Ramón Rodríguez is breaking his silence after the season 4 premiere of Will Trent ended with the main character’s death.
During the Tuesday, January 6, episode of the hit ABC series, Will (Rodríguez) was taken hostage by James Ulster (Greg Germann) after the criminal’s prison break. Ulster told Will that in order for them to evade the authorities, they needed to die. Cut to the final scene, where a burned car — with two passengers — appeared to hint at James and Will’s demise.
“Look, the reality is, ‘Could we just kill our lead character [when the show is] called Will Trent? Not likely,” Rodríguez, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly. “But when I read the script, I loved that ending. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s exciting.’”
Rodríguez noted that despite Will surviving, “the stakes are really high” for the character and the series since he is still missing.
“There’s a lot of question marks and I think it’s going to be really fun for people when they get into the next episode and see what really happened. We continue again this thing where Will is having to navigate his moral compass,” the actor, who also directed Tuesday’s premiere, continued. “He’s somebody that always does things the correct way by the book and and now he may begin to start questioning and doubting these things again as he’s exploring emotions he hasn’t really tapped into often.”
Based on a book by Karin Slaughter, Will Trent follows a special agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who was abandoned at birth and grew up in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. Will now relies on his unique perspective while pursuing justice, which leads to the highest clearance rate in the GBI.
Season 3 concluded with Will meeting his father while dealing with his ex Angie (Erika Christensen) expecting a baby with her boyfriend and Amanda’s (Sonja Sohn) near-death. After a time jump, Will was seen still processing his mixed emotions about the changes in his life.
“There’s a lot of things that we see in that first episode that will be open-ended and have to be figured out. His relationship with Angie — who is pregnant — and this loaded history that they have. Are they able to navigate [that] as friends? They’ve always been an on-again, off-again, but does that trauma bond continue?” Rodríguez teased. “So there’s a lot of fun stuff that we get to play and explore.”
Will’s tumultuous history with Ulster will also be explored.
“We get to see his manipulative ways and he tries to get into Will’s head. There’s going to be some fun twists and some fun reveals in that second episode,” he continued. “Then obviously the rest of the season we have some new romances — and maybe some old romances. It will be a lot of fun.”
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Looking ahead at the rest of the season, Rodríguez opened up about Will exploring his rage.
“It’s something we really haven’t seen too much of from him. For someone who has such a loaded past in history, for the first time he is really getting into therapy. Then a lot of stuff starts coming up for him. So we were really interested and intrigued by the idea of someone unraveling and peeling back the hood on themselves to see what’s in there,” he told Us. “The process of therapy, I’ve gone through it and it is interesting what comes up. It can be good or it can be complicated. It can trigger things.”
Rodríguez promised viewers would see a new side of Will, adding, “For someone like Will who hasn’t really taken much time to do that — considering how much he’s been through — he just always moves forward and focuses on his job. He keeps himself busy that those have been some of his coping mechanisms and now to finally meet a therapist who is a bit unconventional where her tactics might be a little strange. But I think that’s what someone like Will needs.”
He concluded: “I love that we took what we’ve seen a million times before in movies and shows — which is therapy — and we said, ‘How can we make this really different and give it the Will Trent spin that we try to do?’ I loved it.”
Will Trent airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.
