From finding his footing again at the GBI and clashing with an old friend, to the tragic death of a teenager that he blames himself for, the shock of Angie’s (Erika Christensen) pregnancy, and the surprise announcement that Sheriff Caleb Broussard (Yul Vazquez) is actually his father, Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) has had plenty of his own drama in Season 3 of the ABC series. And now, with both Amanda (Sonja Sohn) and Ormewood’s (Jake McLaughlin) lives hanging in the balance, change is coming for everyone in Season 4.
During this interview with Collider, showrunners Liz Heldens and Daniel Thomsen discussed having such a jam-packed finale, putting everyone Will loves in danger including Betty, making the Will Trent version of an event episode, the one thing that was bread-crumbed throughout the season for a finale payoff, introducing Will’s father, staging two big shootouts, and how everyone will have to face changes moving forward.
Collider: The episode just before the finale had enough going on with the revelations of both Angie’s pregnancy and Will’s biological father that it feels like that could have been a finale, and then you took everything up a notch. Because you set up so much to deal with, did you see this as a two-part finale?
DANIEL THOMSEN: Yeah, there was a lot that fed into the finale, for sure. We had the story of Ormewood’s health challenge. I feel like Angie’s emotional story that culminated in the finale beginning with her mother showing up. Originally, we had designs on bread-crumbing even more of the bio-weapon earlier in the season, but it became a little bit of a challenge to jam that stuff in there. There was a lot of stories.
Everyone That Will Trent Loves Was in Danger in the Season 3 Finale
It feels like pretty much everybody is in jeopardy in some ways, from Ormewood to Amanda to Nico. I was even worried about Betty for a minute. Why did you decide to give us anxiety over everyone?
LIZ HELDENS: We really love when all five of our characters are working on the same case. The situation with Will was that everyone he loves was in danger, and he said to Caleb, “And I’m driving the wrong way with you.” He does stop the attack and he does save the day. It just felt like we hadn’t done an episode this big. Our line producer kept reminding us that this is the biggest one we’ve done, telling us how far over budget we were. We planned for it, but it just seemed like, with such a big attack on the city of Atlanta, we really could put everybody in legitimate danger and find surprising ways for that to happen. It was a fun challenge for us, for sure.
THOMSEN: Our first two season finales were so intimate. They had such an intimacy with them. We wanted to see if we could do the action movie and make the big event. We both loved it when ER would do that, when we were watching TV coming up. What I was the most proud of was that I thought we did. Howie [Deutch] did a great job directing it and the crew really put together an exciting episode, but it also felt very intimate. We didn’t ignore the really emotional impact that this huge event had. There were things that were going on while the big event was happening, so you can get the big and the small. It felt like we made a Will Trent version of an event episode.
HELDENS: Angie was worried about whether she lost the baby or not and was talking to the baby in the air duct. Will was trying to deal with the fact that this guy is his father. And it was fun to put Franklin and Faith and Ormewood in their little story together. Kevin Daniels does such good work for us, but we’ve never given him a gun and seen him do action, so that was really fun for everyone.
THOMSEN: Liz bread-crumbed one thing through the season. Those laser pointers started early in the season. The laser pointer runner started in episode 4. We gave the crew a holiday gift of laser pointers. Laser pointers were this big thing and I was like, “Where is this going?” It paid off wonderfully. So, that’s where the finale begins for us.
I thought it was particularly interesting how you introduced Will’s father. You brought in this character that you had rub everyone the wrong way, including Will, and then you told everyone that he’s actually Will’s father. What did you enjoy about approaching it in that way and making us hate him first before then winning us over with him?
THOMSEN: What’s satisfying as a producer is that you can have a plan for this character, which was designed to be a different kind of law enforcement officer that doesn’t have the same methods or philosophies as Will Trent, and that puts people off. And then, we cast Yul [Vazquez] and there’s something about him as an actor that is so warm. Even when he is standoffish, when we first meet him outside that house, and Will is screwing up and dropping banana bread all over the place, you were kind of on Yul’s side.
Before you even knew he was Will’s father, you were evolving your understanding of who he is and what you want out of him as a character. I was just really struck by how, when we conceived the character, I was conceiving somebody who was a little bit more arch, which would have been harder to have him win over the audience. The actor just made me feel like, “Okay, I really want to see more episodes with this guy.”
HELDENS: We liked the idea that they’re birds of a feather. They have the same work ethic with no shortcuts. They can see each other in the other person.
