Will Trent's Ramón Rodríguez On Life After James Ulster — And Why Will's Most Important Relationship Isn't Caleb Or Angie

With the two-part Season 4 premiere of "Will Trent" now complete, series star and executive producer Ramón Rodríguez says the opening chapters are less about James Ulster's return (and subsequent death) than about putting pressure on Will — on his moral code, and on the emotional walls he's spent his entire life building.

Rodríguez, who also directed Episode 1, points to Ulster's brutal prison escape as a tonal reset. "We'd seen the effects of Ulster being violent," he explains in the video interview above, "but we'd never seen him actually be violent." Showing that violence onscreen, Rodríguez says, was essential — not only to reestablishing Ulster as a credible threat, but to introducing one of Season 4's central themes.

"[Rage] was a theme we wanted to explore this season as a whole," Rodríguez says. More specifically: "Will's rage."

That parallel — between Ulster's violence and Will's barely contained anger — came sharply into focus in Episode 2, when Will turned away from GBI headquarters with Ulster in the back of his car. Asked whether Will could actually have gone through with killing the man who murdered his mother, Rodríguez doesn't give a definitive answer, instead suggesting that the moment is part of a larger reckoning.

"He's somebody that's always held his moral compass high," Rodríguez says. "But I feel like we're starting to see him being pushed and challenged and questioning those things."

Therapy plays a key role in Will Trent's Season 4 evolution. Dr. Roach is asking him to look inward — not through conventional sit-down sessions, but through experiences designed to get him out of his head and into his body, such as pickleball — and Rodríguez notes that the process can get messy. "Things get kicked up," he warns.

As Episode 2 came to a close, Caleb hoped Ulster's death would bring his son some measure of relief — but Will can't bring himself to think of it that way. The serial killer took a bullet to save him, which Rodríguez calls "a loaded, complicated thing for Will to try to process and digest." Being saved by Ulster may ultimately prove harder for Will to live with than killing him would have been.

Rodríguez also reflects on Will's relationship with Angie, and why the series is resisting an easy reconciliation. Their bond, he says, remains deeply human — and intentionally complicated — as both characters try to move forward, particularly as Angie prepares to welcome a daughter into the world with her new fiancé, Seth.

In our video Q&A, Rodríguez goes even deeper on all of the above, and explains why Will's relationship with himself may matter more this year than his relationships with either his father or his one true love.