Is Will Trent in Danger After James Ulster’s Return? Ramón Rodríguez on What’s Next

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Will Trent Season 4 Episode 1, “… Speaking of Sharks.”]

After a very long wait, Will Trent is finally back! And though the Season 4 premiere very rapidly answers the biggest burning question left open by the Season 3 finale, the episode introduces a new cliffhanger all its own.

The episode begins with Will (Ramón Rodríguez, also directing) engaging in a spirited therapy session on the pickleball court with Dr. Roach (guest star Margaret Cho), in which she encourages him to embrace his feelings of anger rather than subdue them.

Soon, he’s in a group therapy session of sorts with his biological father, Caleb (Yul Vazquez), Nico (Cora Lu Tran), Betty, and gobs of Caleb’s relatives enjoying a meal. The only one he can truly connect to, though, is a little boy named Calvin, who only wants to talk about shark trivia.

Then, the real shark of the series returns. Yes, James Ulster (Greg Germann) is shown supping on caviar with another inmate and a guard for his so-called foodie club, which turns out to be just a cover for him to make a very violent escape. With his new prison pal by his side to do his bidding, James engages in a killing spree outside, and he has a string of adoring fiancées literally lining up to help him on his journey to freedom.

Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) — who is very pregnant and also becomes engaged to Seth (Scott Foley) in a very sweet proposal scene — and Franklin (Kevin Daniels) join forces with a desk duty-bound Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) to pursue leads on Ulster’s whereabouts on the ground. Meanwhile, Amanda (Sonja Sohn), who is still on medical leave and recovering, returns to ensure the acting deputy director (who clearly wants to remain in that post, by the way) keeps Will far away from the Ulster case.

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That doesn’t stop Will from pursuing his mother’s murderer, however, with Faith (Iantha Richardson) helping him to surreptitiously investigate the crime scenes from James’ various attacks across town.

Soon, Will finds himself back in Ulster’s orbit when the latter corners little Calvin in a park to lure Will to join him. “Time to die,” Ulster says ominously before Faith, Amanda, and Caleb find themselves standing before a burned-out car with two male bodies in it … and Will’s recorder.

To break down the details of this exciting Season 4 premiere and get a sense of what fans can expect to happen next as Will Trent continues, TV Insider spoke to the best source possible: Ramón Rodríguez himself.

At the beginning of this episode, Will is struggling with some anger issues. How fun was it to play those out with Margaret Cho as his therapist in a pickleball game of all things?

Ramón Rodríguez: I know. I mean, we love Margaret Cho. She’s just fantastic and so funny. And we thought how interesting that these therapy sessions… “How weird can we get with it?” And having it on a pickleball court, which is strange, but however, it feels like we realized getting Will into his body more and out of his head is a good thing. And so we wanted it to be something physical where he’s having this session with her. But we opened the season very quickly off the top, realizing that we’re seeing him in front of the children’s home, the anger that that brings up. And as the episode goes on, and actually as the season goes on, this theme of Will unraveling, it becomes really sort of highlighted. It’s something that we wanted to really get into and explore and say, “OK, here’s this character who we’ve always presented as put together about his job, trying to do the right thing, but hasn’t really dealt with a lot of stuff from his past, from what’s been happening to him.”

One of his coping mechanisms is just to continue moving forward, which in many ways is a good thing. But in life, and if you’re willing to really do the work, and as he is now exploring and being open to therapy, a lot of stuff comes up with that. And sometimes it’s good, and it shines a light on something you didn’t realize. And other times it could be you’re triggering things from your past that you weren’t aware of that were so loaded. And so that’s kind of one of the fun themes we were playing with this whole season, but we kicked it off with the premiere and, like you said, with that really fun pickleball scene with Margaret Cho where she’s sort of poking around it like, “Are you really OK?” And he’s like, “No.” He’s just sort of blowing past, trying to act like he’s just fine.

Disney / Lynsey Weatherspoon

Many such cases with people starting therapy, right? And this episode reintroduces James Ulster, and we find out he has a weird paternal relationship with Will. So do you think that’s authentic or that he’s working with him like he does with the other desperate women?

Greg Germann’s portrayal of Ulster is really fun. The guy is, as a character, he’s sort of all about himself. He’s very arrogant and very manipulative. And so I think there’s parts of it that we’ll see might be helpful to Will. And there’s parts of it where he’s just sort of poking around, making fun of messing with his head. He’s really trying to get inside Will’s head and make him question things. He does kind of play this sort of paternal type of character for him in a weird way. But what’s fun is Will has discovered who his father is, with Caleb played by Yul Vazquez. And so there’s kind of … these two male figures that Will seems to have in his life now, who’s someone who didn’t have many figures or at least family in his life at all. It’s kind of fun to watch him and to watch Ulster poke around at Caleb, and, “Who’s this guy?” And, “I could have been here.” There’s a lot of sort of manipulation tactics going on, but we’re lucky we got some great cast with Yul Vazquez and Greg Germann to come back and dive into these parts. And so we’re kind of picking up roughly five months after Season 3 and diving into all that stuff again.

We also see, as you said, Will becoming involved with Caleb’s family, but he’s a bit resistant to them. Why does he keep them at arm’s length when he was more open to his uncle’s family in Puerto Rico?

I think as we talked about it with the showrunners and the writers, it’s one thing when you meet an uncle, and the way Antonio, played by John Ortiz, came in so warm and open, and there was actually a lot of similarities — Antonio’s also dyslexic, so they could relate to each other in a certain way. I think when it comes to this father figure and who this person is, and because they really butted heads when they first met last season, they did not get along. There was almost a competitive nature to them. He’s a sheriff, Will’s GBI. Those two kind of don’t really get along. And then to find out that that’s your father, I guess the way he finds out and the way he meets this man, and then it sort of brings up these feelings, I think, for Will, which is, “Where were you? Why didn’t you come find me? I’ve been in Atlanta, and you’re telling me you’ve been in Atlanta, and I’m just…” So there’s all this abandonment and all of these issues that Will had from his childhood. Interestingly enough, it’s almost like it was easier when Will didn’t know he had a father. And now that he knows he had one and that he’s alive and was close by, it just turns up a lot of emotions and feelings for him. So I think even when he’s in this very kind of warm setting in Caleb’s home, Will just feels out of place. He’s not really fitting in. He even connects with one of Caleb’s grandkids and has more of a relationship with that kid than he does with his own dad. So I think he’s trying to find his way and see if and how he fits in this family.

We also see in this episode that Angie has some pause about marrying Seth because she still wonders about a life with Will. Do you think he’s genuinely happy for her, or does he also still reminisce about what might’ve been?

What a complicated, loaded relationship these two have. They go so far back. They’ve been through so much together. I think when we saw Will, last season, find out that Angie’s pregnant and it’s not his, obviously, and it’s something he always wanted to start a family, I think that hit him really hard. That’s kind of how we ended the season. And I think this season, we were really interested in watching these two characters who we’ve watched sort of trauma-bonded with each other, and how can they now navigate these new waters of Angie trying to move forward? I mean, I think there’s definitely a sense of Will is happy to see her happy and to see that she’s with a doctor who’s great. Him and the character, they actually get along. They bond on worms, and they had a funny scene last season, which was really great.

But I think at the same time, there’s the feeling of, “What if?” But I think we’ll slowly, as the season progresses, we’re kind of going to see that he’s [discovering], “How do you navigate that water? How do you move forward?” And especially, “Can you be friends and move forward as friends with the history they have?” And that’s kind of one of the big questions we ask throughout.

Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr

This episode has a lot of victims in it. Plus, the episode ends with the cliffhanger that Will and James’ bodies are found in a burned-out car. So what can you tease about what’s next after this? And what was it like for you to direct all of these horrific crime scenes at once?

It was an interesting … When I saw the script, and we had talked a lot about it, I kind of loved this juxtaposition of the top of the season. We’re catching up with all of our main characters, where they’re at now, and what’s happening. Ormewood’s in chemo, we’re seeing Angie setting up the nursery, we’re seeing Amanda recovering from being shot. And we’re juxtaposing that with when … we are reintroducing Ulster, who’s in prison, and what’s going on with him. And it was like that first act was so fun. We put this great piece of music underneath it that gave it this sort of … It lifted the scene and was able to carry us through the first act, but it kind of had violence, which is kind of like, we thought about it as the shark that’s coming in the water and that’s Ulster versus the outside world where everything seems to be kind of moving forward in a normal way, in normal fashion.

Meanwhile, Will’s obviously still struggling with what he’s dealing with, but it was a great juxtaposition of these two worlds. And so it really set us up so that by the end of the episode, we’re left with this real cliffhanger. I can’t reveal too much, obviously, but I will say that’s going to be the kind of season where we’re going to really take folks through a real ride. That end of the episode is very questionable. Obviously, the show’s called Will Trent. We’re probably not going to lose our hero in the first episode, but we’re going to see him sort of have to really navigate and deal with some real difficult decisions as to who he is … He’s always been such a morally correct and trying-to-stay-on-the-right-path kind of guy. I think we’re going to really push those boundaries and test him to see how far it will go.

Will Trent, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC

-Additional reporting by Kelli Boyle