This week’s Will Trent was an almost perfect example of a locked-room mystery. We learned new things about staple ancillary characters, someone we like’s life was in jeopardy, and they wrapped up the ongoing story arc about John Shelley, the handyman who fell for Angie while she was on suspension.
This episode was a continuation of last week’s and opened where we left off. To understand what happened, here’s a recap of Angie’s B-plot storyline that has carried us through the season so far:
John Shelley met Angie when she was the security guard at the co-op where he was the handyman. They might have had A Thing but Angie found out he had previously been convicted of raping and murdering his prom date, Alice Finney, and wanted nothing to do with him.
All of a sudden, bodies start piling up and the MO is identical to how Alice Finney was killed years ago. John is Angie and Ormewood’s first suspect. He insists on his innocence while they pursue him against the orders of ADA Freddy Markovic (Federico Rodriguez). The cops find a potential witness who may have caught a glimpse of her friend’s murderer recently and asked her to come in and look at pictures, hoping she’ll ID John.
John Shelley’s sister and brother-in-law supply Angie with the notebooks John’s mother kept while she was trying to prove his innocence before she died. They point Angie in the direction of Shelley’s former cellmate, Carver. In a Hannibal Lecter moment, he tells Angie she’s asking all the wrong questions. “Why not ask yourself how a man who went to prison at age 17 can have a credit score of 710?”
And then he stabs her in the hand with a weaponized peppermint stick.
That’s enough to spin Angie out, she’s beginning to think John is innocent. They find him in an empty house (that was bought under his name while was in prison) next to his parole officer’s dead body and they have to arrest him. But that gives Angie the chance to question him about his credit score, the PO Box, and the house bought in his name. Someone stole his identity while he was in prison, and the new crimes occurred when he started looking into it. Whoever did this is trying to send John Shelley back to prison.
Last week’s episode ended with the witness, a nurse named Mia, arriving at the police station during a storm, and being attacked in the parking lot.
When this week’s episode opens, Angie and Ormewood are waiting for Mia. They’re meeting with her, John Shelley’s sister, and the ADAs. Will is flirting with Marion, and Amanda is preparing for her assistant, Caroline’s (Christina Wren), birthday with Rafael and Sunny’s help. At the same time, Mitchell, Ormewood, Franklin (Kevin Daniels), and Captain Heller (Todd Allen Durkin) are setting up the squad room for Caroline’s surprise party.
Then the lights go out and everything goes to Hell.
Will and Angie get stuck in the elevator which is only the most awkward thing ever until they discover Mia’s body on the roof of the elevator car.
Amanda finds Caroline stabbings multiple times and leaves for dead, forcing Pete The Coroner to perform life-saving surgery in the dark even though it’s been years since he operated on live people.
Ormewood, Mitchell, Franklin, and The Captain spend most of the episode trying to lug a heavy generator up flights of stairs.
Did I mention the mariachi band?
Alice Finney’s killer, and the person who murdered at least two others to frame John Shelley, is in the building somewhere and they’re all trapped inside with no electricity, while a storm rages, preventing any other help from arriving.
The episode is a literal race against the clock they keep putting up in the corner of the screen. Everyone’s in the dark, and for a few moments even Marion’s life is in danger. Poor Will Trent. One potential love interest was blown up in season two (RIP bomb tech Cricket Dawson). Now Marion may be a serial killer’s next victim.
There are other nods to Silence Of The Lambs throughout the episode. And despite some questionable continuity choices that left me asking what day it was and how many days had passed, it was a clever way to wrap up the ongoing mystery that involved the entire cast (except Betty and Nico). It also shifts the dynamic on Angie’s return to the force and Will’s budding relationship with Marion.
Will Trent has given us three life-changing events this season between this episode, Amanda’s questionable fostering of a criminal’s daughter, and Faith’s mother being held hostage in episode five. All of these will have consequences that should carry us to the end of the eighteen-episode season. For those of you counting at home, that’s eight more episodes than we’ve gotten in the previous seasons and we’re not even at the halfway point yet.
New episodes of Will Trent air on ABC on Tuesdays and are available to stream on Hulu the next day.
