What kind of show would you rather watch: A police procedural with a complicated case at its center but mostly flat regular characters with very little backstory (ie, most of CBS’s lineup for the past 20 or so years), or a procedural where the mysteries are uneven but the regular characters have deep, rich backstories? We’re fans of the latter, which is why we hung on with shows like Elementary and much of what was on USA through some bumpy seasons. A new ABC procedural, based on a series of novels by Karin Slaughter, is definitely along those same lines.
WILL TRENT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “Ansley Park, Atlanta, Georgia.” A woman in a tennis outfit is yelling at her husband for cheating on her for the umpteenth time; when she gets to the door of their house, she freezes when she sees broken glass.
The Gist: The woman, Abigail Bentley (guest star Jennifer Morrison) finds what the thinks is her daughter’s body, then wrestles whom she thinks stabbed her to death down the stairs, eventually strangling him with a tennis racquet.
We then cut to Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez), special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, trying to bring Betty, the tiny chihuahua his neighbor left behind when he moved, to the local shelter. But when they can’t confirm that they’re a no-kill shelter, he brings the little doggie back home. His boss at the GBI, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn), brings him to the house to read the crime scene, a favor to the governor. The Atlanta PD is completely hostile to Trent, given that his last big case was about corruption in the APD, resulting in the arrests and resignations of many of their colleagues.
When he looks at the scene he realizes some things are off. But when the girl’s father, auto dealership owner Paul Campano (guest Mark-Paul Gosselaar) shows up and tells Will that’s not his daughter, Will realizes that Campano’s and Bentley’s daughter was kidnapped. So, even though GBI doesn’t investigates homicides and Trent’s never done an abduction case, Amanda lets her best detective run with it. She also elevates APD detective Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) to temporary agent status to partner up with him; she’s a family friend and knows Faith will be a good complement to Trent’s unique skills.
When Campano calls Trent “Trash”, alluding to the fact that Trent was found in a Dumpster as a baby, we start to get filled in on the rough upbringing Trent had in Atlanta’s foster system. It also alludes to the fact that the two of them knew each other; they both lived in the same group home when they were kids, and Campano was a massive bully.
There is also someone else who shares Trent’s group home experience: APD detective Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen). They’ve also been on-again, off-again since their days in the group home, but she’s also been his biggest supporter. She knows he struggles to read due to his dyslexia, and he’s devised some ingenious ways to get around it, like speaking his notes into a tape recorder. She has issues of her own; she’s in recovery while she happens to be undercover on a drug sting.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Will Trent, based on Karin Slaughter’s popular novel series, has the feeling of an old-style USA or TNT cop series, that concentrate more on character and less on the mystery. Trent also has a sense of humor that reminds us of shows like Monk, Psych or Rizzoli & Isles.
Our Take: Let’s get this out of the way immediately: The mysteries in the first two episodes of Will Trent don’t really hang together well. There’s the overarching mystery of the kidnapped teenager, which most definitely wastes the talent of Morrison in her guest role. But in each episode, there’s also a case involving Polaski, first in her undercover capacity then in the second episode in her new position as a homicide detective, paired with Det. Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), with whom she also seems to have a history.
The mysteries in each case are relatively straightforward, more designed to introduce us to the characters and their histories than to be truly intriguing on their own. If that’s the intention of Liz Heldens and Daniel T. Thomsen, who developed the show from the novel series (Slaughter is also an EP), that’s just fine with us. The character of Trent is pretty well established in the first two episodes, including his reading disability and rough upbringing; it makes him a whole lot deeper than the quirks he displays in the show’s first moments.
His natty mode of dress, the handkerchief that he carries, the fact that he doesn’t write any notes, are all adeptly explained in the first two episodes, and Rodroguez’s portrayal of him should get more layered as the series continues. The only thing we would like to see from Rodríguez is that he gets a handle of Trent’s voice, literally: There were times in the first two episodes where he lays on the “Southern Gentleman” accent pretty thick and there are others where the accent isn’t there and he just sounds like himself. He needs to pick a lane there and be consistent.
We also get enough backstories of the thankfully small ensemble to be intrigued by where their characters are supposed to go. Christensen is especially good as Polaski, who sees her relationship with Will as something detrimental to her moving on with her life, but they also have a bond that not many people can share. But we also just enjoyed her nuanced performance, something that’s often in short supply on network procedurals like this.
Because of the surprisingly deep character development in the first two episodes, we’ll be happy to follow Trent, Polaski and company through various mediocre mysteries, just like we did when we watched Monk or Elementary.
Sex and Skin: Trent and Polaski start to have sex, but Polaski keeps her bra on (it’s ABC, after all). The scene is more to show the many scars Trent has on his upper body and that the only person whom he trusts to see them is Polaski.
Parting Shot: Campano arrives at Trent’s home in the middle of the night with blood on his shirt. He claims he shot the man who kidnapped his daighter.
Sleeper Star: Iantha Richardson does a good job as Faith, the reluctant new partner who calls the “genius” detective on all of his crap, but does appreciate that he can see what other detectives can’t.
Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a bit of confusion in the middle of the episode when Trent gets into a physical fight with Campano at the GBI office, after telling him that Campano’s DNA is going to be tested to see if he had consensual sex with the teen girl who ended up dead. We had to watch it twice to not only discern the dialogue but figure out what Trent’s intention was.
Our Call: STREAM IT. While the procedural part of Will Trent needs a lot of improvement, the characters are so well-established from the start that the first two episodes are entertaining and make us want to see more.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.