This week's episode of Big Sky was full of predictable plot twits and gave us little to chew on. Let's review.
Well, Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) and Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) are still worried about Cody (Ryan Phillippe) being MIA. Cassie seeks help from the local police but they don't seem particularly interested in her story of missing girls, and Jenny goes to check out the weird Church that Cody intended to visit before Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) shot him in the face. And that's about all our team of PIs are up to in this episode, chasing aroung leads and worrying about Cody. It's really a shame, because in the end we spend little time really digging into these characters and it makes it hard to find them compelling. If it's hard to care for Cassie when she cries in her truck, or for Jenny while she drinks her worries away, it's hard to be committed to a show where these two are the poster ladies.
In fact, the meat of this episode and the real tension comes from the storyline around Ronald (
Brian Geraghty) and his captives, Michelle (
Jesse James Keitel), Grace (
Jade Pettyjohn) and Danielle (
Natalie Alyn Lind). Now, it is the most captivating part of this episode but also the most predicatble one. As the girls are trying to survive their predicament, Grace manages to escape the trailer and finds a way out of their makeshift prison through the sewers. But Ronald tells Legarski about the girl getting out, so pretty much everything that happens after that is easy to see coming. Of course Legarski is going to catch up to her and bring her back, it's obvious from the second he finds out Grace escaped. Granted, it wasn't that predictable that he would shoot her twice with arrows, but hey a little surprise in this show is always a plus.
If
Big Sky continues to move the plot forward and keep things moving, it also has its fair share of WTF moments. Like when Michelle and Danielle have a conversation about the former being transgender. None of it comes into the story organically and it really feels like the show is trying to tick off boxes from a "Topics We Should Mention"-list. Then there is the glorious moment when Legarski murders a random fisherman trying to help Grace, and THEN dumps his body in a random puddle of some kind of... acid? I'm no expert, maybe the mountains of Montana are full of acid, but really that just seemed extra convenient. Oh speaking of things that are convenient, let us no overlook the fact that Grace is some kind of genius who knows about everything, and everyone tries to convince us it's no big deal. Yet, the "My sister is so smart it's annoying" argument can only hold up for so long.
All in all,
Big Sky is starting to run into a lot of issues. The surprises of the pilot are far gone and now all that is left is a succession of expected plot devices. The show needs to invest more into its characters, and make us care about them. At the end of the episode, the PIs are not doing okay, Legarski is pissed, and Grace is back in the trailer. She isn't giving up though, but honestly if the show keeps on this path, I might.
What did you think of this latest episode of
Big Sky?
