Me Llamo Will Trent – The second series of Will Trent begins in Lincolnville Park, Georgia. A man speaks to Tracy on the phone while walking to his vehicle. When he gets into the car, it explodes. Will Trent (Ramon Rodriguez) speaks to a group about being in foster care. Six months ago, he learned his mom’s name, Lucy Morales, and that she is from Puerto Rico. He is learning Spanish for her. He introduces them to his dog, Betty. Will receives a call from Amanda before he leaves. Once he reaches the crime scene, Nico (Cora Lu Tran) takes Betty. Will finds what appears to be a ring. Franklin (Kevin Daniels) and Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) come over to speak to him. Amanda wants to know if this is terrorism.

It is revealed that the victim’s name is Keith Wakefield who is in advertising. There’s no obvious reason he’d be targeted. Cricket Dawson (Susan Kelechi Watson) with the bomb squad introduces herself to everyone. She thinks it’s targeted. Michael argues that’d be sloppy since the wife and son drive that car. He agrees to speak to the wife. Will asks Franklin to speak to the neighbors. Cricket talks to Will about the case with James Ulster. While she talks, Will remembers a violent moment from his childhood. He goes inside to look around while Michael interviews Sue Wakefield (Cristen Barnes). Will sees a pamphlet for a pool, but he notices the family doesn’t have a swimming pool. Sue says that’s probably the accountant guy across the street. Will goes outside and notices the accountant has a similar vehicle.

He asks the accountant, Arthur Highsmith (Clark Gregg), whether he’s going on a trip. Will mentions the similarities between the cars. He asks whether anyone would have a reason to kill Arthur who flees. Will takes him before telling Amanda that Arthur Highsmith was the actual target. Angie has sex with her doctor and talks about rejoining the force. The doctor believes Angie (Erika Christensen) should slow down. When he refuses to sign the paperwork, Angie asks how the medical board feels about doctors sleeping with their patients. The doctor signs the paperwork and reminds her she’ll still have to pass the physical exam. Arthur is interviewed, but is reluctant to provide any helpful information. He denies being a gambler or a drug addict.

They have no choice but to let Arthur go. Will and Faith follow him when he leaves. Faith isn’t thrilled when Luke (Ser’Darius Blain) joins them in the elevator. Michael drives his kids. His daughter says her mom and Macy’s dad are friends. Max (Owen Trumbly) asks why Michael cares when he never talks to her. Will and Faith wait in the car. He refuses to tell her about his Spanish lessons. She doesn’t want to tell him about Luke. They decide to go inside and sit with Arthur who asks if they often stalk a possible murder victim. Faith steps outside. Will suspects Arthur has a bag full of cash although Arthur denies it. Outside, Arthur yells for Will to stop following him. A man in a car hangs out the window while firing at Arthur. Will manages to stop him from being shot.

The money from the bag falls to the ground. Later, Arthur picks up the cash while Will pleads with him to talk. Faith and Will insist they’ll find out the truth regardless. Arthur tells them to take the money and deposit it into an account at the Southern Bedrock Bank. He reveals they’re going to kill his son. Arthur says his son went to prison a year ago for drugs. One day, he got a call from someone demanding five grand every month or Miles would get hurt. Last week, some woman accosted him at the bank and said she wanted to talk about Miles. She said she knew what was going on and could help. Arthur describes the woman as Asian in her 30s. He asks if they can help him speak to his son. At the station, Michael speaks to Angie about Macy’s dad, Harris Bordner. Angie tells Franklin that Michael thinks his wife is having an affair.

Franklin thinks Michael should just talk to his wife. Michael gets a call from his wife. He says he loves her, but she doesn’t say it to him. At the office, Will speaks to Cricket Dawson who says the report is on his desk. They traced the lot number of the C4 and it is Russian military. Cricket fixes the flickering light for him. They talk about not throwing things away as kids. Will reveals James Ulster is sending him fancy unwanted liquor. She asks if he and Angie are still a thing. Will admits they’ve been over for a while. Once she fixes the light, Will says he’s the case agent so he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for them to date. Arthur gets to speak to his son. Elsewhere, Will tells Faith and Amanda that Arthur’s son was attacked again recently. They traced the ransom calls to a burned phone in Georgia State Prison so they believe the scheme is being run from the inside.

Will catches up with Angie who is swimming. He talks to her about her recent case involving the Los Diamantes prison gang. They also talk about Angie’s back. Angie manages to convince Will to swim with her. They discuss relationships before Will tells Angie about Cricket asking him out. Angie is going to take her physical exam next week. She is worried she’ll start using against if she doesn’t stay busy. Luke checks on Faith who doesn’t want to go out with him. She follows him on Instagram and believes he likes to have fun with a lot of different people. He has information about Eastern European ex-military guys who come over and get into gang stuff. Luke says a bunch of them live over in Mechanicsville. He brought something to drink since he thought she wouldn’t leave. The next day, Will learns the Dodge Charger has been found abandoned and it’s in the impound lot.

The woman from the bank footage is named Emily Chu. She has a brother in the same prison as Arthur’s son Miles. Will calls Emily (Christy Jung-Yun Choi) to warn her someone may be trying to kill her. Emily says her car didn’t start but it made a weird noise. They believe there’s a bomb in her car. Cricket tells her not to move. The police reach the scene and Cricket tells Emily she is going to defuse the bomb. Will gets into the vehicle with Emily to ask her a few questions. Michael and Faith speak to Barney (Alonzo Ward). Michael shows Faith what he found in the car and says the bombers like a Grandma Millie’s biscuit. She asks if they have a location in Mechanicsville. Faith calls to ask if the men are customers. She says they’ll be right there. Emily tells Will that someone was trying to blackmail her too so she contacted Arthur.

She also contacted Mark Russi, Tova Feldman, and Vivian Marcus since they’re in the same prison family support group. Amanda says she got it. The bomb is successfully defused. Will tells Cricket he’d like to take her to dinner. Faith calls Will to say they found the bombers and some scary stuff. Cricket looks through the cookbook they had with them. They listen to a recording in code that sounds like instructions. Michael learns Max has been skipping last period twice a week to play Xbox. He realizes that’s Max and not his wife cheating on him. Michael tells her what he was scared about only to learn she is having an affair. Gina (Sara Antonio) doesn’t want to talk about it right now so she leaves.

Max tells his dad he found the tracker he put on Gina’s car. Michael admits he shouldn’t have done this. Max blames his dad for people hating cops. Meanwhile, Will and the others realize the car in the impound lot could be rigged too. Barney is worried about his cats, but Will insists he’ll take care of her. Cricket is worried about the gas in the vehicles. The cats smell C4 so they lead them to the vehicle in question. They find the bomb and tell Faith she has six minutes to evacuate the building. Michael rushes around looking for his son. Cricket makes Will tell her about Ulster who has been trying to contact him. Ulster believes he might be Will’s father. Will admits he isn’t sure he wants to know. Cricket insists it doesn’t matter because Will is his own man. She soon finds out they’re dealing with a collapsible circuit.

Michael catches up with his son and comforts him. Cricket ends up taking the bomb and throwing it inside another room. It blows up with her standing outside the door. Amanda tries to talk to Will at home, but he is eager to get back to work. He gets upset when he sees himself as a kid. Amanda tells him everyone else is okay. Will insists he is fine. Amanda doubts anyone in the prison will want to talk to him, but Will argues he knows at least one person. He visits James Ulster (Greg Germann).

 

Will Trent Review

The opening episode of Will Trent’s second season was okay although there isn’t much going on to justify tuning in every week religiously. Besides a few oddities, the show doesn’t offer much in terms of originality. Nearly everything in this episode was done before in other projects. The series doesn’t take itself seriously enough, yet the humorous bits aren’t really effective either.

As a result, some of the scenes that are supposed to be funny are just stupid. The casting was obviously flawed in the first season and that hasn’t changed here. Most of the cast is decent for what this is, but the casting and other decisions around the lead are not great. None of the characters are attempting to speak with a southern accent, except for Ramon Rodriguez who comes nowhere close to pulling it off.

At times, he sounds like a stereotypical redneck. Other times, he sounds like an African American or Forrest Gump. It’s hideous to the point of taking the viewer out of the story immediately. It’s mind-boggling that the production crew was okay with the accent after hearing it the first time. If that’s going to be the casting decision, the actor should’ve just used his regular accent. Without the horrible accent, the acting probably wouldn’t been decent enough.

Viewers not familiar with authentic accents from the region may not realize just how bad it is though. Once again, the creators of a television show were happy to show their ignorance in that area. The personal dramas are probably going to consume a lot of the season since they were heavy in this episode. It’s hard to care about those things without a deep connection to the characters.

Not to mention that adding all these crazy personal twists together just ruins the overall realism of the series. The dialogue is also pretty bad with some of the characters sounding more like teenagers than detectives. On the plus side, this is pretty much a brainless watch that requires little to no effort from viewers. If viewers happen to skip a week or two, they’re probably not going to miss anything overly important.

After all, it’s easy to predict who’ll be the bad guy by using a bit of common sense. The episode scores a 4 out of 10. Recaps of Will Trent are available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. Discuss Will Trent at the Reel Mockery Forum.