TV Recap: “Will Trent” Unlocks a Repressed Memory That’s Haunted Him All Season Long in Season 2, Episode 8

In some ways, this week’s episode of Will Trent feels like the end of a saga. All season long, Will has been haunted by visions of his younger self. Maybe he’ll be back, but by the end of “Why is Jack’s Arm Bleeding?”, I get the feeling that this chapter of Will Trent’s past is resolved. Will also joins Faith on a quest to bring justice to a teenage girl who went missing more than a decade ago. And Angie and Michael get a case that feels more than just a B-story this week, one that has personal resonance for Ormewood’s military past. Angie’s role as a mentor/sponsee also finds some resolution this week. So, without delay, here’s a recap of what I feel is the most important episode of Season 2 so far.

Season 2, Episode 8: “Why Is Jack’s Arm Bleeding?” – Written by Karine Rosenthal & Henry ‘Hank’ Jones

Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) and Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) wake up in bed together, Betty at their feet. Angie tells Will that he was talking in his sleep and kept saying “Jack’s arm is bleeding.” She asks why it was bleeding. “I have no idea,” Will says. Angie gets a message from work and says she has to go. On her way out, a present arrives for Betty from a fan (Nico has apparently set up a social media account for Betty and created a wishlist). Betty is thrilled with her new cheeseburger squeaky toy. “If you figure out why Jack’s arm was bleeding, let me know,” Angie says as she heads to work.

Will Trent is now alone in his living room with his 12-year-old self (Isaac Dodds). “I know, I’m on it,” he tells his imaginary counterpart. He begins to move around his house, trying to configure the space to the layout of the foster home where the traumatic incident took place. He grabs his tape recorder and starts to dictate his memories, but hits a mental block and sits on the floor in frustration. Betty comes to comfort him. He has a flashback of his foster dad, Sleeveless Jack (Randy Spence), standing there with a gunshot in his arm. “Just remember, Trash,” Will yells at himself, fixating on an ugly beaded curtain that divided the rooms.

Will’s uncle, Antonio Miranda (John Ortiz), enters the living room when Will doesn’t answer and finds his nephew sitting on the floor. “I’m working on a case,” Will tells him, “This is my process.” Antonio offers to take Betty to the park by himself, but Will wants to go.

Angie meets Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) at an all-inclusive camping retreat with ATV trails and a shooting range. The body of a veteran, Harry Baker, was found shot to death by shooting targets. He was there with three war buddies, who are all interviewed. Wallace (Boone Platt), Tank (Ulyses Espinoza), and Mullins (Darian Rolle) talk about how the night before, they all rode ATVs, drank, and ate barbeque. Mullins was the last to see Harry. They got lost together on ATVs. Mullins decided just to sleep outdoors, but Harry was determined to find his way back to camp. They all found him dead in the morning.

Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) and Will Trent enter Amanda Wagner’s (Sonja Sohn) office, learning that the body of Lilly Watkins was found, a missing persons case from 13 years prior. Lilly was a Black teenager whose case wasn’t picked up by the media. Coroners determined that she was strangled to death and that she put up a fight. Amanda tasks them with finding justice for one of the 60,000 missing Black women in the United States.

Faith gets to work with a board detailing Lilly’s last day alive. She has already contacted the parents Lilly used to babysit for, as well as Lilly’s boyfriend Derek, a high school dropout with a criminal record but an alibi due to his work schedule. Despite being distracted by memories of Jack, Will points out that Lilly’s last known location was a running trail that she would jog on every Saturday morning, but the clothes taken off the body show that she was wearing jeans.

Lilly’s father, Albert (Leland L. Jones), welcomes Faith and Will to his home. His wife left him years ago and moved to Tennessee, but he never lost hope that Lilly might someday return, remaining in the house all these years. He recalls the morning his daughter went missing. He and his wife went to the grocery store and when they left, Lilly’s bedroom door was closed. They assumed she was sleeping in. It was not unusual for Lilly to spend four hours running on Saturdays, so the fact that she wasn’t home when they returned wasn’t a concern until hours later when they couldn’t reach her by phone. Will asks Albert if it’s possible that Lilly didn’t come home Friday night. “No way,” he responds. “I picked her up myself. Walked her home.” Faith asks if Lilly ever snuck out of the house. Albert says that would’ve been impossible with how creaky their stairs are. He would’ve heard her if she did.

Will and Faith look around Lilly’s bedroom, which has been preserved just as she left it. On her vanity, Will picks up a drawing of a tree with pink flowers on its branches. There’s no signature, but it seems important, so Will pockets it. He runs a finger through the dust on the vanity and suddenly has a flashback. His 12-year-old self in the kitchen with a tin full of flour, poking it with his finger. When he returns to the present, Faith has snuck out the window and silently climbed down a trellis. This proves she could’ve easily snuck out without her father hearing, and it breaks Derek’s alibi.

Coroner Pete Chin (Kurt Yue) examines Harry’s body with Angie and Michael. Pete determines that most of the bullets were fired after Harry was dead, and soot on his head indicates he was executed. Michael has a hard time believing that any of Harry’s army brothers could’ve killed him. They meet with Harry’s wife, Melanie (Sarah Mack), who shares that he was haunted by an event in Khost when a member of their team was killed. Harry had been seeking therapy for his PTSD and had recently requested reports from the incident. “I know he wanted to talk to the other guys about it too, but he was nervous,” she shares.

Derek (Kevin T. DeWitt) is defensive at being brought in for questioning by Will and Faith. “I was at a party, and then I went home,” he says of his whereabouts the night before Lilly’s disappearance. He no longer has contact with that crew, and he feels like they just want to pin Lilly’s murder on someone so they can close the case. He is rude to Will and Faith when he leaves.

Will and Faith next meet with Nelson (Jared Simon) and Kit Royer (Mary Kraft), the parents Lilly regularly babysat for. They both recall meeting Derek once, who was not supposed to be at their house, but came over after the kids were asleep to fool around with Lilly. Kit also brings up Nelson’s son from a previous marriage, Ethan, who was Lilly’s age and was at their house every other weekend, but not the weekend Lilly went missing. Will and Faith ask if they can speak to him. “That might be tricky,” they share. After Lilly’s disappearance, Ethan Royer became an addict and has bounced around various shelters and recovery centers. They don’t currently know where he is.

Angie and Michael bring Wallace, Tank, and Mullins to the APD to ask about Khost. They learn that three of their unit were killed there. Wallace says they were ambushed. Tank says they were shocked because it was code green. Mullins shares that Harry brought up that event the night he died, crying about it. After the interviews, Michael tells Angie that he believes Harry found out something he wasn’t supposed to know. He may have a trick up his sleeve.

As Will calls around to various shelters looking for Ethan, he has another flashback. The tin of flour was kept on top of a freezer. He remembers opening the freezer and hiding a gun in a bag of frozen peas. He closes his office door between calls and dictates to his tape recorder. “I hid the gun,” he says. “I hid it when I first moved in because he left the gun on the table with all those kids around.” He remembers Jack pointing the gun at him and his foster mother, Anna (Michaela Cronan), trying to stop him. “I put the bullets in the flower,” Will remembers aloud. “I hid everything. So how the hell did Jack get the gun?”

Angie has a scheduled meeting with her sponsee, Joey (Charlie Besso), who shows her a photo of a bookshelf he made in woodshop class. She tells him his place looks good, but Joey complains that he needs a roommate. She suggests he post on a message board for sober people, which he thinks is lame.

Will and Faith meet with Jeanine Derwingson (Tanya Freeman), who works at a shelter from which Ethan was recently evicted. She brings them a duffel bag full of his possessions. Inside, Will finds a sketchbook. Thumbing through pages, he stops on a sketch of a leafless tree that looks a lot like the one he took from Lilly’s room. He pulls it out of his pocket to compare the two. His hunch that Ethan drew the drawing from Lilly’s room is confirmed when he turns the page to see a sketch of Lilly. “13 years later, and he’s still drawing her,” he observes. Faith learns that Ethan has never been violent at the shelter.

At a bar, Michael meets his old army buddy Rudy “Rude Dog” Fritchman (Kurt Yaeger). Rudy says he understands why Michael doesn’t contact him more often. Michael says it’s “survivor’s guilt.” Rudy tells Michael that he doesn’t know why the C.O. sent Harry’s team to Khost when it was a code orange. “I thought it was green,” Michael responds. When Michael gets back to the APD, he tells Angie that he thinks Harry learned that they were lied to and confronted his teammates about it. They’re about to head back to the camp when Angie gets a distressing call from Crystal (Chapel Elizabeth Oaks), who needs her help. Michael tells her to go.

When Michael gets to the camp, Wallace has run off into the woods alone. Tank and Mullins beg Michael to bring him back alive. Michael promises to try. He proceeds into the woods, using clues like broken branches and crows flying away in alarm to find Wallace. “He said he’d tell the others,” Wallace confesses. Michael says he has to take him in. He disarms his gun and tosses it away. “We’re walking out of here together,” he promises. Wallace holds his wrists out to be cuffed but gives Michael a surprise attack. It escalates into hand-to-hand combat, but Michael ultimately wins. “He asked me if I lied,” Wallace confesses as Michael handcuffs him. “He knew. I was holding the gun. It was just instinct. Automatic. I’m sorry.”

Angie picks up Crystal at a storage shed in the middle of nowhere. A guy was supposed to take her back to his place, but brought her there instead. Angie is upset that Crystal is going home with random guys from the diner. Crystal tells her that the shelter is noisy and smelly, and she hates it there. And that she’s having a hard time forgetting the trauma of her past. “I tried to pretend it never happened like you said,” she cries. Angie says that was bad advice she gave, offering to be more available to her if she needs to talk. She tells Crystal she will stay with her tonight, and tomorrow they will figure out a new arrangement for her.

Faith and Will stake out a shelter where they believe Ethan Royer (Anthony Pyatt) is staying. When they see him, they try to approach, flashing their badges. He makes a run for it, but they catch him and bring him in. “I only talked to her a couple of times,” Ethan says about Lilly. Will says it’s obvious from the drawings that he had a crush on Lilly, accusing him of stalking her. Ethan says he could see into Lilly’s bedroom from the room he slept in at his dad’s house, but says he wasn’t there the night Lilly went missing. They asked who had used the room when he wasn’t there. “It was a study,” Ethan reluctantly reveals. Will and Faith realize that Ethan’s father must’ve been watching Lilly from the window. “Tell us what you know, Ethan,” Will says, observing how this has ruined his life. He recalls how his dad let him drive his new car as long as he took it to get detailed, which was not long after Lilly disappeared. When he picked the car up, the cleaner handed him a barrette that was found in the backseat, which he recognized as belonging to Lilly. “It was my dad, so I told myself I was wrong,” Ethan adds.

While Ethan was recounting his own trauma, Will’s came rushing back to him. He was fading in and out between Ethan’s story and memories of himself digging into the flower tin to pull out some loose bullets. Faith tells him to go home, and he does. Will sees it all clearly. Sleeveless Jack was an abusive alcoholic. One night, he left the gun out, and young Will took it, hiding the bullets in the flower and the gun in the freezer. But one night, Jack beat Anna so badly that he thought he was going to kill her. So Will went to the freezer, grabbed the gun, dug in the flower for the bullets, and loaded it up. When Jack came at him, Will shot Jack in the arm. “It was my fault,” Will says as Antonio arrives with dinner. Will is on the verge of a panic attack as he tells his uncle about the repressed memories that just came to light. After Will shot Jack in the arm, Jack grabbed the gun from the boy and beat him with it. When Anna tried to stop him, Jack shot and killed her. Will blames himself. “She died because an abusive man killed her, not because a brave child wanted to protect her,” Antonio comforts his nephew. They hug.

The next morning, Angie and Crystal call Joey, who accepts Crystal as his roommate.

Faith meets with Nelson Royer in a conference room. She asks him about the car he sold shortly after Lilly’s disappearance, which was still pretty new. He mumbles about it being uncomfortable to drive. “The current owner is a great guy,” Faith says, sharing how cooperative they’ve been. Nelson is confused. “You watched her that night sneak out of her window, didn’t you?” she asks, insinuating that he was tired of fantasizing and wanted to have Lilly for real. “How dare you,” Nelson says. “Her DNA was found in your trunk, how dare you,” Faith snaps back, showing him the drawing Ethan sketched of Lilly. “People did not forget, they were destroyed. Lily Watkins mattered.”

Faith goes to Amanda’s office, who congratulates her with a hug. Faith doesn’t feel very victorious since this doesn’t bring Lilly back. But Amanda says one of these times, they will solve a missing person’s case that actually does bring them back.

Will brings Antonio a café con leche on his front porch. His dog, Portia, sits at his side while Betty snuggles up to Will on the couch. Will apologizes for last night, but Antonio is honored to get to share so much with Will. He suggests a change of scene might help Will, offering to take him to Puerto Rico. Will is reluctant. “Let me do this for you,” Antonio begs.

Michael invites Rudy to his house to meet his kids, Cooper (Jophielle Love) and Max (Owen Trumbly). Cooper is delighted when Rudy takes off his prosthetic leg, playing with it. Max wants to hear about how his father saved Rudy. Rudy tells him about the building that collapsed while they were retrieving weapons behind enemy lines. He would’ve died if Michael hadn’t helped him out.

Will sits on a park bench, imagining his 12-year-old self next to him. “Now what?” he asks. His younger self doesn’t respond. In fact, he disappears when Angie approaches with Betty, fresh from the groomers and dressed up in a new outfit. Will tells Angie that he’s trying to be nicer to himself and the people in his life. “You’re nice to me,” she says. “I want this time to be different, Ange, me and you,” he says. “I like having you in my life. It just feels right.” Angie rests her head on Will’s shoulder and agrees.

Will Trent returns next Tuesday, May 14th, at 8/7c on ABC with “Residente o Visitante.”

To deepen his connection with his late mother, Will joins Antonio in Puerto Rico. Upon his return, he is quickly brought onto a case involving his uncle’s old friend. Meanwhile, Faith and Ormewood investigate the mysterious death of a sex offender.

Songs Featured in This Episode: