TV Recap: Romance Blooms for “Will Trent” as Angie Works on a Personal Case
Love is in the air for Will Trent in the first of a two-part episode. Things get a little spicy between Will and Marion Alba, but this is truly Angie Polaski’s episode. It’s a story too big to contain in one hour of television, and fans of the books should also keep an eye out for a Karin Slaughter Easter Egg. Let’s recap!
Season 3, Episode 6 - “No Faith In Second Chances" - Written by Kath Lingenfelter
A farmer (Tim Peek) is making dinner, listening to a weather report about an incoming hurricane. With headphones in, he doesn’t initially hear the banging on the door. When he does, he grabs his gun and calls 9-1-1 to report what he assumes is an attempted break-in. But when the banging stops, he turns around and sees someone running into the woods behind his house. But the door handle jiggles, and someone does enter, killing the farmer.
Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) arrives at the farm the next morning to meet her partner, Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin). In the woods behind the house, they find a dead woman, a nurse named Peggy, her hands bound, holding her own tongue, which was cut out of her mouth. Angie is visibly sick, not only by the grotesque act, but because this sounds so familiar.
Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) and Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) meet Pete Chin (Kurt Yue) in his exam room. A body was found under floorboards in the basement of a burnt building. The fire was believed to have been the work of the Grove Park Boys, and Pete believes it had been decaying a while before the fire. The feet are the best-preserved part, likely because the person was wearing wool socks. A bullet was found in the head, and the only other thing they know is that it was a man. Marion Alba (Gina Rodriguez) stops by to see if the body is a witness that’s gone missing, but she can’t tell. She’s also disturbed by the smell. Will offers his scented handkerchief, and they begin to flirt, discovering they both share Puerto Rican heritage.
Angie and Ormewood arrive at John’s halfway home. Searching his empty room, Angie finds postcards in a book. They find John (Dan Gill) in the bathroom, rinsing blood off his clothes. He is brought to the APD for questioning, swearing that he’s innocent and that it was cow’s blood he was cleaning, which got on him at his new job. Angie tells John she read his confession, and he says he only confessed because his mom was dying and showing remorse was the only way he would be allowed to see her. Angie shows him photos of the new victim compared with the girl he allegedly raped and murdered and says the coroner is convinced both victims have the same killer. John grows angry when he sees that Angie took the postcards from his book, demanding a lawyer.
Captain Heller (Todd Allen Durkin) intervenes, pulling Angie out of the interrogation to meet Assistant District Attorney Freddy Markovic (Federico Rodriguez). Markovic tells Angie they brought John in without probable cause and that the blood on his clothes has been confirmed to be cow’s blood. Angie is upset with her boss, feeling like he’s looking over her shoulder.
Will and Faith interview Elias Baidwan (Noshir Dalal), who owned the building that burned down. He bought the place a year ago. Will notices Elias’ unique watch, an heirloom from his father. When Will asks Elias about the Grove Park Boys, Will thinks he detects fear in Elias’ eyes.
In the conference room, Will and Faith get into an argument about the priorities of their case. Will is fixated on the cause of the fire, while Faith wants to focus first on identifying the burnt body. Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) intervenes, siding with Faith. She’s interrupted by a call from Sunny (Kyrie McAlpin) asking when Amanda will be home. She vents to Will and Faith that the teenager in her care is always asking when she’ll be home. Will and Faith both think that Sunny is doing something she doesn’t want Amanda to know about.
Amanda rushes home to find that Sunny’s father, Rafael Wexford (Antwayn Hopper), leader of the Grove Park Boys, is in her home. She’s furious, telling Rafael that from now on, all of his visits with Sunny are to take place at the GBI under her supervision.
John’s caseworker, Martha Lamb (Zabryna Guevara), comes to the APD to pick him up. She’s furious that Angie didn’t call her because she could’ve instantly vouched for John’s innocence and avoided this whole situation. “I’m just surprised that someone like you has no faith in second chances," she tells Angie as she leaves.
Ormewood goes to the hospital where Peggy worked to interview a co-worker, Mia Elkan (Teisha Speight). She says Peggy used a P.O. Box to get her mail to avoid an ex-boyfriend finding out where she lived, but there was a creepy guy who would hit on her. Mia recalls a time when she went with Peggy to pick up mail to protect her from him. Ormewood invites Peggy to the APD to look at a police lineup sometime.
Faith has found that the burned body belonged to a man named Cedric Breaffy, who went missing two years ago while on a hike. He was the previous owner of the building where his body was found. Six months after his disappearance, his wife and best friend got married to each other.
When Ormewood gets back to the APD, he’s upset that Angie isn’t responding to his messages. Against orders, she reveals that she was tailing John, and she tells her partner that he spent half the day waiting outside of a mailbox store. Angie discovered that John has a P.O. box there, and it was mysteriously opened while he was in prison. Ormewood tells Angie about Peggy’s P.O. box at the same location.
Will and Faith divide and conquer to interview Cedric’s widow and best friend Meadow Breaffy (Harper J. Harris) and Dax Mason (Michael Beasley). It soon becomes clear that Dax murdered Cedric, and he was caught only because Meadow decided to sell her first husband’s business. They also learn that Elias bought the place with cash. Afterward, Faith tells Will that two other buildings burned down nearby, seemingly the work of the Grove Park Boys.
Angie and Ormewood return to the halfway home to arrest John. They find him in the stairwell with a cooler, which he drops in surprise. A human tongue falls out of it. Angie chases after him, and John jumps out of a window to get away on foot.
Will meets with Marion, who thinks Lincoln Spelling was running a loan shark scheme that resulted in these retaliatory fires. Marion wants to meet with Rafael, assuming he might be behind it. Their conversation then becomes flirtatious again. Will invites Marion over to his house for a home-cooked dinner date.
John’s sister, Joyce Peters (Cynthia Evans), and brother-in-law, Kenan Peters (Chris Burns), are brought into the APD to meet with Angie and Ormewood. John came to her for help and she refused to see him. Joyce gives Angie notebooks her mom kept of everything from John’s arrest. Kenan says they’re full of conspiracy theories. Joyce suggests they talk to John’s former cellmate, Carver.
Carver (K. Todd Freeman), still doing time, is easily bribed for information with candy. Angie gives him a peppermint stick to suck on as they talk. Carver let John borrow his mother’s car to get to his new job. Carver feeds them new questions - How did a man who went to prison at 17 get a good credit score?
The storm begins as Will and Marion wrap up their dinner date. It went well, progressing into flirtatious palm reading and a make out session.
Between reading the notebooks kept by John’s mother and the postcards found in his book, Angie notices an address nearby. She and Ormewood go check it out, entering to find that Martha Lamb has been murdered, her tongue cut out of her mouth. And John is there, too, sitting, repeatedly muttering that he won’t go back.
The storm is raging as Rafael Wexford arrives late to the APD for his supervised visit with Sunny. Will sees his old roommate in the hallway and notices his watch… the same kind Elias Baidwan was wearing.
Angie visits John in jail, bringing some of his mom’s notebooks with her. She learns that after Carver suggested to John that his identity was stolen while in prison, the killings began again. She seems to now doubt that he committed any of these murders.
At Slaughter House, Angie finds Marion having lunch with Freddy Markovic. She tells Freddy she was wrong about John, adding that she found a new witness who can confirm this. Freddy disagrees, saying he already filed the case and it’s obvious John did it.
Joyce returns to the APD and Ormewood offers to get her coffee. Her husband is parking the car and she asks for a cup for him, too.
Angie stops by Will’s office with a box full of John’s mom’s journals. She begs him to help with the case to find what she’s missing. He agrees.
Peggy’s coworker, Mia, parks her car in a parking garage. Before she can get to the door, she hears footsteps behind her. Lightning strikes. The scene goes dark as she screams.
To be continued…
Next Episode: “Mariachi Shelly’s Frankenstein" - Airing Tuesday, February 18th, at 8/7c on ABC
In the midst of a tropical storm, the APD and GBI race against time to clear the name of an innocent man, uncovering shocking secrets that suggest the killer may be closer than they ever thought.
Songs Featured in This Episode: