SPOILERY THOUGHTS AHEAD
What we’re going to do right now is go back. How far back? Back to when Wil thought he was meeting Amanda for the first time (although we know better). The latest episode of Will Trent, “Where’d You Come From, Little Angel?” Leans into the surreal and the trippy nature of memory. Actress Sydney Park returns as the 40–something Amanda, and she’s serving pure Sonja Sohn energy, alongside Young Will actor Andres Velez.
What we get is a surreal mashup of two timelines, cozy mystery, and saying goodbye to the only mother Will has ever known, in a package that is part memory lane and part Sherlock in the mind palace.
This week, the murders don’t matter. Not that they’re not entertaining—they’re highly twisted and a little weird—but they are truly a means to an end. And that end is character development. Will can’t deal with the grief. (sorry for the rhyme) and it’s messing with his superpower: the ability to read a crime scene like it’s a comic book. Faith isn’t doing much better. She says she could barely get out of bed. The entire squad is struggling with the pall of death that has fallen over the precinct.
Thank goodness, Franklin, Angie, and Ormewood still have jokes. The best bit may be when Ormie and Franklin muse about how long Angie has been pregnant. Apparently, it’s been 2000 years and she’s about to give birth to a fully grown Vampire Lestat. That’s my translation. What Franklin actually says is, “I’m just waiting for a toddler to walk out of your baby oven.“ I think we can all agree. We’re grateful for Franklin. There are some good “love triangle” jokes between Will and Surreal Seth, too.
Faith stops by Will’s office with a box of Amanda’s things that Evelyn thinks he might want to keep. Once again, Will can’t deal. Who could? With Pete out of the office giving testimony, Will ends up in the morgue alone. So, of course, he gets knocked out with the help of his special friend, blunt force trauma. That’s where, as I mentioned, things get absurd. We’ve been here before. If you remember that time Will got stuck at a cult compound and got juiced up on a special substance.
This time, the loopy-go-round is different. Will is young again, and he relives his first conversation with Amanda. It’s sad and also a little bit strange because it’s not the Amanda we know. Instead, it’s the one we’ve met in flashbacks.
Grief isn’t Will‘s only problem. The concussion is troubling, but it’s also not the most dire situation. What’s really bothering him is being locked in one of those refrigerated dead body filing cabinets—I don’t know what you call them—you know what I mean. He is cold, he is injured, and his air is running out. So what does he do? He goes ahead and solves the crime with help from the hallucinated versions of his friends. The ones in his head. Why not? He’s got time to kill, or to be murdered? Or time to detect a kill? Again, I don’t know what to call it, but you know what I mean.
The subconscious mind is a fascinating thing and it keeps working even while Will is struggling. It makes connections the conscious mind is often too crowded to make. Without meaning to Will slips back and remembers when he first met Faith as a little girl. It’s a nice moment, but this episode is all about Will’s unresolved resentment and the things he never got to say. With that in mind, this episode could easily be called, “Will and Amanda Ride Again (For the Last Time)“. That’s why although it’s not my favorite, this episode has meaning. I also have to remind you that the combination of Ormewood and Franklin is something like genius. The jokes, the shenanigans, the gruff man talk. A delight.
The quote and episode title “Where’d You Come From, Little Angel?” comes up a few times. That’s what Amanda said to Will when he was a baby, and was planning a life for them together. She loved that child from the start. She named him after her father. That baby swaddled in his blue blanket encapsulated Amanda’s hopes and dreams for a family and the future. That’s the part that makes you want to cry, but it’s also the part that helps Will begin to accept the loss. In the end, he gets saved with a little help from his friends. Those in his life and in his head, but mostly in his heart.
Central Cast: Ramón Rodríguez as Will Trent, Erika Christensen as Angie, Iantha Richardson as Faith, Jake McLaughlin as Ormewood, Sonja Sohn as Amanda, Scott Foley as Dr. Seth, Kevin Daniels as Franklin, Cora Lu Tran as Nico, Janina Gavankar as Casey, Jason Davis as Bill Appleyard, LisaGay Hamilton as Evelyn Mitchell, and Ilfenesh Hadera as Joanne Drexler
TUESDAY, APRIL 21
8PM ET – Will Trent: “Where’d You Come From, Little Angel?” (417)
on ABC and Streaming Next Day on Hulu
Will and the team investigate a string of murders, uncovering a case far from ordinary. Alone and grieving, Will faces a peril that leaves every breath a race against time.
