Ramón Rodríguez on ‘Will Trent’s Next Bombshell, That Disco Dance & Season 3’s ‘Tough’ Finale (VIDEO)
Will Trent Season 3 has been a wild and bumpy ride so far, and things are only going to get more intense in the last few episodes ahead, according to series lead Ramón Rodríguez.
The season began with Will living up in Tennessee with his best gal Betty and generally avoiding both the GBI and Angie (Erika Christensen) after he’d made the heartbreaking decision to blow up their romantic future and turn her in for covering up a murder. Then, he returned to Atlanta once Rafael Wexler (Antwayn Hopper) demanded his help with a false murder allegation as payback for something that happened in their youth — more on this later. Slowly but surely, he and Angie have begun to move on together and apart; in addition to forging a solid working relationship, they also each began new and healthy romantic relationships, with Mariona Alba (Gina Rodriguez) and Seth (Scott Foley) respectively.
Recently, though, things have taken a dark turn for Will. After he discharged his weapon and a ricocheted bullet hit and killed a teenage boy — it was self-defense, as he’d been fired upon, but that didn’t assuage his guilt — he fell into a depression. Marion then decided to call things off due to his sudden emotional distance from her, and he went deep undercover to infiltrate a cult whose message resonated with him more than he might care to admit. In Tuesday’s episode, “One of Us Now,” Will managed to escape the compound with the help of his friends on the force, but not before he was dosed with a bit of “sacred water” that induced a fever dream-style hallucination. In that disco-tinged sequence, he broke into dance with Angie, Faith (Iantha Richardson), Marion, and even Amanda (Sonja Sohn) and got to hear Betty talk for the first time — with a British accent, no less! Talk about a vibe shift.
Next week’s episode, “A Funeral Fit for a Quartermaine,” promises to bring the mysteries surrounding Will’s relationship with Rafael to a head at last, once Will attends Rafael’s grandmother’s funeral. So what can we expect from that clash ahead and the final stretch of the season? And how fun has it been for Rodriguez to explore this emotional roller coaster of a season?
Ramón Rodríguez stopped by the TV Insider offices to discuss. Watch the video above and read on below for the full question and answer series to find out!
Season 3 has put Will in some situations we hadn’t ever seen him in before, with him starting out in Tennessee, going through this breakup and a new relationship, and now with the shooting fallout. What’s it been like for you to explore these new experiences for him?
Ramón Rodríguez: We always talk about, “How do we continue trying to elevate the show and what’s new that we can bring to Will and his journey that’s hopefully interesting and compelling for audiences?” Starting Season 3, we all thought it’s a great way to sort of have him feeling like he’s starting anew. He left the GBI. He’s trying to walk away from what happened at the end of Season 2, arresting Angie. So it’s kind of cool to not see him in his suit — sort of in casual clothes, with a beard, just him and Betty. Obviously, he gets pulled back into the GBI. And we kept talking as the season was progressing about what’s a moment that potentially could be something that could affect him for the rest of his life and the arc of this character. And so the shooting that happens in Episode 11, which is pretty dramatic — he’s chasing a perp, he’s fired upon, he fires back, and a stray bullet hits a kid, Marco, and Marco ends up dying in his arms — I mean, it was really heavy. But then you have this week’s episode, where we see Will, who’s joined this kind of cult to try to crack that place, gets drugged, and then he has a whole dance-off episode with the whole cast. And we hear Betty has a voice, and Betty’s British.
It’s kind of one of the things I love about the show. We can go through different, various emotions that are pretty extreme from something as heavy as watching Will have to deal with the loss of a kid that he’s shot, and then also go through this trippy episode that he’s dancing and trying to find his way through this hallucination.
Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr.
Speaking of the hallucination, how did you prepare for this week’s dance hallucination? Did you take dance lessons or were you just waiting for a chance to bust out your moves?
No, I was not improvising. I was properly choreographed and properly rehearsed. Didn’t have a ton of time, but we had some amazing choreographers that came in. They also worked with us on a previous episode, so it was great to have them back. And they put together what I thought was a really awesome story of watching Will kind of weirdly feel himself in his body, start to move, and then start to lose himself. And we wanted to show how in this hallucination, everyone loves Will, even though, outside of that hallucination, they’re really not. They’re really upset at him. And he’s also struggling with his own self-worth and love. And to have this all come through a dance where he’s dancing with Angie and Faith and Amanda comes down… and then he dances with Marion, he dances salsa, it just was a really nice escape and a reprieve where we got to kind of [have fun], which I think we try to do often. We will take our foot off the gas, allow some levity to come in, and hopefully allow audiences to also enjoy it, while not just dealing with all that he’s dealing with … Release the grip just a little bit.
How fun was it for Betty to have a voice and a British one at that?
What’s cool is, the script that had come out, and we were talking about a couple of different things during this — and knowing this was such a big set piece, this whole dance piece — and someone came in, a PA, Tim, said, “What if Betty spoke?” He said that off the cuff, off the side. And ideas like that flow, and if it’s a great idea [we’ll go for it]. I called Liz [Heldens] our showrunner, and I said, “I heard this great idea. What if we have a moment when Will steps out of this elevator as this hallucination begins, and Betty speaks to him?” And she took it a step further and was like, “What if she’s British?” And I was like. ‘Why not? She’s elegant — you know, it’s Betty!”
And so that’s kind of fun when we get to infuse ideas and inspiration from wherever they might come from. I feel like we’re a project that we really promote, “Best idea wins, no matter where it comes from.” And so that was one that really worked. Then I pitched the idea in the middle of the hallucination, when he goes on stage with Gina’s character Marion, and he kind of freezes everyone, and he says, “How about we just — give me some time to kind of work through myself, and we’ll get back together,” which is ridiculous, a ridiculous request, but that was a nice moment. Again, even in that dance piece to take pause, it was a lot of fun.
ABC
Had you ever thought about what Betty’s voice would sound like?
No, no, I’d never … I just knew that Betty’s a diva, and she has things her way, and how great would it be to give her this really — ’cause she’s always dressed beautifully — great voice. The casting process for that was awesome. Hearing all of these different British dialect voiceovers come in … I remember we all agreed on, that was the voice. It’s a voiceover actor. She’s British, from London.
The introduction of Rafael has created a season-long mystery, and it seems like we’re about to learn more about their past in Episode 14. What can you tease about that?
Yeah, that relationship has been complicated from the beginning of the season where we see Will get pulled back into this case because of Rafael. And we know that there’s something he has over Will, something that Will owes him. And at the same time, Rafael keeps sort of getting involved and getting into trouble with various things. I can see Will — we kept talking as we were talking about it — keeps getting in trouble, he sees he needs to do something about Rafael, but we know that there’s a debt there. He’s trying to be sensitive about it. And so we will get to that coming up in the next episode, where things kind of come to a head emotionally for Rafael’s character. We’ll also learn a little bit about what actually happened and what Will actually owes him for.
Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr.
Angie chalks up the “I love you” to the sacred water, but is there more to it — especially since he didn’t say it to Marion?
Their relationship is so tricky because they’ve known each other for so long, and so whether or not that “I love you” was an “I love you” — because he does love her. They’re bonded through trauma. They’re bonded through their history. They’re bonded through their history together. They’ve been through everything, I think there is no doubt there’s love between them, whether it’s a romantic love and whether it should be that, that’s a great question that we’re always talking about. It was great this season to be able to introduce some new love interests for both. For Will, we got Marion, played by Gina Rodriguez. And for Angie, we got Scott Foley to come in, and their chemistry has been great. And so what’s cool is they both got healthy relationships, which I think neither of them are really used to. Will’s not been very [involved] — Sadly, Season 2, we had Cricket [a bomb technician who died in an explosion], who came in, and a lot of people were devastated by that. That exploded quickly. And then this season with Marion, she is a really healthy partner, and it’s a nice, refreshing thing for Will, but he’s dealing with the loss of Marco and a lot of other stuff, and so that’s been a tough one.
The Will and Angie debate is always going to be there…
Some people I know are like, “That’s just not a healthy relationship. They shouldn’t be together.” But then at the same time, no one knows the other better than each other. These two just know they’ve been through so much. You know, a great sign of that is like at the end of Episode 11, after that horrible death of Marco, who shows up at Will’s door? It’s his friend Angie. And she shows up as his friend, which is really awesome, and it says a lot. So yeah that’s a debate we’ll keep pushing and pulling at for a while.
This season has involved a lot of heartache and recovery. The scene at the restaurant when she says she’s “released” is especially emotional. Can you talk about making that moment stick?
Yeah, again, it’s loaded between these two. It’s so loaded in this relationship. And so, I think they both knew this can’t continue moving forward romantically, and drawing that boundary, clearly, is a really hard thing to do. But I think they both recognize it was necessary and had to happen, and it’s painful. A breakup of any kind — and I think particularly these two, which they are very much close friends, maybe first and foremost, maybe that’s all they should be, but they are romantic as well. … But it’s funny anytime we have scenes together, because these characters are so baked with so much going on emotionally, you don’t really have to do much, and they’re written so wonderfully that it’s just on the page and Erika and I know each other, so when we get there, it’s magic.
Things have grown a little cold with Marion and Will since she said “I love you,” and he didn’t reciprocate. What’s happening between them right now, and where’s it headed?
I mean, I think as healthy as that option [is] and I think he does have love for her, it’s just, he’s been triggered by this horrific event, this horrible traumatic event that happens and changes him. And it affects him for the rest of the season and maybe even into Season 4. It’s something that we were looking for, a pivotal moment for this character with something that could really throw him off, knock him down, and this does that. And so, unfortunately, he can’t reciprocate the love that he’s being given from Marion in that specific moment. Doesn’t mean that door is closed, by any means, and she also kind of leaves it open, but I think he’s just unable to process everything at that moment in time, and he’s just in a low point in the series.
Will’s decision to cover for Jeremy in the drug bust was a morally flexible one. Does this help him understand Angie’s choice with Crystal?
I think that choice, which I thought was very quick thinking, great writing, for him to come up with, to have Jeremy be his CI to cover — first of all, it was either that or prison, so I think that’s the good thing. I think we’ve tried to do that with every serious dilemma that we put Will in, whether it’s arresting Angie, and it’s like, “This news is going to come out, she was going to have to face this.” He was the person that wanted to do it. And what she did was illegal and was wrong. So we’ve given him a pretty strong moral compass. It is starting to get kind of flexed and pressed on, which is great. But I think with Jeremy, the biggest thing there was that he doesn’t tell Faith. That was a real big issue that we see come up. In terms of when he came up with this solution, I thought it was actually brilliant. I was like, “Oh, that was a quick [idea], that was a great idea to write.” I remember I was watching it because I was at home with my mom, actually, and she’s like, “That was awesome. That was amazing. Way to go, Will!” She was talking to the screen, and I was sitting next to her. That was great.
Speaking of Faith, will this situation continue to strain their relationship? He’s only just earned back her trust after leaving.
Yeah. That relationship started pretty tumultuous, and then they slowly started building a rapport with each other, and this puts a real fork in that road. There’s no doubt it makes it. This makes it a little tough thing. She wanted to leave him, wanted to find a new partner. Amanda’s not having that. And so I think they’re going to be forced to work together. We’ll see if that trust can be rebuilt. That’s something else that will be coming up in the next couple of episodes.
The Season 3 finale is coming up. What can you tease about it?
We just wrapped last week, and it’s very exciting. It comes to a really big — it comes to a head. A lot of things come to a head. The interesting thing — in addition to Will still processing and dealing with what happened with Marco, which will continue — there’s going to be some other personal things that come up for Will that are really exciting and that hopefully lead us to a really fun Season 4. It’s nice. It’s a two-parter again, so there’ll be some storyline that’ll continue — in terms of the case — for the last two episodes, but we’re going to have some fun characters that are going to be coming into our world.
You were also recently renewed for Season 4. Congratulations. Any hopes for Season 4?
Yes! I think you’ll see at the end of Season 3 what some potential stories can be, without giving away too much. But I think we all are very excited to just have a moment to breathe and enjoy, let Season 3 air, which is still airing. It’s great to know that we’re coming back. Really exciting. We’ll all be circling back, I’m sure, shortly, and start talking about what Season 4 can look like, what’s in store, what some of the character arcs can be. But I think the writers have done a really excellent job this season of getting a lot of character arcs and stories in there for Faith, for Angie. She’s going to be going through some really tough stuff at the end of the season… We just want to keep diving deeper and finding new territories. We tried to be bold this last episode, the hallucination was bold. The Marco death was bold…
Will the Season 3 finale end on a cliffhanger?
I think it’s going to leave people definitely excited, wanting to see what happens next. And so that’s good news. And the other thing I’m probably looking forward to is I hope to come back and direct Season 4 like I did the Season 3 premiere.
Will Trent, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
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