Season 3 of Will Trent comes to an exciting, albeit bittersweet, conclusion in “Listening to a Heartbeat.” Hearing a baby’s heartbeat during a sonogram can be one of life’s most uplifting moments, while hearing a loved one’s electrocardiogram flatline is one of its most extreme lows. Fittingly, both are possible by the end of this episode, and we’ll have to wait until early 2026 to find out what happens next. But for now, enjoy this recap of the Season 3 finale.
Season 3, Episode 18 – “Listening to a Heartbeat” – Written by Liz Heldens & Inda Craig-Galván
Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) stands in the GBI conference room listening to Eduardo, his phone’s AI assistant, help him make sense of the case board, which is full of information about Founder’s Front, the terrorist organization that just unleashed a bioweapon in Atlanta. Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) gets a call from Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), who is at the hospital, which has just gone into lockdown. Will hears his dog, Betty, barking on the other end of the line and learns that Betty and Nico (Cora Lu Tran) are there. Worse, Nico has symptoms of the virus that has already mentioned several lives. Will wants to see a crime scene, and Ormewood tells him about the tent Roy was living in. Caleb Roussard (Yul Vazquez), aka Will’s biological father, offers to drive, and Will accepts the offer. Before leaving, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) tells Will that she’s worried that Caleb’s sudden entry into his life will make things too complicated. Will promise that he’s fine.
Down in the APD, Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) talks to Franklin (Kevin Daniels), who asks why she’s not having one of the burritos that were delivered in plastic containers. She tells him her stomach is bothering her. She gets a call from her boyfriend and baby daddy, Dr. Seth McDale (Scott Foley), who only has a brief moment between dealing with contaminated patients. He has just enough time to tell Angie that he’s passing along his medical history and contact information for his sister. “I love you, Angie,” he said, hanging up before Angie could say it back.
The mood is tense as Will and Caleb arrive at Roy’s tent. Before opening it, Will snaps at his biological father, accusing him of knocking up a sex worker in the 80s. Caleb didn’t have an opportunity to respond as they opened the tent and found a dead rat inside a plastic food container. Will ask Eduardo if any of the other infected patients ate the same thing, but learns they all had eaten different things out of similar containers. Will thinks that’s the source, and he shares the information with Faith, who realized that the APD received burritos in those same containers.
Amanda is able to convey this information in a press conference, along with some good news – the CDC has a supply of antitoxin that is being delivered to Atlanta.
In the GBI conference room, Amanda finds that Angie finally got a laser pointer, calling the smiley face feature stupid. Franklin enters with an update on the antitoxin, which the military has asked the APD to escort. He asks Angie to go with him, but Faith steps in for her. Privately, Angie tells Faith she doesn’t need to do that. Faith tells her she wants Angie to make her own decision about the baby, not have a terrorist make it for her. Left alone, Angie begins to have bad pains in her lower abdomen. Suddenly after, we see her in the bathroom, concerning she’s having a workshop. She calls Faith, who tells her to go for an ultrasound to find out.
Will and Caleb interview a woman named Rosie (Alicia Kelley), whose husband, Ben, was good friends with Beau Corda. She recalls how Beau’s dad, Vince, took Ben under his wing. She hasn’t been able to reach her husband for a few days, and she shares a few other concerns – a burn mark on Ben’s chest, a gas mask in his truck, and a black notebook. Opening it, Will and Caleb recognize symbols of the Founder’s Front terrorist group and see signs that indicate a second phase is about to be implemented.
Caleb and Will pay Vince Korda (Kevin Dunn) a visit in his cell, asking him for information about phase 2. “It’s what you people deserve,” is all Vince will tell them, vowing that Founder’s Front will wipe the city clean. Caleb and Will try to scare Vince about dying in prison, but it doesn’t work – Vince is prepared to die there. Will realize that the virus must already be in the building.
Ormewood drives the military truck that holds the antitoxins, with Franklin and Faith sitting in the back with the cure. They are escorted by APD Officer Rake (C.J. Padera), who tells them they are diverting the route to avoid construction. On a winding tree-lined road, Ormewood loses contact with Captain Heller (Todd Allen Durkin), and he can no longer see where they are on GPS. They’re suddenly ambushed, the truck flipping over on its side.
The GBI is similarly ambushed, with a Founder’s Front member (Kerry Malloy) clearing the place out and asking for Amanda Wagner. Will Trent hears this over a radio from the APD floor, and he is ready to jump into action to save the closest thing he has to a mother, but Amanda orders him to stay focused on stopping phase 2. Amanda surrenders, left alone with five terrorists. Amanda’s captors will only let her go in exchange for the release of Vince Korda, which Captain Heller says will take some time. He gives a deadline of 2 hours.
