TV Recap: “Big Sky” Kicks Off Season 2 with “Wakey Wakey” That Reveals Where Ronald Ended Up

When we last saw Cassie Dewell and Jenny Hoyt, things weren’t going so well for either. Jenny had been shot in the standoff to capture Ronald Pergman, during which he got away. Cassie took off in pursuit of him alone, a very risky assignment. What happens next? We now have our answers thanks for the season two premiere of ABC’s Big Sky, titled “Wakey Wakey.”

Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) removes the bandages from her gunshot wound before stepping into the shower. After, she goes into her son’s bedroom and sits on his bed, looking at a picture of Cody.

A teenager named Max (Madelyn Kientz) is leaving her house to hang out with her friend Harper (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson) when her mom’s boyfriend, T-Lock (Arturo Del Puerto), stops her to ask what she’s doing. We learn that after hanging with her friend, Max is going to babysit for Cassie Dwell. “Remember our deal, sugar pop,” he says to her as she leaves. Outside, Max tells Harper how creepy it is that her mom’s boyfriend calls her “Sugar pop.” Harper notices that he is watching them through the window and refers to him as “Cringey.”

A man named Big Sam (Eric Weiss) waits outside of his red truck in a wooded clearing with country music playing. The person he’s waiting for arrives in a black SUV, someone named Ringo (Alexander Alayon Jr.). It seems that they’re supposed to make a trade and Big Sam asks Ringo to bring his bag to the back of his truck. When Ringo opens the door, he’s alarmed to see the interior is covered in plastic. Big Sam shoots Ringo in the back of the head. He uses the plastic to wrap up his body, removing Ringo’s phone when it vibrates.

Jenny walks into Sheriff Tubbs’ office (Patrick Gallagher) and tells him she had a lot of time to think while she was recovering in the hospital. “I miss the badge,” she says. “I have a second chance, a do-over and I want to take it.” Tubbs offers her a position as Undersheriff, which means she won’t have to ask his permission for search warrants. He places a badge on his desk and Jenny picks it up. Asking if she’s in, Jenny nods her head.

Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) enters Dewell & Hoyt and asks Jerrie (Jesse James Keitel) for an update on Scarlet’s file. Jerrie hasn’t learned anything, but tells Cassie it looks to her like she’s a victim. Cassie is not convinced. Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer) reminds Cassie that they have a backlog of job requests that could pay some of the bills. Jenny enters and Cassie is surprised to see her because she’s supposed to be off work recovering. Jenny tells her friend that she would like to meet for drinks to talk. They stand at the board looking at Ronald’s profile sketch and confess that they can’t stop thinking about finding him. “In the meantime, somebody’s gotta keep the lights on, maybe you should focus on some other cases,” Jenny tells Cassie.

Later, Mark Lindor (Omar Metwally) enters and we find out that Cassie has not been returning his calls. He’s still suspended and tells Cassie he got a dog and wants her help naming him, choices being Rudy or Jim. But the real reason he stopped by is a flash drive that contains video from one of Scarlet’s neighbor’s bird cameras, which shows Scarlet getting into a minivan with a State Trooper. Mark tells Cassie that the trooper was Cormack Dewey and he suggests they go investigate.

Sitting in a car outside of Dewey’s house, Mark and Cassie watch him tend to his potted plants on his porch. Cassie wants to go talk to him, but Mark tells her it’s a bad idea. She doesn’t listen and leaves the car to approach Dewey (Andreas Apergisa). He knows who she is and calls her work “Sloppy” for letting Ronald Pergman get away. With Mark by her side, Cassie tells him that they saw him with Scarlet, asking why. “My superior’s felt she might be in danger,” he says. Cassie asks what from and he responds with “You should be careful, Ms. Dewell.” She interprets that as a threat, but he adds “I’m just saying it would be wise for you to be careful, don’t you think? Ronald is gone, Scarlet is gone, best to leave it. They are watching you, me, everything.” Mark asks who, but Dewey doesn’t respond. “Walk away and look after your family, Ms. Dewell. Hug them tight. Cherish.” Dewey cuts a rose and offers it to Cassie, who walks away without taking it.

On the drive back, Mark suggests that Cassie look into if Dewey has any connection to Rick Legarski. When she asks what they should do next, he says get drinks. She doesn’t commit, but tells him the name Jim is growing on her for Mark’s new dog.

Cassie arrives late to meet Jenny in a bar, telling her about her trip to see Dewey. A group of loud men enter and Jenny tells Cassie that she’s leaving Dewell & Hoyt. She promises that she’s not walking away, but that she wants the power that comes with the badge, which allows her to be more effective at what they do. Cassie talks about how after completing her academy training, she felt like she couldn’t be part of a system that hurts people like her. They promise to remain partners and after getting hit on by one of the men, Cassie leaves to go relieve Kai’s babysitter. Left alone, Jenny looks back and seems to recognize one of the guys. As they walk past her to leave, she grabs him. “Hey, I don’t know you, lady,” he says, introducing himself as Stone, bragging about how he could get any woman he wants and would’ve remembered her if he knew her.

Cassie arrives home to hear loud music emitting from her house. She enters and yells at Kai (Gabriel Jacob-Cross), who is playing a music video game with Max, for the volume. Cassie offers to drive Max home when her father gets home. On the drive back, Max tells Cassie about her mom’s new boyfriend, referring to him as a “Creepy jobless loser.” Cassie tells her not to worry and that things will work out. When Max gets inside the house, T-Lock pulls her earpiece out and asks how much she made, holding out his hand. She hands him the money Cassie gave her and he gives her one bill back. “For you,” he says. “We’re building a future together here. Everyone has to pay their way.” Max goes into her room and lays on the ground when she gets a text from Harper: “The ridge in ten, You in?”

Madison (Lola Reid) drives to the ridge with her brother Bridger (Jeremy Ray Taylor) reminding him that he’s not there to hit on her friends but for protection because Max told her she saw a creepy man in a van last time they were there. As they get out of their Jeep to meet Max and Harper, we see a man in the woods wearing black and a beanie hat watching them through the trees.

Jenny hears a noise outside of her house and grabs her gun before opening the door to find the guy she recognized in the bar. “Hey Travis, or is it stone?” Travis (Logan Marshall-Green) is working undercover and couldn’t reveal his identity at the bar. Jenny invites him in and apologizes for not reaching out to her when he heard Cody died. They sit together on the couch drinking wine and Jenny reveals that her son recently left for college, making Travis feel old. He explains that he has been married and divorced since the last time they saw each other and says something to make her laugh, which hurts her wound. He begins to move closer to her on the couch as he asks about her battle scars. As they talk, he moves his lips within centimeters of hers as she asks “Do you want to see?” “You know I do,” he responds. Jenny climbs over his lap and the two begin making out.

Bridger uses the light on his cellphone to let Max see as she gives Harper a tattoo of a heart on her hand, using a stone to blot up the ink. Bridger wants to go next, but Harper looks out pensively off the ridge and Max joins her. She hands her friend the rock with the heart and says “Here, make a wish and throw it.” Harper tosses it off the ridge and says “I wish something would happen in this town.”

Big Sam is driving at night with his music turned up loud, Ringo wrapped in plastic in the backseat. The plastic mass suddenly sits up, reaching its hands out to strangle the driver, who veers off the road. The truck rolls down into the ridge where the four teenagers watch. Bridger rushes over, seeing two men hanging out of the truck. Harper doesn’t have any service and Bridger yells as Big Sam’s hand grabs his ankle. Headlights illuminate the scene as another truck pulls up. “Get the bags and get out,” Big Sam yells at them. “Now! They’ll kill you!” Bridger grabs the bags and the kids run away. It’s dark, but a man wearing boots gets out of the truck and whistles “A-Hunting We Will Go” as he shines a flashlight on Big Sam and shoots him in the head.

Jenny wakes up in her bed to find Travis getting dressed. She asks him if this was a “Hit it and quit it,” another joke about something he said as Stone, and he tells her he has to go back undercover. She seduces him and he stops getting ready. “I could fight another day,” he says as they start another round.

Max, Harper, Madison and Bridger toss the bags in the back of the Jeep and open them up. One is full of money, the other full of drugs. They debate about whether or not they should call the cops, but Max and Harper feel that because they grabbed the bags, they would be in trouble if they did. “We stash it first and we decide what to do later,” Max says. When she gets home, she takes the bags to an outdoor shed and hides them under loose floorboards.

Cassie has brought Jerry to Dewey’s house to case it with her and they notice that a window is broken and the door is ajar. Jerry is reluctant, but Cassie makes her join her with guns drawn as they investigate. Cassie finds Dewey in a chair in his living room, stabbed to death in the neck by a gardening tool.

Max and her friends have returned to the ridge during the daytime and she tells them where she hid the bags. She counted the money and its $500,000. “Guys, that kind of money could change our lives and the cops are never gonna know it was there,” Harper adds in response to another one of Bridger’s pleas to call the cops. They hear a noise in the woods and we see that the man in black is watching them.

Jenny arrives for her first day as Undersheriff, declining Sheriff Tubbs’ offer of a uniform. She barely has time to unpack her boxes in her office before her first assignment, an accident off the highway. Tubbs tells her to bring Deputy Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena) with her, the squadron gossip. As they get out of the car, Jenny has to ask him to stop talking as she begins to investigate the side of the road. She finds a rock with a heart on it on the shoulder just before the tire tracks that spin and veer off the road. As she looks down at the flipped truck, the music swells dramatically.

Dewey’s house has become a crime scene as Mark Lindor arrives to talk to Cassie. “Did you tell them why you were here?”, he asks her. She tells him she told them she was there to follow up about Ronald, but Cassie pulls out a manila folder she took from his desk before the cops arrived. Mark is worried to see it because they could both get in trouble, but she opens it to show him photos of her with Kai.

On a wooded farm, we see pens of chickens, goats and dogs. “So Happy Together” by The Turtles is playing as we see the back of a balding man cooking in his kitchen, his hair tied into a ponytail. He brings a skillet of eggs and bacon out to a locked shed, opening the door and saying “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.” Ronald Pergman (Brian Geraghty) is chained up inside, a collar and chain around his neck. “Ronald, my dear boy, let us begin.” The man looks just like Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch). Ronald lunges at his captor, the chain stopping his attack.

Big Sky returns next week on October 7th at 10:01 pm on ABC. The next episode is titled “Huckleberry.” Here’s the episode description:

Cassie takes on a missing person case brought in by a concerned girlfriend while Jenny continues to search for clues relating to the mysterious truck accident. As they check in with each other, the two eventually realize they are working the same case. However, they are not the only ones looking for answers as a new face comes to town hellbent on taking what she believes is rightfully hers. Meanwhile, Max, Harper, Madison and Bridger are at odds over the stolen money.