Good news for fans of quirky detectives with cute dogs! Will Trent, the police procedural based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling book series, will return for a second season. ABC announced the renewal in April 2023, but this news was overlooked as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continued. With the strikes now resolved, production can finally begin! Here’s everything we know about season 2 so far.
What’s Will Trent about?
Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) is a Special Agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). Abandoned as an infant and raised in foster care, he lived through unspeakable abuse and neglect. This experience propelled him into a career in law enforcement to save others who are trapped by life’s circumstances.
Will struggles with dyslexia and is functionally illiterate, and therefore can’t use modern technology. In spite of these differences, the character is incredibly observant and understands human nature and actions on a very instinctual level. What could be a detriment for others becomes Will’s superpower, and he winds up solving the most cases in all of the GBI. Between that and the fact that he busted a group of corrupt officers in the Atlanta Police Department (APD), he’s not exactly well liked at work … or in the Atlanta area, in general.
In season 1, Will’s GBI boss Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) assigns him a new partner, Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson), who hates him on sight because her father was one of the corrupt cops Will exposed. The partners must learn to work together in spite of this auspicious start, and soon their bond is unbreakable.
Other characters that round out the action are APD detective Angie Polaski, (Erika Christensen), whom Trent knows from the foster system and has an on again, off again relationship with, and Angie’s partner Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin).
What will season 2 be about?
The series action will likely pick up where the first season left off, after Will saved Angie from a deadly killer and learned more about the mother who died giving birth to him, and his boss’s unexpected connection with his mother’s death. Angie’s fate was uncertain at the end; she’d been beaten so badly, she could be paralyzed.
Season 1 followed Slaughter’s first two books in the Will Trent series, “Triptych” and “Fractured.” Assuming the next season will follow the novels as closely as the first, show writers Liz Heldens and Daniel Thomsen will likely harvest plotlines from book 3, “Undone,” and book 4, “Broken.”
When will season 2 air?
Season 2 will return to ABC on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, but it’s getting a new timeslot. Instead of airing at 10PM EST, it will be on at 8PM, leading into The Rookie and The Good Doctor, and going head-to-head with CBS’s own detective show, FBI. Will Trent will be available to stream on Hulu.
The first season began midseason, so it only had 13-episodes. Season 2 was supposed to get a full 22-episode season, but it’s unclear whether the strikes will lead to a shorter season similar to the first.
No matter what happens in the next installment of Will Trent, we hope to see more of fan favorite Betty, the chihuahua Will adopted in season 1. Will’s reluctance to become a dog-dad adds much-needed levity to the show, and let’s face it … cute dogs are always a plus!
You can catch up on all episodes of Will Trent streaming now on Hulu.
(featured image: ABC)
