The winter finale of ‘Big Sky’ ended with a literal bang. Episode 1×05 “A Good Day To Die” left us stunned. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Hammer Time
Episode 1×04 “Unfinished Business” left off with Rick walking up to his bedroom, hammer in hand, as his wife Merilee was sleeping, and that’s just where episode 5 picked up. An unsuspecting Merilee is fast asleep while Rick creepily stands over her with a hammer contemplating killing her in multiple visions. He comes to his senses and sits on the edge of the bed and strokes her head.
Merilee wakes up and asks Rick what he’s doing. He talks to her about their relationship and the fact that his neglect of her drove her to go dancing with another man. He then goes onto say that when he thinks of her with another man, it makes him lose his mind. Naturally she’s creeped out. He vows to turn over a new leaf and make things better as he stands up with the hammer in his hands.
When Merilee sees it, she knows something was definitely not right with him prior to her waking up. He plays it off by saying he’s going to hang up her favorite Rockwell painting in the morning. Obviously, it’s odd that he would be holding a hammer in the middle of the night in their bedroom but Merilee stays quiet, most likely because she doesn’t want to poke the bear.
Someone’s Been Here
Grace, Danielle, and Jerrie are still locked away inside of the trailer below where Cassie and Jenny almost discovered them the previous night. Ronald shows up the next morning and after going toe to toe with Danielle in a verbal match, he realizes that someone has been snooping around upstairs. He figures this out when he notices that some milk jugs are broken. He calls Rick right away to let him know and he rushes right over.
As the two try to figure out who could have possibly been at the farm where they are holding the girls, they once again start placing the blame on each other. Rick tells Ronald they wouldn’t be in the mess they are in if he hadn’t taken the teenage girls to which Ronald replies, they wouldn’t be in it if he hadn’t killed a cop. The kidnapping was definitely a bad move, however, I do agree with Ronald that it’s mostly Rick’s fault. He shouldn’t have killed Cody because since then, Cassie has been hot on Rick’s tail. The only thing the two can agree on is that Cassie and now Jenny both need to be stopped.
Think Below
Well, looks like all of Cassies flashbacks of Cody have finally paid off. Cassie’s in the kitchen daydreaming as her son Kai asks if they are going to go fly fishing. She’s barely listening until he repeats himself and it sends her right into a flashback of her fly fishing with Cody. As she throws out her line, he gives her a tip about fishing and tells her to “think below.” It immediately sets her off on a new path to locating the missing girls.
Cassie heads to the agency and informs Jenny that she got the blueprints from the farm where they were the night before. She points out that there is a basement underground that they didn’t check, so the two make a plan to head back out. As they’re going over things, Denise informs them the tracker they placed on Ricks truck is showing he is at the farm right at that moment. They grab their stuff and rush off to catch him.
How It Started
We finally learned a little about how Ronald and Rick came to be working together. Granted, it isn’t a full story but, it gave a tiny glimpse. In a flashback, Ronald thinks of a time when he was pulled over on the side of the road receiving services from a working girl named Sage. Rick approaches his truck and informs him that he’s been watching him for awhile and has seen him hit that particular area several times with different girls.
Rick goes into some spiel about him and Ronald being American heroes because they are a state trooper and a trucker. He then goes on to say that girls like Sage don’t represent the same America. Correct me if I’m wrong but, how is pulling over to have sex with prostitutes heroic and representative of America? Also, what a woman chooses to do with her body is her business and it doesn’t make her any less than anyone else walking this earth. Rick tells Ronald that he should not be punished for Sages sins and explains that there is a way for him to help her while protecting himself. We don’t get anything further than that because the flashback ends, which sucks because honestly, it doesn’t even say how either one of them actually became sex traffickers.
We’ll Have To Be Enough
On the way up to the farm Jenny calls Sheriff Tubbs to fill him in on what she and Cassie have learned. She asks for his assistance, and he hesitates until she tells him that Rick has been up to the farm three times in one day. He agrees that he will come and bring backup. Cassie and Jenny understand that there is no time to waste and as they go over what they will do if they get to the farm and Rick is there before their backup, Jenny says they will have to be enough. These women are badass and are on a mission.
Lost The Plot
When Cassie and Jenny arrive at the farm, Rick’s truck is parked outside, Sheriff Tubbs and the backup have also arrived and they all head inside. Rick is sitting down having lunch and pretends to be so shocked to see them all. Jenny and Cassie head below to look for Grace, Danielle, and Jenny but are shocked to find the trailer empty. Turns out Rick is one step ahead because he and Ronald have moved the girls.
Once again he goes on a rant about blue lives as he talks to Sheriff Tubbs and he starts bringing up Cassie’s past and says she’s biased against the blue and that’s why she’s no longer a cop. He says there is no crime in him having his lunch anywhere he wants to. I think Sheriff Tubbs is really not sold on Rick’s story and he still believes Rick may be involved. I mean, who eats lunch in an old farm?
All Good
After Rick and Ronald have foiled the bust, they continue their mission to get the girls moved. Ronald has taken them to the All In bar where he cleans them up and gives them new clothes to prepare them for wherever it is that they’re going. Jerrie tries to get into his head again by telling him that he’s different than Rick and that it’s never too late to make a different choice. It seems as though Ronald may be taking to heart what she said when he tells her that she should have never ended up there. He still remembers her kindness from their time in the truck.
Ronald seems to be concerned about the girls because he asks Rick what will happen to them and then he asks why Rick won’t tell him anything. Rick tells him he’s weak and can’t handle things, which is the reason that Jenny and Cassie are getting closer at figuring things out. He informs him that Cassie and Jenny went to the truck stop where he was and that he fits the profile so he could easily be a suspect. Ronald confidently says that he’s careful and there is nothing that can tie him to the crime.
Rick reminds him that even if Cassie and Jenny don’t have anything on him, that doesn’t mean he’s in the clear, meaning Rick has plenty on Ronald to bring him down if he wanted to.
Get In His Head
After the failed bust, Jenny is arrested by Sheriff Tubbs for criminal stalking so Cassie is on her own until Denise can bail her out. Back at the agency Cassie is trying to figure out their next move. Denise tells her that she has located the missing fisherman’s truck. In case you forgot, the missing fisherman is the one that was killed by Rick in episode 3 “The Big Rick.”
As Cassie looks over everything, she’s struggling to put the pieces together until Denise says “What would Cody say?” to which Cassie replies “Get in his head” and that’s exactly what she does. Cassie heads to Merilee’s shop and questions her about Rick. Merilee asks what the questions are all about and Cassie tells her that she believes he may be involved in the case of the 3 missing girls. Merilee thinks it’s ridiculous, but Cassie does not let up.
Cassie asks Merilee if Rick has been acting odd or if she has noticed anything different about him. Merilee tells her that Rick has always been the same and that Cassie is way off track. She then tells her that Rick is a creature of habit who even eats his lunch at the same place every single day. Merilee doesn’t realize it but she just helped Cassie in more ways than one.
When Cassie and Jenny showed up to the farm earlier in the episode, Rick was eating lunch. Merilee told Cassie he eats at the same place every single day which Cassie remembers to be the All In bar since she met him there and so did Cody. Rick eating at the farm was not his normal routine, so she calls Jenny who is finally out of jail and lets her know what she’s learned.
Confession
Since the beginning of the season, Ronald’s mom has been suspicious. She knows her son and what his habits are. She is certain that he is somehow involved in what happened to the three girls. It seems that Ronald’s heart to heart with Jerrie worked because he confesses to his mom. Although he doesn’t say Ricks name, he basically pins it all on him by saying “he has the girls.” Then he tells her that he will handle the situation, whatever that means.
Shots Fired
Rick has been on the phone with someone we don’t know yet to arrange the pickup of the girls. He goes downstairs to prepare them for transport and he hears a car pull up and assumes that it’s whoever is coming for them. Turns out it’s Cassie, HALLELUJAH! when I tell you my heart was racing because I was so sure he was going to ambush her though. Anyway, Cassie hears Rick calling for her to come down, when she opens the door, he is more than shocked to see her. She pulls her gun and instructs him to get his hands in the air. He doesn’t comply and when she hears the girls yelling, he just casually tosses out that it’s all three of them and they’re being prepared for transport.
Cassie continues to instruct him but all he does is antagonize her. He pulls his weapon and after a tense standoff, Cassie shoots him in the head because she felt he was preparing to shoot her. It was a jaw-dropping moment to say the least and we don’t know where Big Sky will go from here because that was quite a twist. I’m so curious to see what this means for the rest of the series.
Other Thoughts
- Ronald telling Danielle her unkindness got her where she is now was thought provoking but it was even more so when Jerrie said it wasn’t what got her there. She was kind to Ronald and he still kidnapped her, so his argument died.
- I want to know what happened to Sage-
- The girls all talking about what they would do if they got out alive was heartbreaking, especially Jerrie wishing to see her parents again even though they hate her for who she is.
- Cassie and Jenny having a heart to heart and finally agreeing to work together is what we’re here for.
- I’m starting to trust Denise now.
- Commander Sosa is a badass. Loving that this show has a lot of tough females running things.
- Jenny taking the fall for the tracker on Rick’s truck because it was her idea, was a cool move. Gave her some friendship points for me.
- The fact that Cassie literally walked right past Ronald as she was leaving Merilee’s shop.
Big Sky airs Tuesdays on ABC and will return January 26, 2021.
