This article contains spoilers for Will Trent season 3, episode 14, “A Funeral Fit for a Quartermaine.”
Rafael Wexford (Antwayn Hopper) was able to bring Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) back to Atlanta — and now we know how.
The latest episode of Will Trent, “A Funeral Fit for a Quartermaine,” finally gives us answers to the mystery introduced at the beginning of season 3 — what is the debt Will owes Rafael? Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Will and Rafael were in trouble together as teenagers when the pair tried to offload a truck of stolen rugs. After Will refused to cooperate with the criminals, Rafael shot one of them in order to save Will — sending him to prison and solidifying his trajectory towards a life of crime.
In the present, it was Rafael’s grandmother’s death that provided an opening for Will to finally put a stop to his quasi-brother’s criminal activity. Will arrests Rafael after he is kidnapped by someone within his organization. But due to information he had about other criminals, Rafael got a deal with the FBI to relocate somewhere with his daughter.
We spoke to Rodríguez about Will closing this chapter, where he thinks Will and Angie [Erika Christensen] stand, and what’s ahead as we near the season 3 finale.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Now we know what Rafael had over Will, which we learn through flashbacks in this episode. Was there anything you learned about Will through this arc? Anything that surprised you?
RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ: What stays consistent is we see, even as a teenager, Will had a code. He had a strong North Star as to what’s right and wrong even though he gets involved with Rafael. He’s reluctant, but he does and he still draws his line when he tells those guys “we’re out.” I love watching that relationship. Grandma taking Will in and seeing things in Will that he doesn’t even recognize in himself. Watching that relationship with Will and Rafael grow until they part ways really told us a lot about who Rafael is as well as what he was willing to do and how he did defend and step up for Will in a very dire situation. It was a deep loss of a friendship. He had to go to prison. It was very serious, so we wanted to make sure that the stakes felt right.
What do you think Will take away from this reunion with Rafael? Do they have the closure they needed?
From the moment we introduced Rafael in that first episode, he getting keeps in trouble and not making great choices. Will ends up joining Rafael once he sees Will really knows rugs and there’s an opportunity that they can take advantage of. For Will, at least emotionally, he really loved Rafael and we established early on there’s a sibling vibe to their relationship. Now Will can finally close this chapter because this is something that stayed on his mind relationship and he’s held onto this. There’s a debt. He can finally now at least feel like he had Rafael’s back.
Do you think it’s a little messed up that Will use this opportunity to take him down? He was grieving.
We talked about that, too. It was a turning point, things were all going in this direction. It’s another example of Will [having to make] some really tough decisions, like at the end of season 2 when he had to arrest Angie. Similarly here with Rafael, he did commit a crime and so it just happened to be that things were culminating with the death of his grandma, as messed up as it might be and feel. In my opinion, there were a lot of times that Rafael was doing things [Will] could have busted him for a long time ago. For dramatic purposes, it worked really well to use that emotional thread.
What can you tease about what’s ahead for Will in the last episodes of the season?
What is going to have a residual effect that I think is great and we discuss a lot is Marco’s [Owen Trumbly] death. I think audiences are going to be really satisfied with how we continue that story. There’s going to be some more personal things that are going to come up for Will. I can say this in relation to Angie and with regards to his own identity, so we’ll have some of that, which we’ve tapped into before. It has been really fulfilling to watch Will learn where he comes from.
Angie and Will start the season fractured after her arrest, but their potential romantic reunion is something many viewers want. Where do you think they currently stand outside of the romances they are both currently in with other people?
It was really bad at the top of the season and they didn’t even have a scene together for a couple of episodes. A very pivotal moment was after Marco’s death. To end that episode to see there’s a knock at the door and who’s there? It’s Angie. For me that represents probably at the deepest level of what these two are about. Regardless of how you feel, if you think they should or shouldn’t be together, they have such a history. They’ll show up for each other in their darkest, toughest moments. There’s at least an understanding of what their true friendship really is and it’s been able to withstand a lot.
Something that was really fun to introduce this season was healthy partners for both of them. For him to have Marion [Gina Rodriguez] and for her to have Seth [Scott Foley] is something we’ve never seen for them. What we’ve learned is they’re at a place of a friendship and we’ll see what happens after that.
Speaking of Marion, Will was understandably impacted by Marco’s death when his relationship with Marion was put on pause, but he didn’t say “I love you” after she said it first. Where does Will stand in terms of his feelings for Marion?
Personally, it’s a great question, but that’s probably gotta do mostly with just what happened to him and not being able to process what happened to Marco. All the signs of her being a wonderful person for him are there. It’s healthy, it’s loving. She shows up for him and he shows up for her, so all the ingredients are there that could show a really healthy relationship, which is new for him. There’s probably a lot of things that Won’t processed and that can be a massive hurdle in terms of trying to move forward in anything in a healthy manner. We’ve never seen Will deal with this until Marco’s death. It’s the first time we see him go talk to a therapist. That’s something I find really compelling and interesting, and maybe we’ll explore further moving forward.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
