Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for “Will Trent” Season 4, Episode 13, “Did I Screw This Up?”
This week’s episode of “Will Trent” puts Amanda (Sonya Thorne) in uncharted territory. Amanda, normally the backbone of the GBI, is in trouble when it is revealed that she lent a gun to Casey (Janina Gavankar), who used it to shoot and kill her violent ex-husband when he broke into her home.
Will (Ramon Rodriguez) and Faith (Iantha Richardson) take on the case, but are faced with the fact that the reality of the case may not match Amanda’s version of events.
In a key scene, Faith and Amanda sit in Faith’s kitchen, and Faith forces Amanda to confront the possibility that Casey may not be completely honest.
“When Faith is working with Amanda, I think she has a past that she sometimes hides because of professionalism, but it often comes out,” Richardson told Variety. Richardson went on to say that the episode felt like a “full circle moment” given that Faith herself was also involved with bank robber Malcolm earlier in the season.
“I love the fact that we were able to share each other’s flaws, personality-wise,” she said. “I think Black women, especially in the police world, have a lot of perfectionism. Faith listened to the fact that she and Amanda had something in common, which was that we fell in love with each other and that was getting in the way of the one thing we do best. I thought it was such a beautifully written and smart scene that allowed us to connect in such a beautiful way.”
Richardson contrasted that interaction with that of Faith and Will. She and Will don’t have that kind of family bond, but as partners, they support each other every day.
“They try to be there for each other in certain moments, but there’s something about them that doesn’t allow the other to completely fall apart in front of the other,” she said. “But they’re always there for each other. It’s a really beautiful and complex dynamic with two complex characters.”
At the end of the episode, Faith makes a fateful decision regarding Malcolm. Faith has always cherished the letters Malcolm wrote from prison, but she hasn’t read them yet. In the end, she decided to throw them in the trash and shred them without reading them. Mr Richardson said the decision meant Mr Faith had removed the “rose-colored glasses” he had put on Mr Malcolm.
“She’s a very smart and down-to-earth person,” Richardson said. “I think her choice to take off her glasses is very much in line with her core values and being very aware of who she is and who she is. She has no intention of having a relationship with an ex-convict once he gets out of prison. It’s not just about who she is. I think she realizes, “Oh, this happened. I made a mistake, and it’s okay.”
