Based on Karin Slaughter’s best-selling book series, the hit ABC drama Will Trent is back for Season 2 and raising the stakes in every possible way for Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. After a car bomb was ignited, leading Will to partner with bomb expert Cricket (guest star Susan Kelechi Watson), he found himself in an unexpected but budding romance that he was looking forward to exploring. But when the elusive bomber’s actions led to a shocking moment of tragedy, it pushed Will directly into the path of the many unanswered questions about his family that he’ll now be looking to uncover.
Collider recently got the opportunity to sit down with Rodríguez, who is also a producer of the sophomore series, to chat about all things Will Trent. Clearly passionate and invested in playing the popular character, he talked about his interest in the concept of identity and the effect of where a person comes from, digging deeper into his character’s personal backstory, balancing heavier moments with some lightness and humor, that shocking moment in the Season 2 premiere and what it will mean for Will moving forward, whether he’s looking to direct an episode, that they’re already considering ideas for Season 3, and whether fans might see Dr. Sara Linton appear in the series in the future.
Will Trent Will Search for Answers About His Family in Season 2
Collider: It’s so nice to have this show back. What did you learn from the first season? Especially since you have more of a voice in the show as a producer, what did you feel went right with the first season that you wanted to make sure you further explored in Season 2?
RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ: I thought we did a really good job of beginning to scratch at who this character is and a bit of his backstory. There were a lot of questions within that, that we obviously didn’t wanna get into too far, and that I think we’re hoping to get into a bit further [this season]. The concept of identity is fascinating to me. There’s the question of what this person has been through, trying to find out more, now that he’s gotten a couple hints about where he came from. There’s an uncle somewhere. His dad may be James Ulster (Greg Germann). I wanted to really get into some of that stuff deeper. I thought it’d be cool if we got to scratch that more and figure out, who is this person? He created a whole persona because he didn’t really have a lot to go off of. He has the three-piece suit and all the things to help protect himself. He created a whole system where he can survive with coping mechanisms, and part of that is his look and his perception. To peel that back a little bit is gonna be really cool. Who is he? Where does he come from? What does that do to him? There might be some good things there, and there might some really tough things there.
There’s humor to the show, but who his mother was, her fate, and who his father could be is pretty heavy. Does that feel like a really tricky thing to balance?
RODRÍGUEZ: Because it’s such heavy, loaded stuff, I try not to just breeze past that. Even though we’re on network television, how do we find a way to pace things out, so that you don’t just blow past really monumental moments in someone’s life and act as if it wasn’t that big a deal? I feel like I’m constantly trying to be conscious of, “Okay, if we’re gonna go there, there’s gonna be ramifications.” You don’t get to just open this box up that is filled with all kinds of loaded stuff in this person’s life, and then not really deal with it or how it impacts them today and maybe moving forward. That was a big deal to have those conversations with Liz [Heldens] and Dan [Thomsen]. I think we did a really good job in Season 1 of peppering some of that stuff in there. We learned a little bit about his dyslexia and his history and the foster care, and then we got to the mom stuff and the Amanda relationship and that history. I feel like we get to explore that maybe a little bit deeper. How far down the rabbit hole does he go? What does he discover along the way? How does that affect him psychologically and emotionally? It seems like interesting land mines to try to traverse.
Cricket Could Have Had a Different Fate in ‘Will Trent’s Season 2 Premiere
In the season premiere, there’s this sweet, light relationship between Will and Cricket (Susan Kelechi Watson) that we’re watching unfold and that he’s trying to figure out, and then all of a sudden she’s gone. How was that to handle?
RODRÍGUEZ: You’re excited because she represents a bit of hope and potential of what some healthy thing might look like. One of the things I adore about him is just missing all the absolute social cues and just not picking up on what she’s putting down for him, at all. He’s just oblivious to it. But then, they have a moment where he’s really excited by it. I felt like that was so accurate. Sometimes you can be really blown away when you see somebody doing what they do, and they’re good at it. He’s in that moment and even though he expresses himself after they had that moment, it cracked me up. We talked a lot about it early on. It could have been something that went on beyond an episode, but it felt like, instead of getting deeper into it, to have it be something that compounds, which is what’s happening a lot right now for him. I imagine at some point, we’re gonna really get into seeing how that might crack him. You can only bury so much. At some point, stuff starts spilling out. How and what that looks like, could be really interesting.