TV’s Scott Foley is returning to ABC.
The Scandal vet is set to recur in Will Trent Season 3, TVLine has learned. He’ll play Dr. Seth McDale, “the confident and down-to-earth head of emergency medicine at a local hospital and Angie’s new romantic interest,” according to the official character breakdown.
Foley — whose myriad TV credits also include Felicity, The Unit and Grey’s Anatomy — is one of two major additions to the crime drama’s ensemble. As previously reported, Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) has been cast in the series-regular role of Marion Alba, “a charismatic, confident Assistant District Attorney new to Atlanta. After her first encounter with Will falls flat, the pair is surprised to learn that they must work together to investigate a crime in the world of Atlanta gangs.”
The introductions of Foley’s McDale and Rodriguez’s Alba follow Will and Angie’s gut-wrenching break-up. The Season 2 finale took a grenade to the series’ central relationship, with Will placing Angie under arrest for tampering with evidence in the Lenny Broussard case.
When TVLine spoke with showrunners Liz Heldens and Daniel Thomsen last spring about whether Will and Angie’s split would lead to the introduction of a new romantic interest for Will — perhaps, say, Sara Linton, the original protagonist of Karin Slaughter’s acclaimed novels — Heldens answered: “I think that the door is open for someone new to come into his life. We have to talk about it, and we have to talk about it with ABC — like, there’s a logistical question here: Do we want to bring in the endgame now? Or is it interesting to find somebody [else for now]? We have to be careful about that. We have to be careful about what [introducing Sara would do] to the ecosystem of the show. We need to be thoughtful about that.”
Added Thomsen: “We both kind of know that [Sara is] the endgame for Will in the [Karin Slaughter] books. At this point in Will’s life, I don’t know if he’s ready for that, and there are so many opportunities for exploration in other directions.”
Will Trent Season 3 — which will consist of 18 episodes and enjoy a (mostly) uninterrupted run — premieres Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 8/7c on ABC (and streams next day on Hulu). Click through the attached list to see newly released cast photos, then hit the comments and tell us if you’re looking forward to Foley’s debut.
