Will Trent season 2 ended on a heartbreaking note, as Georgia Bureau of Investigation officer Will (Ramon Rodriguez) made the decision to arrest childhood friend and lover Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) for tampering with evidence and making false statements.
The scenes came after an alternate timeline played out, which saw Will not arresting Angie, and instead the two getting married, welcoming children, and growing old together in their home. However, it wasn't to be, and Will made what he felt was the best decision, and it was one that co-star Iantha Richardson, who plays Will's partner Faith Mitchell, agrees was the right one.
"It was the choice that needed to be made, but yes, a choice was made for sure," she said, reveling that the cast felt overwhelming "excitement" when they first got the script.
"When you read something good, and that you know will be pivotal for the audience to watch, and it's exciting and heartbreaking and will make them feel things… we were all heartbroken but also stunned," she tells HELLO!
How it will impact the team moving into season three, is one that fans will have to wait and see as the show will not return until January 2025. But Iantha has some thoughts about where the show should take viewers, admitting she would "love to see a time jump".
"I think that it would be really awesome to see where we are after six months, and the shock of everything has settled in. What do our lives look like now? Because there are going to be repercussions for each action that was taken that affects all of us, and I'm excited to see those shifts."
Could this be the opportune time for the show to introduce Sara Linton, whom fans of the book know was the protagonist of author Karin Slaughter's Grant County series which preceded Will Trent? Sara made an appearance in the Will Trent books and they later became love interests.
"Oh, my goodness. Sara is such a big character in and of herself, she is big enough to have her own series," said Iantha, hinting at what many fans have already speculated, if it would be smarter to introduce the character with her own spin-off show. "I would never say no, never say never."
Iantha joined the show for its premiere, and the dynamic between Faith, who grew up in the law enforcement world, and Will who refuses to let people in and break down his walls, has become the cornerstone of the weekly cases they solve.
"The writers did an amazing job of creating that dynamic between Will and Faith this season, and in an earned way. It wasn't just, 'Oh, they're partners now, they can be besties.' No, we're humans, we still have our things behind us but we'd like to trust each other," said Iantha.
"I'm excited to see that evolve even more, especially because he has been missing his mom, one of the pivotal sounding boards in his life, and so it would be really cool to see what it looks like for Faith to step in, and Amanda, and even his newfound family to see what that looks like."
Ramon is also a producer on the show, and Iantha credits him with "establishing the tone of the show, and the tone of his character" and then "allowing me into that process while I do my own work".
"I think there's a really great camaraderie in that as well as we start to develop our own friendship simultaneously [to Will and Faith]," she added.
Faith has had her own journey this season, and was the only character to get a happy ending in the season two finale, as she made the decision to commit to new boyfriend Luke.
"It was really easy to dive into that storyline especially given the fact that Faith doesn't really have a sounding board – or didn't have a sounding board. Throughout season one, we see her mom come in but she wasn't the person to lean on necessarily and we have her son, but obviously she's not about to trauma dump on her son either. So to have this guy come in and show her affection and love, and chase her… I think the chemistry was easy because the story was right there," said Iantha.
And as for one of the show's under-used but most fun couplings, Michael Ormewood (Jake Macloughlin) and Faith, Iantha admitted that "the antagonizing that you see on screen is off screen, that playfulness and that banter is a part of the set when he's there".