Ormewood that she’s currently locked in a shed with the handyman, John. Soon, Ormewood and Franklin burst in to rescue Angie, arresting John.
John wants to talk to Angie before Ormewood and Franklin take him in. In their cop car, John tells her that he was repairing a light outside when he saw Alma rush by with a folder full of papers, being pursued by Davis. Alma thrust the papers at John, asking him to hide them, as she ran away. John tries to stop Davis, getting into a skirmish with him that resulted in some of John’s DNA under Davis’ fingernail. He says he then saw Davis go to the shed, heard the door slam, and heard him scream, which must be when he lost his finger. John didn’t report it because he was worried he would be arrested for stealing. “I can’t go back to prison, Angie," John says, adding that he didn’t kill the girl he raped. Angie then tells Kathy Humps that she needs the rest of the day off. When the boss says no, Angie quits.
Olivia (Sabrina Jie-A-Fa) is brought to the GBI for questioning. She tells Will and Faith that before the meeting, Marcello asked her for a glass of gin. Will asks Olivia if she is jealous of Jacinta, and she says no, saying she doesn’t have feelings for Marcello anymore. “This job is a big opportunity for me," she says, saying her parents work at a laundromat and that a job like this is her ticket to a better life.
Rocco storms into the GBI, yelling for Olivia. Faith rushes over to calm him down, but he’s even more outraged when the other elevator door walks out, and he finds that his estranged sister, Francesca, is in town. Francesca vows not to let the family ruin another poor person’s life. Rocco storms out, telling Francesca he wishes she were the one who died instead of Sofia.
Francesca decides to talk to Will and Faith without her lawyer. She reveals that Jacinta is the reason she returned to Atlanta. Jacinta was planning to leave the company and was going to announce it at that board meeting. Fearing that she was being surveilled, Jacinta told Francesca that she needed to talk to her in person. Will encourages her to keep talking, saying that loving people sometimes means letting them face responsibility for the things they break, echoing her earlier quote.
Angie watches a busload of migrant workers being driven away from Fierro Farms. She uses a jacket to protect herself as she climbs over the barbed wire fence and enters a trailer where Davis lives. Inside, she finds the drawing Poppy made for Alma and more fragments of the broken beaded necklace. But Davis comes back, knowing Angie is there, with his gun drawn. They get into a fight that leads outside, where Davis tries to strangle Angie with a clothesline. Luckily, Angie is able to flip the script, using the string to tie Davis’ hands behind his back. She calls Ormewood. “I might’ve done something a little reckless," she announces.
Back at the hospital, Will and Faith find Rocco sitting with Marcello, who is still recuperating. Will reveals that Jacinta was planning to go public about being tasked by Marcello to cover up Rocco’s sex crimes. Her breaking point was a hotel housekeeper who was murdered when she refused to sign an NDA. And Will announces who poisoned them - Marcello - who asked for the Gin to counteract his poison. Sofia ended up with Jacinta’s juice by mistake. Marcello breaks down and cries, admitting to taking poison to throw off suspicion.
Franklin stands on a desk at the APD to read a report about Angie taking down a human trafficking ring while working as a security guard. Captain Heller (Todd Allen Durkin) comes out to give Angie the result of her hearing. “Let’s make sure that this is the last time I have to welcome you back," he says. Ormewood wants to go out to celebrate, but Franklin announces that he has a date with a doctor.
Faith gives Amanda the resolution to the case, saying that Francesca is creating a victim fund and will go through the company’s NDAs to help people hurt by her brothers. Earlier, Faith got some bad news about a condo she was trying to purchase getting bought out from under her. Amanda gives her a tip on a place that just became available that won’t get a ton of offers since the previous tenant died a messy death. “Thanks, Aunt Mandy," Faith teases Amanda.
Angie returns to her desk at the APD, puting her name plate back on it. Jeff walks by, having been released, and he asks her how Alma is doing. But Angie makes it clear that he raped a girl, and they can’t be friends.
That night, Will made dinner for Nico, which they eat standing around the kitchen. When Betty enters, Will recognizes the handkerchief she’s wearing as a bandana. Nico tells Will that they went to visit Angie. “Do you think maybe you and Angie might ever…?" Nico asks. “I’m sorry, Nico, I don’t," Will answers. And then he looks at the dining table he and Angie finished together the day their relationship died. It’s never been used, so he suggests he and Nico eat there. They set the table together.
Next Episode: “Floor Is Lava" - Airing Tuesday, January 28th, at 8/7c on ABC
As the team delves into a tangled case of espionage, double-crosses and mistaken identity, Amanda helps Sunny adjust to her new life and school. Meanwhile, Ormewood struggles with his divorce, while Will’s feelings for Marion begin to deepen.
Songs Featured in This Episode: