Will Trent's Perfect Followup Is Less Than One Month Away
Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
While Will Trent season 5 is expected to premiere in early 2027, the show’s perfect replacement is on the way in only one month. Adapted from author Karin Slaughter’s crime novel series of the same name, ABC’s Will Trent follows Ramón Rodríguez’s titular GBI agent as he works with a team of detectives to investigate murders, conspiracies, and criminal empires.
Although ABC’s Will Trent adaptation made numerous changes to Slaughter’s source material, many of these alterations were welcomed. Jack McLaughlin’s Michael Ormewood became a complicated antihero with a redemption arc instead of a straightforward villain, while Rodríguez’s smaller stature and chattier personality made the taller, tougher title character of the source novels feel more approachable and sweet in the series.
That said, Will Trent didn’t feel the need to blunt the intensity of Slaughter’s infamously dark crime novels. Not only did Will accidentally shoot a child in season 3 of the series, sending him into an existential crisis, but the shock departure of two major Will Trent characters at the end of season 4 proved the show would be pulling no punches and no one was safe in its lineup. While viewers now need to wait until early 2027 for this plot twist to pay off, Will Trent’s ideal replacement, The Good Daughter, arrives on Peacock next month.
The Good Daughter Is Karin Slaughter's First New Adaptation Since Will Trent
Starring Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy, The Good Daughter is adapted from Slaughter’s bestselling 2017 book of the same name. Its story follows a pair of sisters who survive a terrifying encounter with a criminal in their childhood that leaves their mother dead, their father heartbroken, and both girls irrevocably changed. Two decades later, another attack in their shared hometown brings the entire dark saga to light and finally forces the two sisters to confront what happened all those years ago.
With Brendan Gleeson as their father and Harper Steele, Jake McDorman, and Olivia Williams rounding out the supporting cast, The Good Daughter looks set to be one of Peacock’s starriest psychological thrillers since 2025’s Andrea Mara adaptation All Her Fault. While Netflix’s acclaimed psychological thrillers continue to earn critical acclaim, Peacock is gradually carving out a niche as another venue for the genre.
The fact that Slaughter herself penned the screenplay for The Good Daughter’s adaptation makes the upcoming project all the more exciting, and proves that this miniseries will be an ideal replacement to tide over Will Trent fans waiting for season 5. Since the show is based on a book, The Good Daughter will also likely be a self-contained standalone miniseries, rather than spawning a second season.
Which Karin Slaughter Book Should Become A TV Show Next
Netflix previously adapted Slaughter’s hit novel Pieces of Her back in 2021 before Will Trent began airing on ABC, but it is tough to tell which of the author’s books could spawn her next successful adaptation. The most popular Slaughter novel is Pretty Girls, which, with over 800,000 ratings on GoodReads, is the writer’s biggest book ever in a career of over 25 years and as many novels.
That said, it might be tricky to turn Pretty Girls into a TV show without needing to first massively sanitize its storyline. Without giving away any spoilers or getting into territory that would see this article slapped with a well-earned content warning, suffice to say that Pretty Girls is an extremely dark book that would be too much for many viewers.
As noted above, some Will Trent storylines get very dark, and Netflix’s adaptation of Pieces of Her was even criticized by some reviewers for focusing too heavily on the story’s darker elements. As such, while The Good Daughter is a perfect temporary stand in for Will Trent, it is tougher to see how Slaughter’s biggest book could make the leap to the screen.
- Release Date
- November 12, 2026
- Network
- Peacock
Cast
-
Rose Byrne
Samantha Quinn
-
Michael Dorman
Ben
-
Meghann Fahy
Charlotte Quinn
-
Brendan Gleeson
Rusty
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.