Have we seen the last of the proverbial devil on Will Trent’s shoulder?
We’re of course talking about the notorious James Ulster, played on and off since Season 1 by Greg Germann. In Season 1, the serial killer was thrown in prison for his myriad crimes against humanity, including the years-ago murder of Will’s mother, Lucy Morales. He escaped in the Season 4 premiere, then took a bullet for Will that ended his life.
But that wasn’t the last we saw of him. Ulster continued to haunt Will throughout the season, serving, as another famed TV serial killer might put it, as his dark passenger.
He was last seen in Season 4, Episode 12, after Will was left for dead in Puerto Rico by Ulster’s previously unknown daughter, Adelaide Clemens (played by Mallory Jansen), who kidnapped Antonio and later orchestrated the murder of Will’s longtime mentor, GBI Deputy Director Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn).
Is James Ulster Gone for Good?
Adelaide was eventually shot and killed by Will, and Antonio was rescued, seemingly bringing the Ulster arc to a definitive close. But when TVLine spoke with “Will Trent” co-showrunners Liz Heldens, Karine Rosenthal, and Daniel Thomsen late last week to post-mortem Tuesday’s Season 4 finale (ABC, 8/7c), we had to ask: Has Will truly put the murderer who shaped his life behind him?
“It’s a tough thing to answer,” Thomsen admitted. “I’ve said before that Ulster is one of those characters that, we’ll have an idea for him, and then when we see [him in action], we want more of it because it’s just so fun. But I definitely think that as we were ending the story this season, we all kind of had the feeling that we were turning the page.
“It’s not to say that we won’t find a scenario in which there’s a fresh way that Ulster could reappear on Will’s shoulder and bring something to the story that is unexpected,” Thomsen continued. “If we could find something like that, I would always love to bring Ulster back — but it did, to us, feel like Adelaide’s death and recovering Antonio, and the closure that Will got emotionally from all of that, felt like it added up to him making some progress, and that he wouldn’t necessarily be haunted as acutely as he has been.”
The Showrunners Want More Paul Campano
One character that “Will Trent” fans were especially happy to see return in Season 4 was another recurring guest star, one not seen since Season 1: Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Paul Campano.
Paul resurfaced in Episode 7, forcing Will to revisit one of the most formative relationships of his childhood. When we first met Paul, he was framed as Will’s tormentor, a fellow foster kid who took out his anger on him. But his return added crucial context: In reality, it was Will who threw the first punch, reacting instinctively after Paul pointed a toy gun at him shortly after the death of Will’s foster mother, Anna.
The hour reframed Paul not as a bully, but as someone who, like Will, was shaped by trauma. In the present day, it was Paul who helped Will confront a darker truth about himself: that the same instincts fueling his work as a detective could also bring him dangerously close to the people he hunted. When Will admitted he sometimes understood killers like Ulster a little too well, even feeling “comfortable” inside their minds, Paul told him that everyone who survives a childhood like they had carries a monster inside. The difference was how they chose to use it.
That, in turn, redefined Will’s relationship with Paul and set the stage for Gosselaar to potentially return — but so far, Campano has been M.I.A. When asked if they intend to bring him back, Heldens — who previously worked with the Notorious MPG on the short-lived Fox drama “The Passage” — exclaimed, “That was one of my favorite episodes. I love him and I love Paul.”
Added Rosenthal: “Believe me, we already have ideas for him. It’s just a matter of whether we can get him for enough episodes [in Season 5].”
“Will Trent” Season 4 wraps Tuesday, May 5 at 8 p.m. on ABC (and streams on Hulu).
