Will Trent’s Ramón Rodríguez Addresses the Aftermath of a Shocking Death in Season 2 Premiere Based on the bestselling book series by Karin Slaughter, ABC’s hit drama Will Trent returns for season 2 and ups the ante in every way possible for Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez). After a car bomb goes off, forcing Will to team up with bomb expert Cricket (guest star Susan Kelechi Watson), he finds himself in an unexpected but blossoming romance that he’s eager to explore. But when the elusive bomber’s actions lead to a shocking moment of tragedy, it puts Will squarely in the path of many unanswered questions about his family that he’ll now seek to uncover.
Collider recently had the chance to sit down with Rodríguez, who also serves as a producer on the second series, to chat about all things Will Trent. Clearly passionate and invested in playing the iconic character, he talked about his interest in the concept of identity and the impact of where one comes from, delving deeper into the character’s personal backstory, balancing the heaviest moments with a bit of lightness and humor, the shocking moment in the Season 2 premiere and what it means for Will going forward, whether he’d like to direct an episode, whether they’ve considered the idea for a Season 3, and whether fans might see Dr. Sara Linton appear on the series in the future.
Collider: It’s great to have this show back. What did you learn from the first season? Especially since you had more of a say in the show as a producer, what did you feel went right in the first season that you wanted to make sure you explored more in Season 2?
RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ: I think we did a really good job of starting to explore who this character is and a little bit of his backstory. There are a lot of questions in there that obviously we don’t want to delve too deeply into, and I think we hope to delve a little deeper [this season]. The notion of identity is fascinating to me. There’s the question of what this person has been through, trying to figure out more, now that he’s got some hints of where he comes from. There’s an uncle somewhere. His father could be James Ulster (Greg Germann). I really want to delve deeper into some of that. I think it would be great if we could dig deeper and figure out, who is this person? He’s created an entire character because he doesn’t really have much to fall back on. He’s got this three-piece suit and all that to help protect himself. He’s created a whole system where he can survive with coping mechanisms, and part of that is his appearance and his perception. It would be cool to peel that back a little bit. Who is he? Where does he come from? How does that affect him? There’s probably some good stuff there, and there’s probably some really difficult stuff there.
There’s humor in the show, but who his mother is, her fate, and who his father might be is pretty heavy. Does that feel like a really difficult thing to balance?
RODRÍGUEZ: Because it’s heavy, heavy stuff, I try not to just gloss over it. Even though we’re on network television, how do we figure out how to tailor things so that you’re not just glancing over really important moments in someone’s life and acting like it’s not a big deal? I feel like I’m constantly trying to be aware of, “Okay, if we’re going to go there, there are consequences.” You can’t just open this box full of all sorts of heavy stuff in this person’s life and then not really address it or how it impacts them today and maybe in the future. That was a big deal having those conversations with Liz [Heldens] and Dan [Thomsen]. I think we did a really good job in Season 1 of bringing some of that in there. We learned a little bit about his dyslexia and his history and the foster relationship, and then we moved into the story of his mother and Amanda and that history. I felt like we could explore that a little bit deeper. How deep does he go down the rabbit hole? What does he discover along the way? How does that affect him psychologically and emotionally? It seemed like interesting minefields to try to navigate.
RODRÍGUEZ: You get excited because she represents a little bit of hope and potential for what some healthy things could look like. One of the things I love about him is he just misses absolutely all the social cues and just doesn’t pick up on what she’s telling him, completely. He just doesn’t pay attention to it. But then they have a moment where he gets really excited about it. I feel like that’s so accurate. Sometimes you can get really fascinated when you see someone doing what they do and they’re good at it. He’s in the
