The 15th episode of Season 2 of Big Sky was retitled. It was originally listed as “This Will Not Be Forgiven,” but now that it’s here, the episode is actually called “The Muffin or the Hammer.” Both titles are certainly fitting and I propose this question for you: After reading this episode recap, which do you think is the better fit for this episode?
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
Outside, Ren Bhullar (Janina Gavankar) tells her brother Jag (Vinny Chhibber) that someone has been messing with their product. She doesn’t want their dad to know yet. Jag asks Ren if she’s seen Dhruv, revealing that he can’t get ahold of him on his phone. Stone (Travis’ alias, played by Logan Marshall-Green) comes outside and when asked about Dhruv, he shares that he was making his nightly rounds and should be in the lab about now.
Jenny stands over Dhruv’s body when she hears a door open and hides. Ren, Jag, and Stone enter, finding Dhruv on the floor. Stone pulls his gun out and begins looking around, saying they might not be alone. Ren checks to make sure that Dhruv is dead, saying a prayer in another language as she pulls his gun off him and uses it to join Stone in the search for Dhruv’s killer. Outside, Jenny gets stopped by Travis, who whispers for her to run. She begs him to come with her, saying this might be his only chance. “I’m sorry Jenny,” Travis says, holding out his gun and cocking it, saying “you’ve gotta go.” Jenny runs and rounds a corner with a second to spare before she would’ve been seen by Ren. Stone tells her he didn’t see anybody.
Tonya (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and Donno (Ryan O’Nan) have a drug dealer bound and gagged, offering him the choice between eating a poisoned muffin or taking punishment from a hammer if he doesn’t tell them what he knows about his drug supply being tampered with. He shakes his head and vocalizes his innocence, but is ultimately spared when Ren calls Donno to fill him in on what happened. They leave the man bound, but Donno brings the hammer with him as he gets up to go.
Not wanting to be alone, Jenny called Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) to come over to her house. She notices the bruises on Jenny’s neck and asks her what happened. “I messed up, Cassie, really badly.” The next morning, we find that Cassie slept over as she swaps out Jenny’s ice pack. She thinks Jenny should tell Sheriff Tubb everything she knows about Travis, but Jenny is worried that will betray his trust. Cassie announces that she is ready to return to work, that she needs to keep herself busy to keep her mind off her father, and the fact that Scarlet and Phoebe got away.
At Dewell & Hoyt, Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer) reviews potential cases with Mark Lindor (Omar Metwally) when Hayden Ford (Keara Lloyd) enters. She asks Denise if she knows where her father might be, thinking he may have contacted her as his former sponsor. He left his phone at home but the gun from his safe is gone. “I think he could hurt himself,” Hayden reveals, asking them for help finding her dad. Jerrie (Jesse James Keitel) asks for a photo of him and Mark confirms that he took his wallet, so they can trace any credit card charges.
Sheriff Tubb (Patrick Gallagher) is angry at Jenny for entering the Bhullar’s basement alone and without a warrant. She begs him to issue one now, saying all the evidence is there to collect and shut them down. Tubb says it’s risky, if they find nothing they could both lose their jobs. Jenny uses Mason’s death to guild Tubb into agreeing to issue a warrant, saying other residents of Helena will die if they don’t stop them.
Jerrie and Mark search a storage unit that Richard rents space in after finding that he made a credit card transaction nearby. Inside his storage unit, they find Mason’s friend Darryl (Jasper Keen) bound to a chair. Richard was trying to find out who Mason purchased the drugs from and abducted him when he didn’t have an answer.
Ren and Jag tell their father Verr (Bernard White) about Dhruv’s death and the break-in at the lab. Verr is furious, pinning the blame on Jag for not having had security cameras installed yet. “I was wrong to put you in charge, you’re not ready,” Verr scolds Jag. “Dhruv was a brother to you, now his blood is on your hands.” Stone gets up to leave, but Verr stops him, assigning him to Dhruv’s vacant security position. As they talk, the doors burst open and the police enter. Jenny walks to Ren and hands her the warrant, saying “Told you I’d see you soon.”
Mark and Jerrie next go to the Boot Heel and find the bartender (Matthew Mahboub) sweeping up broken glass with a black eye. They show him a photo of Richard when Dietrich (David Meunier) enters the conversation, saying Richard is the one who caused the mess in his bar. He was looking for the person responsible for selling his son drugs. Dietrich quickly becomes non-compliant, especially when he learns that Mark and Jerrie are working for Cassie and Jenny.
Jenny looks around the basement in disbelief, it’s been completely cleaned out. Ren comes down looking smug, noticing Jenny’s bruises and asking about them. “My boxing workout got a little intense. You should see the other guy.”
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
Upstairs, Verr tells Alicia (Constance Zimmer) that he thinks it was a mistake coming to Montana. She reminds him that he needed to get away from the Kapoors and he says he feels like he’s running. She tells him that it’s good if they think he’s weakened because in hiding he can determine who is really on his side and come back more powerful than they expect him to be. Verr asks Alicia for her advice and she tells him they need a friend in law enforcement. He gets frustrated about how they had Harvey and his kids let him get killed, but she tells him that his kids already resent him without him blaming them for things. He asks if she really thinks Jag and Ren resent him, and she corrects herself, saying it’s a mix of fear and love. “They are my children and they will do as I say,” Verr defends. “I’m not so sure about that,” Alicia says, adding that she had a premonition that Verr will die at the hands of his child. He gets defensive again, but she clarifies her vision: It will be Jag who kills him.
Cassie is greeted with hugs from Denise and Jerrie when she returns to Dewell & Hoyt. They catch her up to speed on the missing person case. Cassie says if she were Richard, she’d go and visit the place where her child dies, describing it as being “weirdly comforting” to be back in the office where her father died. Mark tells her that helps, getting up to leave. Denise asks to come with him. Shortly after, Mark and Denise find Richard Ford (Dallas Roberts) in the spot where his son died along the river bank. Denise does all the talking, telling Richard that Hayden hired them to find him. Mark adds that Darryl won’t be pressing charges for his abduction. Richard promises to make things right and thanks Denise for everything, saying he will go home and talk to Hayden.
At the Sheriff’s Department, Jenny tells Sheriff Tubb that the Bhullars must’ve known there would be a raid, muttering “He tipped them off” in frustration. “Who?”, Tubb asks. Jenny looks around to make sure nobody is listening. “Travis,” she whispers. Tubb thinks that a stretch and takes blame for the raid, saying he knew the warrant wasn’t strong enough to order. They’re interrupted by Deputy Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena), who tells them that another deputy has pulled over a Reed Colfax truck.
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
Ren calls a meeting in her living room, with Tonya and Donno sharing that all of the dealers denied tampering with the drugs. Verr comes downstairs and asks for an update on Dhruv’s killer. Ren asks Stone what he knows about Jenny, suspicious of the bruises she had during the search. Stone says that he can’t see a woman of Jenny’s size as having been capable of taking down a man like Dhruv, but Verr asks Stone to eliminate the problem. Stone looks confused, asking how he would do that. Verr tells him to take Donno with him since he knows how to fix these kinds of things.
Jenny and Poppernack arrive at the pulled-over truck, with Deputy Miles (Malcolm T. Green) standing outside the truck with Bryce (Travis Hammer). Jenny opens the back and begins to search the boxes of steak. After dumping some on the floor, she finds a concealed compartment with two bags of white pills inside.
Ronith (Nik Dodani), a college student who works in the Bhullars’ lab, arrives at work to find Ren and Jag waiting for him. Ren asks Ronith about the drugs being tampered with and he says it wasn't him. When she threatens to send Donno to see him, he spills the beans, saying “It was your father.” Ren laughs at this, asking why her dad would do that. “He told me he’d pay for my student loans. Don’t tell him I told you, he’ll kill me.” Ren calmly puts her coat on and tells him they’re going out for ice cream to get to know each other better. “Are you going to kill me?”, Ronith asks. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Mark drives Jerrie home and we learn that the two had dinner together after work. “I’ve enjoyed spending time with you these past couple days,” Jerrie tells him, who says he feels the same way. Jerrie invites Mark inside and he hesitates, making things awkward. She asks him directly if he and Cassie are together now and he says he doesn’t know. “I have feelings for you, but this whole situation with you and Cassie and everything that went down with Ronald, I don’t know which way is up anymore,” Mark explains. Jerrie unbuckles her seatbelt. “Okay, well it sounds like you’ve got a choice to make.” She opens the door and steps out. “See you at the office,” she adds, closing the door. Mark sighs as he watches her leave.
Jenny and Poppernak interrogate Bryce at the station, holding out photos of Dhruv, Jag, and Travis to ask if he’s seen them before. Bryce is uncooperative at first, but Jenny threatens that they can take him down for the drugs and possibly adding manslaughter to his charges for any overdoses. She adds that the people he work for would kill everyone in Helena if it added money to their bottom line. “How does that line up with the good ol’ Montana boy you pretend to be?” Bryce comes around, asking Jenny what she wants from him. “I need a man on the inside. Someone who knows the movement, who can watch and listen.” Bryce agrees to be Jenny’s mole, sighing nervously.
Jenny visits Cassie and Denise at Dewell & Hoyt, telling them that she has a new inside-man with the Bhullars. Cassie asks Jenny if she’s okay with taking down the Bhullars knowing that Travis could go down with them. “That’s on him, I did what I could,” she says. After Jenny leaves, Denise gets a call from Hayden asking for an update on her dad. Denise tells her that they found Richard and that he said he was on his way home to see her.
We see Richard driving with his gun on his dashboard. He pulls over and we see that he’s parked in front of a sign for Bhullar Developers.
Mark goes to Cassie’s house uninvited and knocks on the door. “I know you just got back into town and I don’t want to overstep, but I did want to talk to you about us, if there even is an us.” Cassie steps closer to Mark and kisses him, pulling him inside.
Jenny and Sheriff Tubb exit the station as she tells him she feels like Bryce is her golden ticket. He asks her to be careful. “Aren't I always?”, she jokes. As Jenny steps out of frame, we see a white truck on the street. Inside the truck, we see Travis behind the wheel. Donno is in the passenger seat. A gun sits on Donno’s lap.
What happens next? We’ll have to wait almost a month for the 16th episode of Season 2 of Big Sky, scheduled for Thursday, May 5th on ABC. In the meantime, did you decide which title you prefer for this episode? “This Will Not Be Forgiven” or “The Muffin and the Hammer”?