TV Recap: “Big Sky” – The Kleinsasser’s Prove How Toxic They Are in “Bitter Roots”

The end is near for the Kleinsasser family in “Bitter Roots,” the 15th episode of Big Sky. The penultimate episode of the hit new ABC drama, which has already been renewed for a second season, begins to wrap up both cases for Dewell and Hoyt. Here’s a detailed recap of everything that happened.

Phoebe is standing outside Ronald’s grave as he buries her aunt Mary. She asks what he’s doing and he says “I’m burying a deer.” The 10-year-old daughter of his girlfriend asks how it died and he tells her it might have been an accident, or it might have been where it shouldn’t have. Ronald asks Phoebe to come closer and she says she wants to get her mom. “No, this should be our secret,” he tells her, saying that if people know where it’s buried, they will want to dig it up and it won’t go to heaven. He asks her to pray for it, adding that she needs to close her eyes or it won’t be answered. As she prays, Ronald moves behind her holding a big stone above her head. She finishes her prayer and sees him. “What are you doing?” Ronald throws the stone over the freshly moved dirt and says “It’s a marker to keep her safe.” He asks Phoebe to keep the secret, adding “Cross your heart and hope to die.”

Cassie, Jenny and Gil are in the toxic area of the Kleinsasser’s ranch when headlights catch them and they all draw their guns. “If they see us together, we all die,” Gil tells them. “Go!” They split up and the truck catches Gil. “Que Paso?,” Horst asks his former ranch manager, asking if he got lost on his way to the funeral. He asks Gil to get in the truck and Gil asks what if he says no. He hears a click from Horst’s revolver and gets in the truck, asking where Rand and John Wayne are. Horst tells him they’re on foot patrol. Gil says he was just checking to see if any of the barrels were leaking, to which Horst tells him that it’s none of his business. Gil is silent when Horst asks him if he was out there alone, adding “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.” Gil tells Horst that Rand and J.W. were the ones who beat his daughter Rosie, not Blake. “They wanted Blake out of the way so J.W. could take over the ranch.” Horst laughs.

In the kitchen, Cheyenne finds her mother and tells her somebody is on the ranch. “I need you to be strong. If you’re afraid of them then they’ve already won,” Cheyenne tells her mom, saying they can be free of the men soon. “It’s just going to be you and me when this is all over.” Margaret tells her daughter about a glowing black spot on the ceiling above her bed that she sees every night, feeling like it’s swallowing the family up. “I’m going to figure out a way out of this,” Cheyenne tells her, saying it won’t involve the men. “They’re going to kill you, too,” Margaret fears. “Not if I kill them first,” Cheyenne finishes.

Scarlet woke up alone in the tent and ventured out to find her daughter and boyfriend, finding them in the woods. Phoebe tells her mom they just went for a walk. “At night?,” she asks, with Phoebe embellishing the lie by telling her they saw a shooting star. Arthur (Ronald in disguise) tells Scarlet that Phoebe was safe because she was with him.

Jenny and Cassie are running through the ranch when they decide to split up. Alone, Jenny hears somebody whistling, holding her gun drawn, trying to find the source when she gets attacked from behind and knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, Cassie is trying to get a signal on her phone when Rand finds her in his truck, charging towards her. After trying to maneuver out of the way, Cassie turns to face the truck and fires her gun through the windshield. She gets hit and knocked to the side as the truck rolls over.

Rosie finds Cassie passed out in the field the next morning. “I thought you were dead,” Rosie tells her as she wakes her up, saying she doesn’t know where her dad is and he didn’t come home last night. Cassie tells her that she saw Gil leave with Horst and as she gets up, she sees Rand’s truck flipped upside down, the driver nowhere to be seen.

Margaret and Cheyenne are on the porch, the mother worried about Rand, who didn’t come home last night. Margaret wants to call Sheriff Wagy but Cheyenne tells her they found Gil and Jenny last night and can’t have the cops there now. Cheyenne tells her mother that she has a plan to make the boys turn on each other. “Daddy knows, he just doesn’t want to admit what they’ve been up to.”

Jenny wakes up locked inside a cattle trailer, trying to kick the locked door open. Horst comes to open it up and says “All this ruckus and you haven’t even had your breakfast yet.” She asks him to let her go as J.W. steps behind his dad with a rifle pointed at Jenny. Horst tells her to come with him to have breakfast and she tells him she’s not hungry, but J.W. grabs her by the ponytail and makes her follow his father.

Scarlet and Phoebe are going for a daytime walk in the woods with Arthur when she suddenly gets a phone call. “You’ve got service?,” Ronald asks, looking concerned. Scarlet answers the call from an unknown number and we see Jerrie on the other line, putting it on speaker phone for Mark Lindel. After confirming that it’s Scarlet on the line, Mark tells Scarlet that her sister Mary is missing and may be in danger. She hangs up the phone. “Who was that?,” Arthur asks. She looks concerned but says “Nobody.”

Entering the Kleinsasser home, Horst asks Jenny to take her shoes off and she tells him she wants to leave. “Well we can discuss that,” Horst says, making her sit with him at the table and hollering for Margaret to get them both some coffee. “I think that we need to come to an understanding,” Horst tells Jenny, asking what she wants. “I want you to pay for what this family has done.” She adds that she saw the body in the barrel and knows there’s more of them in the field. Horst tells her that it's his land and he can do whatever he wants on it, including putting her in a barrel. “And whatever law enforcement you think is gonna come save you, I’ll just tell them I’ve never seen you. This is a big country, people wander off here all the time and get lost.” Margaret delivers two cups of hot coffee and Cheyenne enters the dining room, asking Jenny to come with her and standing up to her dad when he tries to stop her, he click his revolver. “What, are you gonna shoot me? Why don’t you just go ahead and shoot us all if that’s how you fix things,” Cheyenne tells her father. Cheyenne tells Jenny to follow her and as they leave the room, Margaret goes to Horst, who hits her, knocking her into the wall. J.W. is standing outside with his rifle pointed as Jenny steps outside with Cheyenne.

Denise enters Dewell and Hoyt with grocery bags, asking Jerrie and Mark what she missed. They’re tracking Scarlet’s cell phone, suddenly getting a location on it as she gets service again. Mark is going to head there and Jerrie says she will call Sheriff Tubb for backup, but he says he can’t have police sirens scaring Ronald, especially if he’s with Scarlet. Jerrie asks to come with him and he tells her no. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.” He tells her that the pain she feels won’t go away no matter what happens next.

Scarlet leads Arthur and Phoebe back to the big rig. “What was that call?,” Arthur asks her. “We need to leave right now,” she pleads. Ronald tells her they aren’t leaving until she tells him what the phone call was about. She tells him they need to hurry and get to Mary’s house. “Do you love me?,” she asks. “We have to get to Mary’s house. There’s something in there, something they can’t find.”

Cheyenne talks to Horst, telling him that he can’t keep Jenny locked up, adding that he has too many sins to keep them buried anymore. J.W. tells her they don’t need her help. “What we need to do is get rid of Jenny and Gil, dad,” J.W. tells Horst. Cheyenne tells her dad that J.W. killed Blake as her brother lunges for her. “Hey!,” Horst yells at his son. “Your sister is right… You’re done calling the shots around here.” He tells J.W. that no matter what, he won’t inherit the ranch. He leans in and whispers something in his son’s ear as he walks out of the room. Cheyenne asks what he told J.W., but he says “So little girl, you think you’re ready to call the shots on the ranch?” He tells her he has a job for her to do. “Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes.” He hands her his revolver.

Arthur’s big rig pulls into the driveway of an eclectic house that belongs to Scarlet’s friend Peg. She’s going to watch Phoebe, promising the 10-year-old a “Self care” day of ice cream and watching the “Man from Snowy River” films. Phoebe asks her mom why she has to stay there and Scarlet tells her she and Arthur have some adult business to take care of.

Cassie and Rosie follow a trail of blood from Rand’s truck to his house on the ranch, drawing their guns as they open the already ajar house. They find Rand laying on the floor bleeding. “Hello Montanna Rose, fancy seeing you back here,” he tells Rosie, asking her to step into the light so he can see something pretty before he dies. Rosie has her gun still pointed, ready to shoot him, and Cassie talks her out of it, telling her he’s done. Margaret walks in, startling the girls as the mother cradles her dying son, weeping. “Horst did this,” she says angrily.

In the woods, J.W. stops in a clearing and lets out all of his frustration through a scream. He goes back to the cattle trailer where he locked Jenny up again and tells her to come with him. “You want to get out of here, this is how it’s going to go.” She tells him she knows he’s not going to let her go.

Jerrie is on the phone with Mark, giving him directions as he drives to the place they tracked Scarlet’s phone to. He asks her to try pinging her phone again and she finds that they’re moving back to town. “It looks like they’re heading towards Mary’s house,” she tells him as Mark quickly turns around, squealing his tires. Denise, knowing that Jerrie wants to be in the field, drops her keys on the table and says “Don't’ forget your coffee, be safe.” Jerrie grabs them and rushes out the door.

Riding in the big rig, Scarlet tells Arthur about Steve, her dead ex who used to do bad things to her. “I can’t hear this,” Arthur tells her, getting agitated. “You wanted to know the truth,” she tells him. “I was so young, I didn’t know any better. I was going to leave him but then I got pregnant with Phoebe so I stayed. It was the biggest mistake of my life, but I fixed it.” She confesses to jamming a screwdriver through his skull and killing him, calling Mary to help her clean up the body, which ended up in her sister’s basement freezer. “My sister is not who you think she is, she’s a bully. Here you thought she was just a successful telemarketer. Appearances can be deceiving,” Scarlet tells him. “What are you talking about?,” Arthur asks. “You can tell me anything… Ronald.” He slams on the breaks, giving her a menacing look. “Are you mad?,” she asks, revealing that she knows his true identity. “No. I just don’t know what to say.” Scarlet asks him to tell her his secrets, saying she opened up her heart to him. “I know who you are, what you’ve done, and I love you just the same.” He reaches out to strangle her and she climbs onto his lap. “I’ve understood you since the moment I met you. We’re all human. Humans are animals and animals have urges. You’ve felt them, so have I.” They make out before Scarlet continues. “Now, we can either keep pretending or we can be who we are. Your choice, buster.” Ronald looks into her eyes. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.” She tells him they need to get Steve’s body out of the freezer or their “Adventure” is over.

Margaret finds Horst in the bedroom, hugging him and telling him Rand is dead. He holds her hands and starts to cry as she looks up at the ceiling, seeing the dark spot. “That came out of you and it’s spreading,” she tells her. He says there’s nothing there. “You need to stop taking them pills.” Margaret looks at him. “I’m not taking any pills. I see everything so clearly and it’s you. You are the cancer on this house.” She walks away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Cheyenne enters a horse stall where Gil is tied up on the floor. “Chy, what are you doing?” She pulls out Hort’s revolver and tells Gil she’s sorry. “What did they ask you to do?,” he asks, looking up at her. She puts it down, frustrated as Gil tells her she’s not like the rest of her family. “Yes I am.” Just then, Cassie and Rosie charge behind her with their guns drawn. Cheyenne drops her weapon, telling them they can trust her. Cassie questions her trustworthiness, but Cheyenne tells her “You’re gonna have to if you want to save Jenny.” Cheyenne tells them that Jenny is with J.W. “I can take you to him.”

J.W. has dragged Jenny to the toxic barrel field and knocks her to the ground by a puddle. “This isn’t like you,” she pleads with her abductor. “Blake left, you stayed. You put in the work but it didn’t matter, did it? You’re still second in line.” He starts to cry and she uses his emotional state to her advantage, kicking his legs out and knocking him down. She grabs his gun and gets up, pointing it at him. “Blake was innocent. You drugged Rosie, had Rand beat on her all because you wanted the ranch for yourself,” she accuses him. “It’s family business,” he scowls at her. “You killed Blake. Your own brother. Say it.” Back on his feet, he raises his arms over his head and says “I killed my brother.” She makes him say it louder before shooting him in the leg as Cassie, Rosie and Cheyenne come running up. “This is your fault,” J.W. screams at Cheyenne. “It’s over now, J-Dub,” she replies as he attacks her, knocking her to the ground and trying to strangle her. A shot fires and he rolls off her, bleeding through his stomach. Cheyanne is holding Horst’s revolver, the barrel still smoking.

Cheyenne lays with J.W.’s dead body, telling Jenny and Cassie to go. “Your father will kill you, Cheyenne,” Jenny warns her. “No he won’t,” she confidently responds. “I’m all he has left.” As they walk away, Cassie says to Jenny “We still have one last score to settle.”

Ronald and Scarlet pull up to Mary’s house, parking in the street and trying to see if there’s any sign of a police surveillance. Scarlet tells them it will be quick, she knows where the body is. “I need you, Ronald,” she tells them and he tells her he sees everything more clearly now. She tells him that what they have together is more than love. “Maybe it’s one of those things that can’t have a name.”

Police cars pull up to the Kleinsasser ranch, with Jenny and Cassie standing in the road blocking them from going through the gate. Sheriff Wagy tells them to move out of the way, suggesting that all of this is their fault for not leaving when he first told them to. “A lot of good people started dropping when you two rolled in,” Wagy says. He is joined by Deputy Al Gregor, who previously arrested Cassie and left her in a field. “It used to be that you could make a Black woman disappear into the face of the earth, no questions asked. It’s that kind of world that made you two who you are, what you are. A word of caution: you mess with one of us and the rest will rise up and bring you to your knees. I’m going to tell the world exactly what you are.” Gregor tells her she has it wrong and he’s one of the good guys, saying he was saving her. “Sheriff Wagy ordered me to put you into the ground, you weren’t supposed to survive that night.” Wagy pulls his gun on Gregor, saying “Get in the damn car, we’re done here. You should’ve put her down when I told you to. Get!” As they drive past, Jenny calls Wagy’s attention, playing back some audio on her phone, the part where he confesses to instructing an officer to murder a private investigator. As they drive onto the ranch, Jenny sends the audio to Sheriff Tubb and tells Cassie he’s on his way. She also holds up a vial of liquid, presumably the sample Gil collected from the toxic yard in the previous episode.

Scarlet and Ronald enter Mary’s house. “I should have warned you, my sister collects dolls,” Scarlet tells him, unaware that Ronald has already been there. As they head down to the basement, Ronald repeats the story he told Mary about his G.I. Joe and the “Bad boy box” his mother would put it in when he did something wrong. He talks about how he likes dolls because they just look at you no matter what you do to them. “I pulled his arms and legs off one time. He just stared at me.” Down in the basement, they see that the freezer is gone and Scarlet freaks out. “They must have found it. This is it, it’s finally catching up to me.” She turns to Ronald. “I can’t go to prison, what will happen to Phoebe?” He holds her.

Mark is outside the house hiding behind a tree with his gun drawn when Jerrie drives onto the gravel parking lot. Ronald and Scarlet hear the car from the basement. Mark runs up to her, saying  “What the hell are you doing here?” She tells him she needs to finish this and he tells her to follow him, but keep her distance. She pulls out the gun he previously gave her. Down in the basement, Ronald pulls out his taser and ignites it, drawing it close to Scarlet. Mark kicks open the door to Mary’s house, yelling “Ronald Pergman!”

The season finale of Big Sky airs May 18th on ABC. Here’s the official episode description of “Love is a Strange and Dangerous Thing.”

Cassie and Jenny leave the Kleinsasser women to forge their own path, ridding themselves of their ranch troubles and heading back home. Along with Jerrie and Lindor, they finally get to see Ronald behind bars, though he quickly strips them of any satisfaction by leading them on a wild goose chase, straight into the arms of the syndicate. A brutal battle ensues, clearing a path for Scarlet and Ronald to escape, but while they run off into the sunset Jenny risks her life to save Cassie’s. Is this the end for our dynamic duo? Only time will tell.