TV Recap: "Will Trent"’s Season 3 Finale Ends with Life, Death, and Everything Between

Season 3 of Will Trent comes to an exciting, albeit bittersweet, conclusion in “Listening to a Heartbeat." Hearing a baby’s heartbeat during a sonogram can be one of life’s most uplifting moments, while hearing a loved one’s electrocardiogram flatline is one of its most extreme lows. Fittingly, both are possible by the end of this episode, and we’ll have to wait until early 2026 to find out what happens next. But for now, enjoy this recap of the Season 3 finale.

Season 3, Episode 18 - “Listening to a Heartbeat" - Written by Liz Heldens & Inda Craig-Galván

Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) stands in the GBI conference room listening to Eduardo, his phone’s AI assistant, help him make sense of the case board, which is full of information about Founder’s Front, the terrorist organization that just unleashed a bioweapon in Atlanta. Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) gets a call from Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), who is at the hospital, which has just gone into lockdown. Will hears his dog, Betty, barking on the other end of the line and learns that Betty and Nico (Cora Lu Tran) are there. Worse, Nico has symptoms of the virus that has already claimed several lives. Will wants to see a crime scene, and Ormewood tells him about the tent Roy was living in. Caleb Roussard (Yul Vazquez), aka Will’s biological father, offers to drive, and Will accepts the offer. Before leaving, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn) tells Will that she’s worried that Caleb’s sudden entry into his life will make things too complicated. Will promises that he’s fine.

Down in the APD, Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) talks to Franklin (Kevin Daniels), who asks why she’s not having one of the burritos that were delivered in plastic containers. She tells him her stomach is bothering her. She gets a call from her boyfriend and baby daddy, Dr. Seth McDale (Scott Foley), who only has a brief moment between dealing with contaminated patients. He has just enough time to tell Angie that he’s passing along his medical history and contact information for his sister. “I love you, Angie," he says, hanging up before Angie can say it back.

The mood is tense as Will and Caleb arrive at Roy’s tent. Before opening it, Will snaps at his biological father, accusing him of knocking up a sex worker in the 80s. Caleb doesn’t have an opportunity to respond as they open the tent and find a dead rat inside a plastic food container. Will asks Eduardo if any of the other infected patients ate the same thing, but learns they all had eaten different things out of similar containers. Will thinks that’s the source, and he shares the information with Faith, who realizes that the APD received burritos in those same containers.

Amanda is able to convey this information in a press conference, along with some good news - the CDC has a supply of antitoxin that is being delivered to Atlanta.

In the GBI conference room, Amanda finds that Angie finally got a laser pointer, calling the smiley face feature stupid. Franklin enters with an update on the antitoxin, which the military has asked the APD to escort. He asks Angie to go with him, but Faith steps in for her. Privately, Angie tells Faith she doesn’t need to do that. Faith tells her she wants Angie to make her own decision about the baby, not have a terrorist make it for her. Left alone, Angie begins to have bad pains in her lower abdomen. Shortly after, we see her in the bathroom, concerned she’s having a miscarriage. She calls Faith, who tells her to go for an ultrasound to find out.

Will and Caleb interview a woman named Rosie (Alicia Kelley), whose husband, Ben, was good friends with Beau Corda. She recalls how Beau’s dad, Vince, took Ben under his wing. She hasn’t been able to reach her husband for a few days, and she shares a few other concerns - a burn mark on Ben’s chest, a gas mask in his truck, and a black notebook. Opening it, Will and Caleb recognize symbols of the Founder’s Front terrorist group and see signs that indicate a second phase is about to be implemented.

Caleb and Will pay Vince Korda (Kevin Dunn) a visit in his cell, asking him for information about phase 2. “It’s what you people deserve," is all Vince will tell them, vowing that Founder’s Front will wipe the city clean. Caleb and Will try to scare Vince about dying in prison, but it doesn’t work - Vince is prepared to die there. Will realizes that the virus must already be in the building.

Ormewood drives the military truck that holds the antitoxins, with Franklin and Faith sitting in the back with the cure. They are escorted by APD Officer Rake (C.J. Padera), who tells them they are diverting the route to avoid construction. On a winding tree-lined road, Ormewood loses contact with Captain Heller (Todd Allen Durkin), and he can no longer see where they are on GPS. They’re suddenly ambushed, the truck flipping over on its side.

The GBI is similarly ambushed, with a Founder’s Front member (Kerry Malloy) clearing the place out and asking for Amanda Wagner. Will Trent hears this over a radio from the APD floor, and he is ready to jump into action to save the closest thing he has to a mother, but Amanda orders him to stay focused on stopping phase 2. Amanda surrenders, left alone with five terrorists. Amanda’s captors will only let her go in exchange for the release of Vince Korda, which Captain Heller says will take some time. He gives a deadline of 2 hours.

Ormewood, Faith, and Franklin climb out of the tipped truck. Officer Rake’s car also got flipped, and they pull him out to find that he’s dead. Near his gunshot, on his chest, Ormewood finds the Founder’s Front brand. Terrorists block their path, and what’s worse, a college sports team’s van stalls in the crossfire. Faith thinks she has a plan to protect the girls.

With an address from Rosie, Will and Caleb drive to a house that Ben’s cellphone was traced to multiple times. During the drive, Will blames Caleb for being oblivious to a terrorist group working in the community he oversees, blaming him for putting everyone he loves in jeopardy. Their fight is interrupted when Captain Heller calls Will with some bad news - They can’t reach Angie, and she was last seen in the GBI. Will sends her a text, praying for her safety. Caleb asks Will who Angie is. “Angie’s family," Will responds. “She’s one of my people… my person."

The terrorists are abusive to Amanda, promising that she will leave in a body bag. When her captor’s backs are turned, she sees a laser smiley face on her desk, looking up at the vent to see that Angie is in the ceiling. Amanda talks to her captors about how her uncle always kept a bottle of liquor in his bottom desk drawer for bad days, and how she could really use it right now. She also mumbles about how there are five long guns in the office, and she doesn’t have a weapon herself. Angie gets the hint, crawling through the air vent to get to Will’s office to grab the gun stashed in his bottom drawer. While on the way, she talks to the baby inside her, whom she’s decided is a girl, asking it to stay with her. She also gets in touch with Heller, who starts to formulate a sniper team across the street who can aim for Amanda’s office to take out the terrorists.

Will and Caleb find Ben’s truck parked outside the house. Going inside, Caleb is shocked to see Vince’s father, Pa Korda (Guy Boyd), alive and well, albeit with some dementia. The lab is upstairs, which they learn when Ben (Travis West) comes down. With Will out of Ben’s sight, Caleb pretends to be in on Founder’s Front, getting Ben to talk about phase 2. Hearing more footsteps upstairs, Will makes his presence known, announcing himself as GBI. He and Caleb barricade the door to stop the other men from overpowering them while they wait for backup to arrive. In that stressful moment, Caleb tells Will about how he met his mother while stationed in Savannah, and how it was love at first sight. He wanted to marry her, but she walked out of his life and ignored all his efforts to contact her. He invites Will over to dinner to meet his wife and family, and Will accepts.

Having moved vehicles to create a makeshift barricade, Ormewood, Faith, and Franklin realize they’re running out of ammunition to keep the terrorists at bay. Getting creative, Ormewood thinks they can blow up a battery on the flatbed using a military trick he learned in Iraq. The only problem is that it’s 80 yards away, but as luck would have it, the girls are archery champions. Jules (Anire Kim Amoda) shoots the explosive while her friends shoot fiery arrows at it, causing the truck to explode and take out all but one of the terrorists, who was in the trees a safe distance away. Out of ammo, Ormewood thinks he can draw him out and grab a gun off one of the dead terrorists.

There are just 5 minutes left of the 2-hour deadline to release Vince in exchange for Amanda’s life. Angie, having retrieved the gun from Will’s desk, slides her cellphone across the office and uses Will’s desk phone to call it, causing her ringtone for Will (Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together") to play in another room, distracting the captors. Two of them go close to the windows and are taken out by the snipers. The leader holds Amanda at gunpoint, ready to execute her if Angie doesn’t put her gun down. Instead, she takes the shot, delivering a fatal blow to his head. With two more terrorists in the building, Amanda and Angie dive into a windowed office for cover. Amanda takes one of them out, but not before the last one shoots her in the chest. Angie kills him, calling for help for Amanda.

Faith thinks Ormewood is about to go on a suicide mission, and Franklin learns about Ormewood’s brain tumor. It’s a harrowing moment as Ormewood runs out of their barricade, dodging bullets from the last terrorist as he dives near the exploded truck and grabs a gun off one of the bodies. But when he pulls the trigger, he finds that it’s empty. All seems lost when a truck rams into the terrorist’s back. Will Trent gets out, celebrating how cool that moment was with Ormewood.

The antitoxins finally arrive at the hospital, thanks in no small part to Ormewood. And he finds that Nico was one of the first to be treated, already rebounding.

Will is relieved to find Angie and Betty sitting in the hallway. She tells him that Amanda just got out of a really tough surgery, and the next 48 hours will be critical for her survival. Angie is frustrated that she can’t find Seth, and in her stress, she tells Will she’s pregnant and that she’s worried she’s having a miscarriage. “Ang, I’m here," he promises, taking her hand.

The Technician (Melanie Kiran) confuses Will as the baby’s father while doing Angie’s sonogram because he held her hand through it. It’s good news, the baby is fine, and she turns on the volume. Angie gets emotional as she hears her baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Will tells her she’s going to be a great mom. Left alone, they both realize the profoundness of this moment. Best friends turned on-and-off again lovers, they’d both envisioned a moment like this under different circumstances. Angie thanks Will for being there as Seth rushes in. “She’s ok," Angie tells him, revealing that she thinks they’re having a girl, and she’s made her decision - She’s going to have the baby. Will watches them kiss, the beginning of a big chapter in their lives. He scoops up Betty and leaves the expecting lovebirds alone.

Ormewood returns home from an unimaginably stressful day, grabbing a beer from the fridge and looking through his mail. But as he flips through the envelopes, his vision starts to get blurry. He seems to lose his sense of equilibrium as he stumbles back, trying to regain his center of gravity. He calls for Faith to help as his motor functions give out. She calls 9-1-1, telling the operator that she thinks her friend is having a seizure.

Will brings Betty into Amanda’s room, where an EKG plays the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. Will decides to get comfortable as he prepares to sit with Amanda (and Betty) through the next 48 hours. “I know this sounds selfish, but I want you to be ok because you help me to be ok," Will tells her, likening her to the suspension on his car that helps him get over bumps. “You are my family, so you need to wake up."

Will Amanda recover? Is Ormewood going to be ok? What will Caleb mean to Will going forward? Is this really the end of Will and Angie? Will Marion Alva be back? What about Will’s uncle Antonio? Some of these questions will surely be answered when Will Trent returns for Season 4 in early 2026. ABC hasn’t announced a premiere date yet, but we will be sure to cover that news when it breaks, so please stay tuned to Laughing Place. I’ll be back next season with more recaps.

Songs Featured in This Episode: