Contains discussions of graphic child sexual abuse.

Will Trent season 4, but Will and Angie’s prolonged “will they/won’t they” dance isn’t the biggest departure from the source material.

Many of the differences often noted between the books and the show pertain specifically to the characters. Betty hasn’t changed much, but the rest of the Will Trent cast bears little resemblance to their literary counterparts. Will was originally blonde and so tall that the other cops compared him to Lurch from The Addams Family, a change that book fans have generally tolerated more in Will Trent than Jack Reacher fans did when Tom Cruise first played the character. However, even the character differences are relatively minor compared to how much ABC altered the original novels’ general tone.

Karin Slaughter’s Will Trent Books Are Much Darker & Gorier Than The ABC Series

The First Book Alone Is Almost Nightmare-Inducing

Although Ormewood’s tumor and Goodwin’s injury are certainly dark spots in the Will Trent season 3 finale, they barely hold a candle to the gritty bleakness of Karin Slaughter’s books. The first book alone, Triptych, begins on a rather horrific note when Michael Ormewood investigates the death of a prostitute who choked to death on her own blood after her tongue was bitten off during a brutal assault on the stairway of her housing project. Despite having seen a school full of screaming women burned to death during the Gulf War, the scene is gruesome enough to unnerve him.

Things get worse when Ormewood meets Will, who reveals that victim Aleesha Monroe is part of a GBI investigation into similar cases. The twist is that, aged somewhere in her 30s, Aleesha is at least twice as old as the other rape victims whose tongues were bitten off. Most were around the same age as Ormewood’s mistress, who was 15 for barely a week when the novel begins. And if that weren’t hard enough to stomach, Will goes into detail about a similar crime against a 10-year-old girl despite seeing no link between her and the case at hand.

ABC’s Will Trent Has Struck The Perfect Tone For Broadcast TV

The Series’ Off-The-Wall Humor Works Exquisitely

Anyone who finds the above too much to absorb within the first few chapters of a novel would have a tremendously difficult time making it through all 12 of Slaughter’s books, but ABC cleans things up quite a bit. Not only does Ormewood have the decency to cheat with women his own age, but gore is rarely shown or even verbally described in disturbingly graphic detail, as in the books. One of the series’ greatest strengths is how the darkest aspects of Will Trent’s GBI investigations are often turned on their head for laughs.

For instance, one of the bleakest moments in the series was Will accidentally shooting a child to death. This isn’t outside the realm of plausible drama for a network procedural, and it’s certainly not as dark as anything in Law & Order: SVU. However, except for dark comedies such as BoJack Horseman, few series would have the title character process their guilt through drug-induced hallucinations of an upbeat musical number. This sort of high concept idea wouldn’t fit the tone of the novels, but it’s perfect for distinguishing Will Trent from most other procedurals.

Making The Will Trent TV Show Darker Would Make It More Suitable For Streaming

But That’s Not The Blessing That It Sounds Like

Many of the differences between Will Trent and the books could be softened just enough to fly on network television, but a truly faithful adaptation of the books would be virtually unsuitable for broadcast if it retained the hardened tone of Slaughter’s writing. Her focus on the cynicism of law enforcement and the limitless human capacity for evil would give even gloomier series like AMC’s The Killing a run for their money. However, it’s debatable whether the elevated status of being picked up by a streaming service would benefit the show.

Certain decisions regarding story structure, such as telling roughly a quarter of Triptych from the perspective of a man convicted of raping and murdering his childhood best friend, might make for an interesting binge watch. However, a streaming version of Will Trent would likely have a far less predictable yearly release schedule and would almost certainly receive a much smaller episode order per season. The literature is a gripping read for those who don’t mind their nightcap with a side of underage blood spatter, but the network-friendly version currently on offer is a great deal more fun.

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