TV Recap: “Will Trent” Episode 11 – “Bill Black”

Will Trent returned tonight on ABC for its 11th, and if you haven’t already heard the good news, the series has been renewed for a second season! Next week kicks off the two-part season finale, but first, an episode that wraps up Angie’s quest to take down her childhood abuser while Will Trent goes undercover as “Bill Black.”

For the past five weeks, Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) has been undercover as Bill Black in Macon, Georgia on a mission to take down a crime operative that is responsible for the disappearance of DEA Agent Matthew Menaker. As Bill Black, he has been taken under the wing of Dante (Shalim Ortiz), who works for the leader of the group, a shadow figure named C.K. Bill Black’s story is that he is on parole for another crime, something that the members of the gang have taken pity on him for. He’s renting an apartment in a complex that houses multiple members of the gang, although there are a few innocent residents who have nothing to do with it. Among them is Dante’s cousin Rosa (Bevin Bru), a nursing student who Will has taken a liking to.

Will’s partner, Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson), is also in on the job, although not as heavily involved. She’s acting as Will’s probation officer, and she stops by for a check-in. Inside his apartment, Will hands her his most recent mini-tape of his recorded notes to be transcribed. He tells her that Dante is going to introduce him to C.K. Faith noticed the way Will was acting around Rosa when she arrived in the courtyard, and he tells her he’s going to dinner at Rosa’s tonight. Before she leaves, Faith tells Will that Angie says hello. This trigger’s a memory from five weeks prior of Will finding drugs hidden in his closet. Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) swore that she wasn’t using and that she was holding them for a friend, but Will didn’t believe her, and when he left to go undercover, this issue was unresolved.

While dining at Rosa’s apartment, Will meets her brother Gabriel (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who dislikes Dante and doesn’t seem to care much for Bill Black. Their father is sick and staying in a bedroom down the hall. Will hears him coughing as both Rosa and Gabriel excuse themselves to go tend to him, refusing Will’s offer for help. Dante has a look of suspicion on his face as the siblings leave the table.

The next day, Will and Dante are walking to their meeting with C.K. when a van drives by and begins to shoot at them. Will ducks behind a fence with just a grazed wound on his leg, but Dante dies in the shoot-out. Will gets a view of the driver of the van as it races away. Will goes to Rosa’s apartment, and she takes him in, helping to bandage up his wound. However, they both know they don’t have much time as the apartment complex will soon be crawling with police. Almost immediately, there’s a knock on the door, and it’s Sheriff Hagar (Helen LeRoy), who arrests Bill Black since he matches the description of the man who got away during the shooting. Will remains in character even when he’s interrogated by the sheriff. Faith soon arrives, and the sheriff gives them a few moments to talk privately. When she returns, she reveals that Bill’s attorney has stepped in, and he is being released. Will and Faith are both confused, but after Will’s release, Faith does some digging and finds out that the lawyer who got Bill out also once handled a case for Rosa.

Shortly after Will returns to the apartment complex, he is abducted by three goons who take him to a basement. He is beaten around as they talk, with Will recognizing the leader of the trio as the getaway driver (Mac Wells). He learns that Dante was ordered to be killed by C.K. because of his big mouth and that Dante didn’t know he was training his replacement when he took Bill on. Will tells them that he will do whatever C.K. wants, but he wants to meet him before he officially works for him.

Meanwhile, Crystal (Chapel Oaks) comes to the APD looking for Angie, breaking down in tears as soon as she sees her. Angie takes Crystal to a private room, and she reveals that Lenny has been sneaking into her room at night, watching her while she sleeps, and massaging her legs. She cries as she tells Angie that when she tried to tell her mom, she didn’t want to hear it. Angie tells Crystal to go stay with a friend and tell her mother it’s for a school project. She advises her not to return to their apartment for any reason. They hug before Crystal leaves. That night, Angie talks to Betty on Will’s bed, explaining to the adorable chihuahua that after she takes care of Lenny, she will be exiting Will’s life and asks the dog to take care of him. But despite this plan to move out, she next calls Will, who comes over in his Bill Black garb. In a post-coital pillow talk session, Will tells Angie that the distance has given him more clarity on their situation. Angie thanks Will for always being there for her, saying she wouldn’t have made it through tough times without him.

The next day, Will goes to Rosa’s apartment for lunch. As they talk, Rosa’s dad starts to cough from his room down the hall. Rosa is annoyed, and her behavior seems to contradict her previously displayed compassion for her relatives. Suspicious, Will watches Rosa open the door to the room where her father is resting, then move across the hall to her own bedroom and close the door. He takes the opportunity to creep down the hall, learning that the man coughing isn’t Rosa’s father but missing DEA Agent Matthew Menaker (Malcolm Spears). He is drugged and chained to a bed. Unfortunately, Will is caught, with Rosa pointing a gun at his back. “You’re C.K.,” Will realizes out loud. Her brother Gabriel returns home and Will tells Rosa she can trust him. She demands an act of loyalty to prove himself, ordering him to kill a vlogger who lives downstairs. Will is given a knife to do the job, and Gabriel will join him to supervise. The vlogger is doing a live stream, so Rosa plans to watch from her phone.

Angie approaches the apartment door of her former abuser, met by the sounds of an argument from inside. She opens the door to find Crystal’s mom Diane (Brittany Wilkerson) screaming at Lenny (French Stewart), who she caught trying to touch Crystal, who came home when she thought the place would be empty. The presence of Angie sets Lenny off, and he attacks her. She is able to overpower him, getting him on his knees and held at bay at gunpoint. But before Angie can do anything, Crystal returns from the kitchen with a knife and stabs it into the side of Lenny’s neck. He falls to the floor dead. Diane freaks out, and Angie comes up with a plan. The girls are to go to the mall and see the next movie showing. That’s their alibi. She will take the blame for Lenny’s death. After they leave, she goes to the kitchen and grabs a rolling pin to beat herself with it to create wounds that will make Lenny’s death look like an act of self-defense.

Will bursts into the apartment of vlogger Taylor (Liv Bryant), but ambushes Gabriel, using the door to knock him unconscious. He pulls the plug on Taylor’s computer and explains that they were ordered to be executed, but he’s actually with the GBI. Will ties Gabriel up, asks Taylor to call the GBI and ask for Faith Mitchell, and also requests their supply of Naloxone to reverse an overdose. He warns Taylor to stay in the apartment and not make a sound as Rosa needs to believe they’re dead.

When Will returns to Rosa’s apartment, she is administering a drug to Agent Menaker. Will begins to seduce her, and she falls for it. He pulls Rosa’s gun out of her waistband and pulls it on her. She realizes instantly that he was a cop, threatening that her crew will be there to kill him before the police arrive. Will calls her bluff and administers the Naloxone to Agent Menaker, releasing him from his handcuffs and carrying him out of the apartment. At the bottom of the stairs, some of Rosa’s goons try to stop Will, and he takes them down. He finds Taylor and another neighbor, Marcos (Ulisses Gonsalves), about to drive away, loading Menaker into the car and joining the getaway party.

Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) finds his partner Angie on the floor of Lenny’s apartment. He asks her what happened, and she describes an attack in which Lenny beat her with a rolling pin, and she managed to get free by stabbing him. But since the attack occurred in the living room but with kitchen objects, Michael instantly sees holes in Angie’s story. Rather than pushing back, he offers to help her stage the crime scene to make it believable.

Will is still in his Bill Black hoodie, an unusual look for the three-piece suit detective. His boss, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn), tells him to go home and take a shower. Rosa is in custody, and all of her places are being raided. Agent Menaker is in detox and will recover. Before Will leaves, she mentions that his Bill Black days may not be behind him since he did such a good job with that cover.

Will goes to the hospital to see Angie, who is recuperating. He realizes that the drugs he found in the apartment were meant to kill Lenny and make it look like an accidental overdose. He apologizes for thinking she was on drugs. Angie apologizes for their most recent one-night stand and announces her intentions to move out of Will’s house. “Do what you gotta do, Ange,” he tells her. They hold hands for a moment before he leaves.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, April 25th, at 10/9c when ABC will air episode 12, which is the first half of a two-part season finale. Here’s the official episode description for “Nothing Changed Except for Everything.”

With Angie on leave, Will and Faith partner up with Ormewood to investigate a string of serial killer cases tied to Will and Angie’s childhood and a chain of incidents, formerly investigated by Amanda and Evelyn, from the ‘80s.