Has it been a year already? Will Trent's last episode aired May 13, 2025. In a season where a lot of network dramas stumbled (never Chicago, of course), Will Trent quietly kept doing the work. Season 3 was steady, sharp, and character-driven, and then the show dropped a two-part finale that hit every gear at once: tense, emotional, funny in spots, and capped with an ending that has fans yelling at their screens.
The finale kicked off with what looks like a straight crime story. Captain Amanda Wagner sends Will and Faith out to a rural county to assist a local sheriff with a double homicide involving one of his deputies. Pretty quickly, the bodies turn out to be the surface level of something much darker: a domestic terror group that has been operating under the radar in this quiet town.
Then the personal bomb drops. The sheriff Will’s working with isn’t just a stranger. He’s the father Will never knew.
It fits into a pattern the show has been building from the start. Each season peels back a bit more of Will’s family history: his mother’s death in season 1, his uncle in season 2, and now a living parent who’s smack in the middle of a crisis that threatens Atlanta. What is in store for season 4?
The attack on the city is terrifying precisely because it feels plausible. The terrorists use contaminated takeout packaging to sicken people across Atlanta, overwhelming Dr. Seth’s hospital. Even Nico, who’s there simply trying to help, ends up sick as the hospital moves into lockdown mode.
With everything spinning, the team splits up. Faith, Ormewood and Franklin head to the CDC to retrieve an antidote. Will stays in the field with his newly discovered father, chasing leads and trying to identify the rest of the cell. Angie and Amanda remain back at headquarters.
Angie, though, has her own crisis brewing. She’s been through the emotional wringer: her abusive mother dies, she spirals, carries the ashes around, dumps them in a bar bathroom, gets into a fight, and winds up in the hospital. Instead of a routine check, she gets unexpected news, she’s pregnant.
The show handles that with the kind of nuance that has made Will Trent stand out. Angie doesn’t suddenly turn into a glowing expectant mom. She’s scared, skeptical of herself, and painfully aware of how her upbringing might affect her ability to parent. Dr. Seth’s response threads the needle between medical reality and emotional support. He tells her, in essence: if she wants to carry the pregnancy, she has to stop drinking; if she’s unsure, he will stand by her no matter what path she chooses, whether that’s a recovery meeting or traveling to a state where more options are available.
It’s one short scene that says a lot about both their relationship and the world the show lives in.
Meanwhile, everything blows up at once.
On the road back from the CDC, Faith, Ormewood, and Franklin drive straight into an ambush. They’re pinned down alongside a group of civilians, including a van full of teenage girls who turn out to be a state champion archery team. The girls become an unlikely part of the rescue, using their skills and a few hastily rigged explosives to blow up a truck and create an escape route. It’s over-the-top in the most satisfying way.
Back in Atlanta, terrorists storm police headquarters and take Amanda Wagner hostage. Angie, holed up in a bathroom, quietly coordinates with the remaining officers still free inside the building. Their improvised plan to take back HQ works almost perfectly. That is, until Amanda is shot in the chest during the chaos.
Everything circles back to Dr. Seth’s hospital. Nico is recovering. Amanda is in critical condition. Will finds Angie and Betty in a waiting area, trying to process way too many things at once. Angie admits she may have lost the pregnancy during the siege and finally lets Will in on what’s been happening. He walks her to get an ultrasound, then steps away with Betty and lets Angie and Seth sit with the results together.
It feels like the natural place to wrap a season: the city safe, the main characters mostly alive, and some fragile hope for Angie’s future.
But Will Trent doesn’t believe in neat endings.
The last scene takes us to Ormewood’s kitchen. All season, his brain tumor has been hanging over him, sometimes treated with gallows humor, but never fully resolved. He grabs a beer, ready for a quiet moment, and suddenly collapses on the floor.
Cut to black.
Book readers know that Ormewood on the page is a very different guy who doesn’t make it nearly this far. On TV, he’s become unexpectedly likable: flawed, rough around the edges, but loyal and often funny. That’s why this cliffhanger lands so hard. It’s entirely possible the show just killed one of its most improved characters, and they’re not telling us yet.
The finale does what good network dramas rarely manage anymore: it threads plot, emotion, and theme without dropping any of them. It tackles domestic extremism, family trauma, and loyalty inside a procedural framework that still remembers to be entertaining. That is what makes the Chicago shows so successful, the message is there, but so is the entertainment.
Will Trent has earned its spot among the best network procedurals running right now. All episodes are currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ if you want to binge ahead of season 4, which arrives in one month when it premieres Tuesday, January 6, 2026 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.