After a two-part season premiere, ABC’s Will Trent returns to its regular procedural case-of-the-week structure in the third episode of Season 2, titled “You Don’t Have to Understand.” Will and Faith work to save a pregnant woman from a killer on the loose, while Angie and Michael try to solve the mysterious death of a fitness nut. But the emotional heart of this episode comes from Will Trent reconciling the parent-child relationship he’ll never know as he is placed in the unique position of helping bring new life into the world. Oh yeah, and Betty has another adorable sweater!
Season 2, Episode 3: “You Don’t Have to Understand” – Written by Karina Rosenthal
Isabella Altman (Kaitlyn Bausch) enters an abandoned mall. “Hello?” she calls. “Could you have picked a more disgusting place?” She hears a sound from the second level, walking up the broken escalator. Nobody responds, so she tries to open a door. The handle pulls right out of the wood, the sharp inner mechanisms exposed. And then a black bag covers her face from behind.
Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) completes her physical fitness test to return to work. Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) is there with his dog Betty and a cooler. “Welcome back Agent Polanski,” he tells her, offering a gift. “You’re finally giving me Betty?” she jokes. He opens the cooler to reveal a gel ice pack, offering it to the place that hurts the most, which is her lower back. She asks why he’s really there, accusing him of playing hooky from work. “Have you talked to anyone about the explosion?” she asks, encouraging him to open up to someone. He’s saved by the bell of his phone, answering the call and announcing he’ll be right there. Angie offers to drop Betty off with Nico on her way home. “She likes whipped cream, right?” she asks, the promise of a pup cup lingering in the air. “She’s lactose intolerant,” Will reveals as he leaves.
Will’s boss, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn), meets him at the abandoned mall and they’re greeted by Detective Denny Collier (Philip Covin) who doesn’t know why the GBI was called in. Amanda shares that a $500 million development project was about to begin here, the centerpiece of a politician’s campaign for re-election, and a body being found on site is bad for his campaign. A trail of blood was found on the main level, which leads up the escalators to where the body was found. The stairs are closed as a forensics team collects samples, so Will operates the scissor lift to get them to the second floor. Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) is already there waiting for them. A man lies dead, face down, having been stabbed in the back with the sharp inner mechanisms of a doorknob. The front of the body is covered in blood, and Will quickly determines that the blood belongs to someone else based on the dead man’s wounds on his back, not his front. Detective Collier gets an alert on his radio that councilman Victor Carrie is outside. Amanda rolls her eyes, sharing that he acts like he has special privileges because he attends the police fundraiser every year. She goes out to talk to him.
Will and Faith explore the area, with Will dictating his notes on his recorder. They follow the trail of blood to another body, a man with a “WWJD” wristband. A purse is on the ground nearby. The keys and wallet are gone, but among the spilled-out contents is a bottle of folic acid tablets.
Victor Carrie (Ricardo Chavira) and his assistant Ian Schiff (Julian Green) meet with Amanda in the mall parking lot. They’re eager to clear things up in time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. When Amanda goes back inside, Will and Faith fill her in about the second body they found. “Also found evidence of a third person who was here, a woman,” Will informs her, adding that he believes she was the intended target. He speculates that the man stabbed in the back was the attacker, and the other man was trying to protect the victim. The victim likely used the door handle to stab her assailant in the back. “Based on what was in her purse, I’d bet money this woman’s pregnant,” Faith adds.
Angie returns to the APD, with her partner, Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), riding the elevator up with her. He talks about moving on with his wife after learning of her affair, bragging about how she didn’t want to get out of bed this morning so he stepped up and took the kids to school. “You sure she’s okay?” Angie asks. “It’s not like that, she just didn’t sleep well,” he brushes it off. When the doors open, Angie is greeted with applause, balloons, and a welcome back cake that says “Happy birthday Louise.”
In a conference room at the GBI, Faith shares the identities of the bodies found at the mall. The man stabbed in the back with the doorknob was named Dale Sorenson, a hitman from a biker gang called the Death Pistons. The man with the “WWJD” wristband was Conrad Warren, a youth pastor. And Will has discovered the identity of the woman, Isabella Altman, who works for the school district and is far into her pregnancy. “Someone lured Isabelle to that location, paid Dale to kill her, which means they’ll probably try again,” Will announces. “Guess you better stop them,” Amanda replies.
“Who has tricep definition after they’re dead?” Michael asks as he and Angie stand over the dead body of a man named Ted Burkle (Lucas Hyde) in the morgue. Pete Chin (Kurt Yue) fills them in on the investment broker who suddenly collapsed while at Ruby Dreams Wellness Center. Since he was a health nut, they did an autopsy and found a lethal dose of buprenorphine in his blood. Angie recognizes it, knowing it to be fast-acting so he must’ve been exposed to it right before his death. On their way out, Pete offers Michael the contact information of his divorce lawyer. “I’m not getting a divorce!” Michael snaps.
Pastor Reggie (Jerod Haynes) accompanies Conrad Warren’s parents, Eugene (Essex O’Brien) and Trina (Sheila Maddox), as Will and Faith interview them about their murdered son. Pastor Reggie does most of the speaking on their behalf, and when shown a photo of Isabella, he recognizes her as a member of the congregation. He says Conrad was not the father of her child, but that he isn’t aware of who is. Will gets tired of Reggie answering all of the questions, and he pulls him into the hallway to talk. Reggie says Conrad’s parents don’t trust the police and that he’s just trying to help. “I’m not exactly trusting of religious leaders,” Will shares, asking Reggie for any information about the father of Isabella’s baby. He repeats that he doesn’t know. “In my experience, pastor, every congregation hides a few liars and hypocrites,” Will says.
Joel Burkle (Will Rothhaar) is teary-eyed as Angie and Michael interview him about his brother’s death. Ted invited Joel to join him at the spa to celebrate his birthday. They were only there for ten minutes when Ted collapsed. He thought it was from the heat, but when a worker checked Michael’s pulse, he was dead. “He could be really generous, and also he was pretty self-absorbed,” Joel offers when asked about his brother’s personality. He doesn’t know of anyone specific who wanted to murder him.
Faith calls Will from Isabella’s apartment, where nothing looks out of the ordinary, but she collects some items to take back to the office to review. In her hand, she holds a parking ticket. Will is at Pastor Reggie’s church, having interviewed some of its members who all seem to love their leader. “That man’s hiding something,” Will shares his hunch with Faith. He sees a woman walking in. Shortly after, he enters the church and sees Reggie sitting in a pew talking to her. Will steps outside to give them privacy, listening to his Spanish language tape and trying not to think about Cricket’s death. “If you’re waiting for me, here I am,” Pastor Reggie interrupts, inviting Will inside. Will asks if he often comforts women like Isabella. He says he’s there for all of his congregation when they need someone to share their burden, saying the woman who was just there has a child who is about to undergo yet another open heart surgery. Reggie recognizes that he and Will both had pain in their youth, commenting that they’ve both decided to do something meaningful with their lives. “Every human being has worth, Agent Trent,” he adds as Will gets up to leave.
“We can stop chasing the pastor,” Faith tells Will the next morning when he gets to work. She traced Isabella’s parking pass to the office of Victor Carrie. Will joins her as they arrive at his office. Ian shares that Isabella was an intern for Victor’s campaign last summer. Victor’s wife, Erin (Jennifer Westfeldt), overhears and joins the conversation, distraught that Isabella is missing. She instructs Ian to pull Isabella’s volunteer files to share with the GBI. Will and Faith both notice how anxious Victor seems. “Oh, honey, that poor girl,” Erin says to Victor. “Let’s pray for her.”
Summer Fairfield (Cara Mantella), owner of the Ruby Dreams Wellness Center, talks with Angie and Michael, sharing that the spa offers water, herbal tea, and body scrubs to its members. “It’s all communal,” she says when asked who has access to tamper with these items. Michael is distracted looking into one of the spas as a man named Wolfgang (William McKinney) flips a towel around the center of the room. Summer explains that it’s an old German technique called Aufguss, a treatment that Ted was a big fan of. “We’re one of the only spas in the United States that offers them,” she brags. Ted and Wolfgang had been working together on starting their own wellness center specializing in German techniques. “And you were okay with that?” Michael asks with suspicion. “I would never stand in the way of wellness,” Summer says. Angie asks why nothing ever came of their plans. “I think maybe Ted backed out,” Summer shares. Angie asks to speak to Wolfgang.
Faith believes Victor is the father of Isabella’s baby. Will gets forensic data back and confirms that Isabella’s fingerprints were on the door handle and Conrad’s fingerprints were on the knife that killed him, along with a second set of prints belonging to a man from Philadelphia with a warrant out for his arrest. He pins up a photo of the man, Leonard Parker, and he and Faith both recognize him instantly… Pastor Reggie.
Wolfgang is very protective of his essential oils as Angie and Michael inspect them. He resigns the fact that his business plans with Ted went South to the will of the universe, claiming not to have harbored any ill will. As they look around, Michael notices what appears to be melted plastic on one of the hot stones in the spa, which greatly upsets Wolfgang. “Looks like someone is trying to destroy evidence,” Angies says, taking Wolfgang back to the APD for further questioning.
Reggie, or should I say, Leonard, is brought into the GBI for questioning. He’s shown a photo of a man killed in an armed robbery, for which he was the getaway driver. “I knew you were hiding something,” Will says. Reggie confesses, sharing that he wants to start a new life. “That knife is mine,” he answers. “It’s from the church kitchen. Conrad maybe took it for protection.” He repeats that he doesn’t know who the father of Isabella’s baby is, but gives up Isabella’s location. “She’s scared,” he adds, saying that Isabella is worried she will be accused of murder. He reveals the unlisted address of an apartment that the church shares with a few organizations to shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Will and Faith arrive at the apartment to find the door ajar. Clothes and items have been strewn all over the place. Isabella is gone. Will calls Amanda to fill her in. She asks if Sheltered Haven is one of the organizations the church shares the apartment with. “Councilman Carrey’s a board member,” she reveals.
The plastic on the rock from the spa came back positive for buprenorphine, the residue of a patch matching what was found on Ted’s lower back. “They never prescribe those things without specific instructions to avoid high temperatures,” Michael shares. Angie accuses Wolfgang of putting it on Ted’s back to murder him, tearing it off and tossing it on the hot stones before anyone could check him out. “I wasn’t angry at Ted,” Wolfgang repeats. “It wasn’t the right time with his father dying. We agreed to revisit the plan in the future.” He shares that Ted’s dad had a long battle with cancer and was reaching the end of the road.
Will and Faith race to Victor Carrey’s home, hearing a gunshot and a scream as they approach. Faith calls for backup as they get close to the door. Victor rushes out, his hands raised in the air in surrender. “It wasn’t me, I was trying to save her!” he yells just before another shot is fired, striking the councilman’s leg and sending him falling to the ground. Erin comes out holding a gun, shooting her husband in the head before running back inside. Will and Faith rush after her, but are instantly distracted by Isabella, who is going into labor in the living room. Will rushes to help her, offering his hands to squeeze and trying to keep her quiet as Faith goes looking for Erin. “I sacrificed everything for him,” Erin cries in the bathtub as Faith arrests her, calling down to Will that it’s safe.
Will helps Isabella deliver her baby. He uses his blazer to wrap the newborn in. “It’s a boy, Isabella,” he says, tearing up as paramedics arrive, tending to the mother who passes out from exhaustion. “Your mom’s gonna be just fine,” he comforts the crying baby. “She’s so excited to meet you.” He thinks of his own mother and begins to mourn the life he’ll never know, crying harder. “She’s gonna love you so much.”
Angie and Michael find Joel sitting at his father’s bedside at a hospice care facility. He stands as they catch him by surprise, telling them that he’s been looking after his father for the past two years and recently he took a turn for the worse, needing to be transferred to the hospice. “Did your brother help out much?” Angie asks. “No… he said he didn’t do well with disease,” Luke reveals. Michael asks if his father was using buprenorphine patches for his pain. Joel’s face goes white, and he sits back down. Angie has learned that Joel and Ted were receiving money from a family trust. “It’s not like I want him to die,” Joel protests. “But you also don’t want to share,” Michael counters. Joel says he gave up everything to take care of their dad while Ted selfishly focused on himself and his wellness retreats. “I told him I needed help and if he had spent one-day taking care of our father, he would’ve known what that patch was,” Joel confesses. Angie tells him he’s under arrest, but they offer him a moment to say goodbye to his father.
Will waits outside Isabella’s hospital room where she and her baby are surrounded by family and “Pastor Reggie.” An officer waits outside. “I talked to the DA in Philadelphia,” Will tells Leonard as he steps into the hall. “He promised to take into account your years of atonement.” Leonard thanks Will, saying he hopes that Will makes peace with the ghosts of his past the way he is doing with his.
In the final scene, Will cleans the glass on a framed photo of his mother in his office. Amanda steps him to congratulate him on the case. Having learned of her husband’s infidelity, Erin Rainney paid to have Isabella and her baby killed. When that plan backfired, she tried to take care of it herself. “So, a birth,” Amanda asks Will. “It took my breath away,” he tells her. Amanda quotes a poem by Sharon Olds (“I stood with them outside the universe and then like a god I turned and brought them in”), and Will agrees that’s what it was like. Will asks what they’re doing, Amanda being the one who rescued him as a baby and placed him in the foster care system. “Call it what you like,” she smiles maternally. “We’re sitting.”
Will Trent is taking a well-deserved break for at least the next two weeks, but when ABC airs the next episode, I’ll be back with another recap.
