TV Recap: “Big Sky: Deadly Trails” Season 3, Episode 1 – “Do You Love An Apple”

Season 3 of Big Sky returned tonight on ABC and this season has a new name – Big Sky: Deadly Trails. The show underwent a bit of a retool, with an overarching mystery that will take all season to solve, and self-contained mysteries in each weekly episode. The season also adds Jensen Ackles as a series regular and Reba McEntire in a recurring role. Are you ready to return to Helena, Montana? Here’s a recap of the Season 3 premiere, titled “Do You Love An Apple.”

A hiker named Mark Woodman (Zach Tinker) treks a trail along a creek, coming to a directional sign – up to Deadman’s Drop, or down to Basin Trail. He snaps a picture on his cellphone and heads up. Reaching a landing by a rock wall, he admires the view and is distracted by the sound of singing. He follows the woman’s voice, which leads him to a tape recorder playing back a recording of the song “Do You Love An Apple.” “Hello, friend,” a man (Seth Gabil) says as he approaches with a bloody knife in his hand. Mark looks at it with a worried expression, but the man tells him the blood is from a wounded deer he put out of its misery. “You up here alone?”, he asks, and Mark tells him he is. The man asks Mark to help with the butchering of the deer and Mark nervously declines. The man puts his hand on Mark’s shoulder and mentions he must not be from around here because when a neighbor asks for your help, you help them. Mark looks over the cliff and sees the dead deer, choosing to walk away. A short while later, he arrives at the top and takes in the breathtaking beauty of nature, sipping water from his bottle. “Do You Love An Apple” starts playing again, and he turns around to see that he was followed by the man, who holds the tape recorder in one hand and his knife in the other. “Hello again, friend,” the man says as he walks towards Mark, who begins to back up along the edge of Deadman’s Drop. “You might want to watch your step.” From below, we see Mark fall off the cliff as he screams.

At Dewell & Hoyt, Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) visits with Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer), who talks about how handsome Sheriff Beau is and how good he looks in his jeans. Cassie asks Jenny if she’s met Beau’s ex-wife yet. “No, but I’ve heard about his daughter,” she replies. “He talks about her 24/7.” Neither of them knows anything about the divorce. Denise brings the conversation back to work, adding that with Mark Lindor and Jerrie away chasing the syndicate, they need to focus on the cases. Denise then recoils, realizing she mentioned Mark in front of Cassie, who says she’s fine and that even though she and Mark broke up, they’re still friends. “He and Jerrie are a great match,” she adds. Denise hands them a folder for a missing backpacker from San Francisco whose last known whereabouts was a hike at Basin Trail. Cassie looks at the photo of Mark Woodman and says she will look into it. Denise suggests she check in with Sunny Barnes, who operates her camp near the trail. Beau Arlen (Jensen Ackles) crashes their conversation, returning a skillet to Denise, who has been making food for him. He jokes that if she keeps feeding him delicious meals, he’s going to need help shopping for new clothes. Denise makes a comment about volunteering to help make sure his jeans fit. Beau asks Jenny for a ride back to the Sheriff’s Department since he walked there to burn some calories. When they leave, Cassie jokingly calls Denise “Mrs. Robinson” for flirting with a younger man. She also notes that Denise has never made dinner for her, grinning.

Sunny Barnes (Reba McEntire) leads a team in preparing Sunny Day Excursions, a glamping retreat. Her husband Buck (Rex Linn) is hanging a banner, and she sweetly tells him it’s crooked, getting on the ladder to fix it herself. “This is a new sight for us,” she reminds him, “we’ve gotta make it shine.” She asks him for help setting up Camp 1, which will be occupied by a pair of young lovers. They reminisce about the early days of their own romance and Sunny notices that Buck isn’t wearing his American Flag pin. Ever prepared, she pulls a new one out of her pocket and pins it on her husband’s lapel.

As Jenny and Beau drive back to the Sheriff’s Department, they pass a bus advertisement for Tonya’s realtor business. Jenny gets visibly upset at seeing the local waitress turned drug cartel operative thriving and Beau tells her she should make a punch list, something he’s done where he mentally thinks about punching the people on it to feel better. He lists off a few names on his, ending with his daughter’s stepdad. “I’d just like to knuckle punch his teeth in, but I won’t,” he says. “It just feels good to think about sometimes.” Jenny asks if she will ever get to meet Beau’s ex-wife Carla, but he tells her they wouldn’t get along. Their drive yields a peculiar sight, a man jogging along the road in just his white briefs and socks. Jenny pulls over and gets out. “A prisoner escaped,” the out-of-breath runner warns them, reaching into his underwear and pulling out his corrections officer badge. His name is Hank Miller (Brian Sutherland) and he tells them he was transferring a prisoner who overpowered him and stole his clothes, gun, and car. “So armed, dangerous, and dressed like a prison guard,” Beau thinks out loud. “There goes the afternoon.”

In Beau’s office, Jenny shows Hank the criminal file for Faith Cole (Bianca Stam) and he confirms that she’s the missing prisoner based on her photo. Looking at the file, Beau asks Hank if Faith had been working out since she reportedly weighed 125 pounds when she was arrested for armed robbery and doesn’t think someone her size could have overpowered him. “We just got to talking, and one thing led to another,” Hank confesses, claiming he was seduced but that once things got heated, Faith punched him in the throat and stole everything but his underwear, socks, and badge. Deputy Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena) pokes his head in to say there’s been a report of a store being held up by a woman dressed as a prison guard. “Your girlfriend,” Beau says to Hank as he gets up to respond to the call.

Cassie parks at Sunny Day Excursions where workers are busy getting ready for new arrivals. Sunny greets Cassie with her sugary sweet demeanor, asking the detective how her son Kai is doing and offering them a discount at the camp. Cassie tells Sunny about the missing backpacker and asks if she’s seen him. “People come out here to get off the grid,” Sunny says as she takes a flier from Cassie, who tells her that his parents are used to hearing from their son every other day, and he hasn’t called them for several. Sunny laughs about a time her son went on a bike trip to Baja that scared her to death, turning around and calling him over. She calls her son Cormack (Luke Mitchell) over and introduces him to Cassie, who is suddenly unusually shy in his presence. Cassie says she has to go and that she hopes to see them soon. “Hope so,” Cromack blushes back, which Sunny teases him about.

Inside the market that was robbed by Faith, the owner (Diana Gaitiria) tells Jenny and Beau that the only things missing are some cash and clothes, but that she is also unable to reach the store’s manager who was on duty at the time of the robbery. Jenny points to the cameras and asks if they work. Cut to them scrubbing the footage and watching Faith point her gun at Bill Kemp and yell at him. There’s no audio, but we see him follow her commands and exit the shop. Switching cameras, they see Faith have Bill get in his SUV and drive them away. “Now she’s got a hostage,” Beau sighs. On their way out, Jenny notices a shelf of plush moose holding a heart.

Sunny makes final adjustments to a centerpiece at the dining table on a deck under a white canopy. Buck comes over and asks her why Cassie Dewell stopped by and Sunny tells him about the missing backpacker. “Best we don’t tell the guests,” she adds. “It’s bad enough that shed hunter got mauled by the grizzly last month.” She adjusts her vest and says “Okay, it’s showtime.” They step out from under the canopy to see the group of guests arriving. The first two she greets are a young woman named Emily (Cree Cicchino) and a man named Avery (Henry Ian Cusick), whose wife couldn’t join him at the last minute due to a work obligation. Sunny announces that she has separate tents for both of them. Emily asks their host about cellular service. “It’s spotty at best, but you might have some luck over by the fire pit,” she sweetly replies. As Avery and Emily are shown to their tents, Sunny leans into Buck and Cormack to warn them about a birthday boy who was expecting a tropical vacation, but his girlfriend surprised him with this instead. Sunny goes to Luke (Anirudh Bisharody) and Paige (Madalyn Horcher) and tries to cheer up the unhappy man, saying “I promise, you’re going to love what we do here.”

Cassie drives past the ranch her father always dreamed of owning and sees an A-frame for an open house. Pulling into Mountain Valley Ranch, she arrives at the cabin the Bhullar cartel previously occupied and sees that it’s for sale… by Tonya! Her next stop is the Blue Fox Diner, where Ren Bhullar’s right-hand man Donno (Ryan O’Nan) is working as a line cook. She glares at him as she goes to the booth where Tonya (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) sits working. Tonya now owns the diner she was once a waitress in and she immediately defends herself as a legitimate businesswoman. Cassie reminds her that she got where she is by working for a drug cartel and announces her intentions to buy the ranch. “No offense, but it’s a little out of your price range,” Tonya tells her. Cassie replies that her father left her some money when he died and that it was his dream to own it. Tonya says she’s already had cash offers for the property, but Cassie asks if they know that the basement was used as a drug lab or about the realtor’s involvement with it. “I’m going to send you an offer, a fair one,” Cassie says. “If I were you, I’d take it.”

Back at the Sheriff’s Office, Jenny has researched Bill Kemp and discovered that he’s the brother of Faith’s ex-boyfriend, whom she blamed for her conviction. Poppernak has been helping with the research and learned that Faith’s ex-boyfriend was put away six months ago. Beau asks them to find anything that might be interesting in Bill’s history.

Cassie returns to the office where Denise printed off an article about a girl who disappeared at the same trailhead, a story she remembered from twenty years ago because the girl was a neighbor of hers. The body was found mutilated. “It wasn’t a bear,” Denise confirms, “her heart had been cut out.” Cassie says it’s probably unrelated, but tells Denise to put the article on the board just in case. Cassie’s phone rings and she answers a call from Beau, who tells her that movie night will be delayed because he and Jenny are chasing down a fugitive.

In Jenny’s truck, Beau notices Jenny’s reaction to his call to Cassie and puts to bed her suspicions that there’s anything romantic between them, saying they simply became good friends over the past three months. He invites Jenny to movie night to prove it and says they just drink beer and watch classics. Pulling into Bill Kemp’s apartment complex, Jenny drives towards the entrance when a body suddenly falls from a balcony onto the hood of her car, rolling off. They both rush out to find Bill on the ground, bleeding from the side of his head but still alive. Beau tries to keep the man breathing while Jenny calls for paramedics to help. She then draws her gun and announces that she’s going in. Beau commands her to wait until she has backup, but she doesn’t listen.

Jenny rushes up to Bill’s apartment and kicks in the locked door with her gun drawn. The TV in the living room is on and the sliding door to the balcony is open. Down a hallway, she sees a light through a door and hears a sound. Pushing it open, she finds a cat. An adjacent door leads to a bedroom that appears to belong to a child. There are clothes and stuffed animals on the floor. One of them is a moose holding a heart, just like the one at the robbed store. Jenny picks it up and brings it outside. Paramedics have arrived to help Bill. Beau scolds Jenny for not waiting for him, but she justifies her actions, adding that Faith couldn’t have gone far. She holds up the moose and says she believes a child was living with Bill. “What if she grabbed her?”, Jenny asks.

Sunny, Buck, and Cormack lead the campers to the trailhead and Sunny gives them the safety spiel, asking everyone to let her know which trail they’re going to take, keep a can of bear spray on them, and stay with their buddy. We see Luke and Paige on their hike, Paige struggling to keep up with Luke’s speed and asking him to slow down. She begs him to stop being passive-aggressive and to try and have fun, saying he can leave if he wants and she will have fun without him. “I’m sure you will, I saw you looking at that other guy,” Luke snaps back, jealous of the look he saw Paige give Cormack. She doesn’t deny it and he proceeds towards Dead Man’s Drop. She follows and begs him to stop, saying she needs a break. Luke finally stops and they notice something odd on a tree next to them. Someone has carved away the bark in the shape of a heart. There’s a dark red fluid coating the phloem. “Is that blood?”, Luke asks. Paige optimistically hopes it’s blood and they walk away.

Through the trees, we see that Emily was spying on Luke and Paige, her phone out recording them. She hears a twig snap behind her and turns around to find that Sunny has followed her. Emily instinctively pulled out her knife when she turned around. “Mighty big knife there for a girl,” Sunny smiles. “My father gave it to me,” Emily says. “Sounds like a good father.” Sunny tells Emily not to spy and she defends her actions, saying she’s thinking about starting a podcast about secrets, lies, and relationships. She says Sunny could be her first guest. “Well, what you see is what you get,” Sunny tells her. “I don’t believe that,” Emily responds. Sunny asks Emily to come with her back to camp to help start the evening fire.

Deputy Poppernak calls Beau to tell him that Bill Camp didn’t have a child, but his brother did. The mother died of a drug overdose and Faith helped raise the girl, whose name is Madelyn. A letter was found in Faith’s cell from Madelyn telling her that she’s moving to Ireland because Bill got a job there. The letter addressed Faith as “Mommy.” The child has an aunt, whom Popernak tried to reach on both her cell phone and the salon she works at, but he couldn’t get through to either. Beau asks for the salon’s address and Jenny turns the truck around. Inside the salon, they find Faith holding Aunt May (Melanie Nelson) at gunpoint. May says that Madelyn is away on a school trip, but Madelyn (Aspen Martinez) emerges from a room and proves that May was lying. At that very moment, Jenny and Beau rush in with their guns drawn at Faith. They plead with her not to do this in front of her child and when Madelyn runs over to hug her mom, Faith sobs and drops her gun. Jenny is eager to apprehend Faith, but Beau asks her to give the convict a moment with her daughter.

Cassie sits at a booth with Tonya at the Blue Fox Diner, who reviews her offer. “I’m accepting, for old time’s sake,” Tonya smiles, signing over the papers. She tells Cassie she hopes she enjoys the renovated kitchen and says the basement lab has been converted into a laundry room and storage space. Donno glares at Cassie as she leaves.

It’s dinner time at Sunny Day Excursions and Luke is missing. Paige tells Sunny that he’s off sulking somewhere. “Oh, he'll come around,” Sunny consoles her. “But if he doesn’t, we can always just leave him for a couple of days in the woods.” Paige tells Sunny not to tempt her and she says “Ben there,” adding how good Buck is. “He’s a gentle man.” She tells Paige that Luke just needs some training and asks her to go find him while she warms up her voice to sing him happy birthday. “He’s going to hate that,” Paige responds. “Then I’ll have to make sure I sing every verse.” she laughs back. Paige leaves and Sunny’s smile morphs into a concerned frown as she watches the girl head back towards the dark trail.

Traversing the trail with a flashlight, Paige eventually finds Luke sitting by a ledge, playing Crossy Road on his phone. She asks him to cheer up so she can give him his birthday present. When he asks what it is, she leans in to whisper her sexy plans in his ear. They are interrupted by the sounds of a woman singing “Do You Love An Apple” on a warped cassette tape. Luke, who is only interested in one thing now, tells Paige not to worry about it. But as she moves closer for a kiss, wet drops start to drip on her forehead. She wipes them off and sees red on her hands. It’s blood! She screams as she looks up and the flow gets heavier. Cut to Buck and Sunny with Luke and Paige at the top of the lookout where a dead coyote carcass lays leaking its body fluids. Paige apologizes to Luke and says she should have listened to him, but he seems amused by this event. “This is way more exciting than sitting by a pool getting drunk,” he tells her, adding that it will make a good story when they go home.

Cassie sits in a lawn chair outside of Beau’s Gulfstream trailer, globe string lights illuminating the deck and a projector set up for their movie night. Jenny arrives and asks what they’re watching. They haven’t decided yet, so she requests anything with Ryan Gosling. Beau tells them to pick while he makes a call, stepping away.

The campers are sitting around the fire pit roasting marshmallows. Emily’s phone rings and she looks down to see that it’s her dad. She presses ignore. Sunny, Buck, and Cormack distribute champagne glasses around the fire and lead a toast. Emily’s phone lights up again with another call from her dad. Avery sees the call and is surprised that Emily has a signal, encouraging her to answer. “I’ll call him back,” she says. She texts her dad back: “Sorry, TTYL – – having fun. LUV U!”

Beau reads the text from his daughter Emily and looks a little sad. He returns to Cassie and Jenny, who notice that his mood has changed. “Are you ok?”, Cassie asks. “Emily is on a trip with her stepdad,” he shares. “They’re camping.” Jenny asks where and he tells them she’s at Sunny Day Excursions. Cassie shares that she was there earlier and that Sunny is great. She promises that Emily will have a good time and be safe. “I just feel like I’m missing out on her life and he gets to be right there, watching it all, and I don’t know what to do with that,” Beau confesses. “You just keep being there for her when she needs you, no matter what,” Cassie replies. Jenny encourages him to let his daughter know what she means to him, sharing that not many fathers do that. She lightens the mood by bringing up Beau’s punch list and he returns to his usual sarcastic self, saying that Ryan Gossling is about to be on it.

All of the guests at Sunny Day Excursions have gone to bed. Sunny sits at the fire alone, looking at the flames. She pulls a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. It’s the flier for the missing backpacker that Cassie gave her. She puts it in the fire and watches it burn, then puts a marshmallow on a stick and toasts it. She uses it to make a s’more, which she plates and carries away. Walking along the trail, she hums “Do You Love An Apple.” As she gets farther along the trail, she begins to sing the lyrics. “I’m going to love him til the day that I die.” She knowingly reaches her destination. “I know you’re out there,” she sweetly calls. “Mamma brought you a treat.” The man emerges from the trees. His expression is almost devoid of emotion. “There you are,” Sunny sweetly greets her other son.

That’s the end of the beginning of Big Sky: Deadly Trails. The new subtitle probably makes a lot more sense now. The next episode airs Wednesday, September 28th, at 10/9c on ABC. Titled “The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep,” I leave you with the episode description and the original recording of “Do You Love An Apple.”

Helena is turning into a real family town. When disgruntled “reformed” realtor Tonya calls the police on a squatter living in one of her homes, Jenny arrives only to discover a shocking connection to her past tied to the case. Across town, Cassie and Beau work to track the still-missing backpacker and Sunny works to protect a secret of her own hidden in the woods. Meanwhile, Beau’s daughter Emily takes a campground investigation dangerously into her own hands, but has she stumbled upon a story far more nefarious than she could have imagined?