A Clear Vision and a Host of New Traumas!

Suits on and peach cobblers at the ready, the leafy streets of the southern state of Georgia are back in action with Will Trent and the team of investigators at the GBI!

Picking up several months after the arrest of Will’s father (Greg Germann), the second season of ABC’s hit new crime series follows the cast of loveable yet flawed characters as they deal with the aftermath. Far from a long-standing mystery, the arc of the series’ sequel is an emotional journey. Through 10 hour-long episodes, the shockwaves of unleashed truths and the cases they investigate will test their resilience and newfound happiness.

“We’re just all sitting here in our warm urine, and it’s delicious”

Will Trent

After discovering and arresting his mother’s killer, Will Trent starts this season off on a high. Without the mystery of his mother’s death weighing on his mind, he comes to his new cases with a sense of panache as well as style. The series premiere makes for a great example: a fast-paced and action-packed hunt for a car bomber.

During the investigation, Will’s new outlook on life has caught the attention of not only his partners at the GBI but also others. His positivity brings the potential for a new relationship with bomb expert Cricket Dawson (Susan Kelechi Watson). Her straightforward attitude is a perfect match for this new version of Will. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last.

Cricket’s death in the line of duty is the impetus for Will’s emotional journey. Searching for a new purpose and an end to the never-ending list of tragedies, he decides to put himself first and look for the long-lost family he never knew he had.

A season-long rollercoaster, this journey is a difficult one for Will. Confronting the past and accepting a brighter future is tough, especially given Will’s history. His difficulties are exacerbated by visions of his past self, a trauma-induced self-insert whose role is to convince him that he’s not worthy of happiness and that he should be punished for his past transgressions.

Eventually, Will’s search bears fruit, and his doubts are assuaged when he meets his maternal uncle, Antonio (John Ortiz). A man with his own complex past, he easily accepts Will, ultimately giving him the confidence to make the right decisions about his future. These are well-thought-out and acted scenes, as Will is finally given a glimpse of what life might have been like had he known his mother.

While Will is off on a journey to discover what’s at the roots of his family tree, his GBI partner, Faith Mitchell, is left out in the cold.

Trust and opening up have never been on the agenda between Will and Faith. There have always been frustrations as their personalities clash, but in this season, it reaches a whole new level. Will’s cagey behaviour, especially towards the end of the season, leads her to look elsewhere for a support network, whom she finds with her on-again-off-again fling Luke (Ser’Darius Blain).

Faith’s arc is the weakest of the sequel. Throughout the season, she has too little involvement with the storylines of the rest of the cast. Her role in individual episodes, however, is still fantastic. The fourth episode of the season, “It’s Easier to Handcuff a Human Being,” showcases this admirably. Faith’s open-mindedness on the possibility of the supernatural and her cultural sensitivities help solve a difficult case.

Amanda Wagner is the deputy director of the GBI and the final main cast member of that organisation. A tough (some say violent), no-nonsense boss for Will and Faith, her intertwined history with them brought forth dark secrets on the previous season.

In the latest string of episodes, things don’t get any easier for Amanda. Over the course of the season, a stalker develops into a ticking time bomb when they dredge up scars from her past.

“Because I’m a cop. Captain Duke Wagner’s daughter”

Amanda Wagner

Through these scenes, we are shown a more vulnerable side to Amanda. With her father as the captain of the police department, life as a rookie took its toll on Amanda, and these scenes examine the dirty work she needed to do to stand out in an all-boys club.

Ultimately, the truth of her actions, falsifying evidence against a serial rapist, causes shockwaves. Both Will and Faith, who look up to her as a mentor, will now have to second-guess Amanda’s decision-making as well as their own. Meanwhile, Amanda will have to confront this aftermath before it eats her alive.

While Amanda has yet to deal with the consequences of her actions, Ormwood and Pulaski are dealing with moving beyond them. Both work for the Atlanta Police Department, which aids and assists the GBI.

Ormwood’s character journey through the sequel examines his frayed family life, his affair with Pulaski putting into perspective what it could mean for him to lose his family. As a result, he sets about spending more quality time with his children.

The show sets these scenes out well, building up Ormwood’s responsibilities as the season progresses. These skills are then put to the test when his wife leaves for a mental health break. As a (temporary) single father, he now gets to experience the full force of what it means to put family first, which he adapts to eventually only for his wife (Sara Antonio) to return with some devastating news that’ll put their family life permanently on ice.

Pulaski’s road of consequence, meanwhile, starts by mimicking Will’s journey. The former drug addict and rising star of the APD has pulled herself back from the brink in season one. At the start of this season, she’s on the successful road to recovery, and her complicated “situationship” with Will has reached a stable point bordering on serious.

Her life has reached such a good place by this point in the series that she decides to help others in the same situation. During her time sponsoring young addicts, she ends up reconnecting with Crystal (Chapel Oaks), the girl she helped once before escape her former abuser.

At first, Pulaski’s attempts at swerving Crystal away from a life of addiction seem to be working, getting a job and keeping a low profile at the shelter. However, Angie is blindsided in her attempts to save her, failing to notice the writing on the wall.

By the time Pulaski and Crystal reunite, her trauma has already evolved into something much darker. Not wanting to believe that someone she’s helping could do this, she hides information that sends her life and career into free fall. Moreover, as Will discovers what she’s been doing, it inevitably destroys their relationship and forces him into a decision that becomes too much to bear.

With everything spiralling out of control towards the climax, Will makes the narratively understandable choice to leave his life in Atlanta and his job at the GBI, although given that there’s a third season already airing, I doubt it’ll be for long.

In a series filled with crime, trauma, and bad decision-making, Will Trent’s sequel makes a narratively fresh choice of picking an emotional arc over the standard mystery box. Over the course of ten episodes, the series expertly splices the cast of characters’ jobs and private lives to create an engaging and entertaining package, even if some characters get the limelight more than others.

As the third season is right around the corner (or more likely, already airing by the time this review is released), it’ll be interesting to see how the series moves to showcase a more fraught relationship between Will and Angie and how it’ll ultimately change his goals of securing his own happiness.

I Give Will Trent’s Sequel Season: 9/10