Welcome back to Big Sky: Deadly Trails. It’s been a few weeks, but you no doubt remember where things left off. Jenny Hoyt had just come home to find that her mother had broken in and was in trouble. Cassie went to the Barnes house and was invited in by Buck, unaware that he had Paige tied up in the attic. And Sunny, who thought Paige was at her camp, found herself in a tough spot with Tonya and Donno. Without further ado, here is a recap of the 11th episode of Season 3, titled “Super Foxes.”
Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) can’t believe her eyes. Her mother, Virginia “Gigi” Cessna (Rosanna Arquette), is standing in her living room holding an ice pack to her bloody face asking her for help. Jenny is cold to her criminal mother, asking where the $30,000 she stole is. “It’s gone,” Gigi confesses. “I hired some locals to launder it so I could fix a problem, but I messed up.” Gigi begs Jenny to help her, saying a local family has gone crazy and is after her. In a surprise move, Jenny zipties her mother’s hands and says she belongs in jail. Headlights shine through the windows and Gigi begins to freak out, begging Jenny to get her gun. Someone knocks at the door and Jenny shakes her head at her mother, saying bad guys don’t knock as she approaches the door. But she finds herself blown back as her door is knocked down. It hits her in the head, she is bleeding as the room goes dizzy. She sees the blurry image of two men with rifles step over her, grab her mother, and leave before she blacks out.
Sunny Barnes (Reba McEntire) sits on the bed in one of the tents at Sunny Day Excursions, held at gunpoint by Tonya (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Donno (Ryan O’Nan) returns empty handed after searching the property for Paige, who was supposed to be there. Tonya can only assume that Sunny or Paige are playing a game with them. Or, worst case scenario, somebody else got to Paige before they returned. “Who else has access to this camp?”, Tonya asks Sunny, whose eyes go wide.
Buck Barnes (Rex Linn) sets a mug of coffee in front of Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) at his kitchen table, offering her a slice of pie, holding a knife that’s larger than necessary for slicing a pie. Cassie declines the offer, telling Buck she came there to speak with his wife Sunny. Buck tries to hurry Cassie along, saying he has a lot to do. She mentions that the police have Walter in custody. “Where did they catch that animal?”, Buck asks, feigning shock. “Buck, drop the act,” Cassie says. “Sunny is Walter’s birth mother and you lied about the truck, so I’m questioning a lot of things right now.” Cassie tells Buck that she assumes he and Sunny helped Walter evade capture. “He was a cancer in our family and I couldn’t make her see what a danger he was, so what was I supposed to do, Cassie?”, Buck asks. Cassie’s answer will have to wait because she receives an urgent call from Jenny and she has to go. As Buck stands in the doorway, watching Cassie leave, he hears a crash from the attic. He slowly goes upstairs, finding that Paige (Madalyn Horcher) was able to shimmy her bound body towards a desk and knocked over a lamp, breaking it, hoping that Cassie would hear. Her plan failed.
Sheriff Beau Arlen (Jensen Ackles) sits outside of his Airstream trailer with a shotgun, protecting his ex-wife and daughter while they sleep. However, Emily (Cree Cicchino) is awake and comes outside to keep her dad company. She talks about her stepdad Avery, telling her dad that he’s not a bad person. “He’s put you and your mom in danger,” Beau reminds her, but Emily believes his reasons are justified, fearing that her mom will leave him if he loses all of his money. She wants to talk to her dad about what happened in Houston before he moved to Helena. “You know what happened,” he says, but Emily tells him he never talked to her about it. When he tells her there’s not much to talk about, she gets up to go inside. “Mom never needed you to be perfect,” she says, stopping at the door. “She just wanted you to let her in more.” Emily goes inside, leaving Beau alone with his thoughts.
Cassie arrives at Jenny’s house as paramedics examine her. Deputy Moe Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena) is there and he found Gigi’s purse. Cassie wants to get up to help with the search for her mom, but he insists that she rest when she stands up and loses her balance. The next day, Beau, Cassie, and Poppernak are surprised when Jenny arrives as they examine what they found. They found a motel room key in Gigi’s purse, which was rented under the name Gilbert Leeds. The room looks like a fight broke out inside. A traffic cam got an image of a red truck with longhorns attached to the hood speeding away around the time of Gigi’s abduction, but there was no license plate on it. Beau has to step away when he gets a call that Avery was spotted by a patrol officer. Jenny tells Cassie she thinks she knows where they can begin their search for her mother.
That morning, Buck returns to the attic, telling Paige that he never meant to hurt her. He opens up a hutch and produces a bottle of moonshine, grabbing a glass off the shelf and pouring some. “Today’s your lucky day and I’ll tell you why,” he declares. “This is the first drink I’ve had in 20 years and I don’t feel like drinking alone.” Paige squirms as Buck takes the duct tape off her mouth, telling her nobody will hear her if she screams. Paige isn’t interested in drinking with her captor, begging to be let go. Instead, he talks about how Sunny kept him sober and how she would be furious if she saw him now. Paige promises to disappear if she is freed, saying she will let Walter stay in jail. “You are a sharp girl and you know what happens to sharp girls?”, Buck asks as he finishes his drink. “They meet sharp ends.” Paige screams as Buck gets up, grabs her head, and bashes it against a dresser. Paige loses consciousness.
Avery (Henry Ian Cusick) returns to his hotel with a bag of fast food. “Smells good,” Winston (Alex Fernandez) says, emerging from his hiding place with a gun pointed at Avery, whose own gun is on the table just out of reach. “Message from my boss; He doesn’t renegotiate.” Avery is escorted out of his hotel room at gun point. “Avery, whose your friend?”, calls Beau from down the hall. Winston turns around and points his gun at Beau, telling him it’s none of his concern. “Well, actually it is,” Beau says, opening his jacket to flash his badge. “I never shot a sheriff before,” Winston grins, but Beau says he can have Avery. Winston is surprised as Beau turns around and starts to walk away. He’s even more surprised when Beau quickly spins back around and fires a shot into his chest. With Winston on the ground, Beau approaches Avery, commanding him to put his hands above his head, and patting him down to make sure he doesn’t have a weapon. “Don’t give me a reason to make my life any easier,” he warns Avery as he arrests him.
In the Blue Fox Diner, Tonya and Donno are frustrated that they can’t find Avery. Donno even checked every hotel, realizing he must be using an alias. Trying to lighten the mood, he asks Tonya what she would do with the $15 million. She talks about buying up Helena and expanding her real estate business, possibly even turning the diner into a franchise. When she asks Donno, he cites his favorite movie, The Fox and the Hound, as his inspiration for wanting to start a fox farm where he would breed super foxes for the popular fox hunting sport. Their dreams are crushed when Jenny and Cassie rush in. Jenny believes Tonya helped her mom launder money and begs her to help her find her mother by pointing her in the direction of who she connected her with. “It’s not a who, it’s a where,” Tonya says, giving Jenny an address to an empty parcel of land with a drop box.
Sunny returns home to find Buck loading up his truck. He won’t tell her where he’s going and she won’t tell him why she was out all night, but before he can take off, she tells him she found Paige. He asks where and she tells him she found her at the camp, told her to stay there, and when she returned, Paige was gone. She asks Buck to help her find Paige. “I’m not gonna do that,” he says, bringing up how he told her before to leave Paige alone and he’s not going to ask her again. He tells her that Cassie stopped by and that she knows Sunny is Walter’s mother. “I’m gonna do what’s right by my son,” Sunny promises. And then she gets a whiff of Buck’s breath and instantly knows he was drinking, which he denies. He tells Sunny he has to get to the hardware store and that they can talk this out when he comes back. “How bout now?”, she asks, confused why the hardware store would be so urgent. “I got something I need to take care of,” Buck says as he gets in his car and drives off. Buck watches sunny standing in the driveway through his mirrors. She’s crying. Adjusting his rearview mirror, Buck checks on his truck bed, which holds Paige’s unconscious body wrapped in a blue tarp. When Sunny goes inside, she goes to the attic and notices a wet ring under a glass on a wooden hutch. She sniffs it and scoffs at the strong alcohol smell.
Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer) did some research on the address Tonya gave Jenny, sending Jenny and Cassie to the residence of the owner. Denise explains that the woman is in her late 60s and lives on a large property with her four sons and many grandchildren. As Jenny and Cassie approach the door, they are startled by a girl (Eden Harper) who watches them. Anne Whitlow (Jayne Taini) answers the door with a sugary sweet veneer, asking the girls to call her “Ma” like everyone else. When Cassie asks if anyone else is home, she produces a shotgun and says it’s just them. They ask about the girl, who has now run off. “That must’ve been Fanny, she lost her mother young,” Anne ‘Ma’ Whitlow says. Jenny asks Anne if she knows a woman named Gigi and she seems confused. “She stole some money that ended up at a drop box on a plot of land that belongs to you,” Jenny explains. Anne’s confusion intensifies and she says she doesn’t know anything. As Jenny and Cassie walk to their truck, they agree that they don’t trust Anne. They decide to split up and look around the property.
Beau enters the interrogation room where Avery sits handcuffed to the desk. He asks who the man who was trying to abduct him was, but Avery won’t talk. “Am I being charged with something?”, he asks. Beau tells Avery he found the stolen journal entries and that he knows he was going for the money. Avery asks if the money was reported stolen and Beau acknowledges that it hasn’t been, but he then asks what Avery planned to do after getting it. “These people don’t forgive and they don’t forget and the ones who steal from them rarely die alone, which means you have put Carla and my daughter in danger,” Beau says, his blood boiling. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect my family,” Avery snaps back, adding “that’s all you need to know.” Avery tells Beau that him killing Winston has put Carla and Emily in more harm than anything he’s done. He asks for his lawyer and Beau gets up from the table in a rage, kicking his chair across the room before exiting.
Jenny finds the red truck with longhorns parked outside of a barn, the sound of a man’s voice drawing her into a barn. “My brother’s dead because of you two,” a man named Calvin (Robbie Tann) says. Jenny peeks into the barn and sees Calvin and his brother Stephen (Jeff Allen) with guns standing around Gigi and Gilbert Leeds (Jonathan Von Mering), who cries “We didn’t kill your brother!” Calvin turns back to a group of kids sitting on haybales watching, saying it’s up to them to decide. “Does this man deserve our mercy or our wrath?”, he asks. The kids all give him a thumbs down. A bullet fires into Gilbert, who goes limp as Gigi sobs. His body is dragged around the corner by Stephen, deposited into a pig pen where a group of hogs go wild. With Calvin seemingly defenseless, Cassie enters the barn with her gun drawn, getting his attention. He seems unconcerned and Jenny soon finds out why. A third brother, Troy (Konstantin Melikhov), stands behind her with a gun pointed at her head. Jenny surrenders, putting her gun on the ground. Jenny explains that she’s Gigi’s daughter. “Your mother cheated my poor Robbie and his Fanny,” comes the voice of Anne ‘Ma’ Whitlow, who stands in the shadows elevated behind the children. “He put a shotgun under his chin and left this world because of what your mama and that man did. And then they tried to pay for his life with money. Now, what are we gonna do children?” A grandchild named Joshua (River Scott) goes to ‘Ma’ and whispers in her ear. “Why, how bout that? Joshua calls for a game.” She declares that if Gigi loses, she dies. Jenny asks to play in her mother’s place, but ‘Ma’ has a better idea – they will play against each other. Jenny and Gigi hug each other and cry as ‘Ma’ tells Troy that there’s another woman on the property, asking to take Fanny with him to find her.
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
In a prestinely clean bunker, Buck listens to “The Collector” by Daniel Romano as he applies masking tape to an empty glass jar, writing Paige’s name on it. Above the counter is a shelf full of jars, which all contain preserved hearts, each jar bearing the name of the girl it was stolen from. When he turns around, he is alarmed to find that the blue tarp that housed Paige’s body is now empty. She appears at his feet, stabbing him in the thigh and running for a ladder that leads to an escape hatch. “You almost had me there, sweetheart,” Buck says as he limps to the ladder, climbing up as Paige struggles with the locked hatch. Buck pulls her back down to the ground and Paige reaches around, finding a mallet and using it to hit Buck in the head. He falls down, his head bleeding, his body lifeless. Paige climbes the ladder again and uses the mallet to break the lock off the hatche, crawling out of the bunker.
Robbie’s favorite game was cornhole, so ‘Ma’ sets the rules that Jenny and Gigi will play one round, each alternating turns with four tosses each. If a bean bag lands on the board, they get 1 point. If it goes through the hole, they get 3 points. Whoever has the most points wins and walks away with their life. The other dies. Jenny looks at her mother nervously as Gigi makes her first toss and lands it on the board. 1 point. Kids cheer. Jenny stares up at ‘Ma’ as she blindly tosses her first bag, which hits the dirt. Jenny is warned that if she throws the game, Gigi will be thrown to the pigs alive. Gigi begs Jenny to try, saying only one of them gets to walk away. She tosses her second bag which lands on the board just like the first. That’s two points for Gigi, more cheers from the kids. Jenny’s eyes fill with tears. “Whatever happens Jenny, forgive me,” Gigi asks. “You want me to try it?”, Jenny asks, “fine, I’ll try.” She makes her toss and it dives perfectly through the hole. The kids cheer even louder as Jenny earns 3 points. Gigi makes her next throw and misses the board. Jenny calls out that Gigi is trying to lose on purpose, but ‘Ma’ doesn’t seem to mind. “Two can play at that game,” Jenny whispers to her mother. She makes her toss, overshooting the board and missing it. ‘Ma’ gives Jenny her final warning, instructing Calvin and Stephen to aimr their guns at the back of their heads. “Somebody’s about to lose,” ‘Ma’ declares.
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
Troy and Fanny search an empty barn together. “Did that lady kill my daddy?”, she asks her uncle. She seems to understand that her father committed suicide and that he wasn’t murdered. Distracted, Cassie sneaks up behind Troy and knocks him out. She asks Fanny where her friend is. “She’s in trouble,” Fanny says, offering to lead Cassie to her.
“Don‘t be too harsh on me, Jenny,” Gigi cries as she prepares to make her last throw. “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, but I never stopped loving you.” She tosses. Her bag hits the ground. A rifle clicks. And then ‘Ma’ commands her sons to stop and let Gigi and Jenny go. They look up at her in confusion and see Fanny at ‘Ma’’s side. “Fanny chooses Mercy and Robbie was her daddy,” she says. What they don’t see is that behind ‘Ma,’ Cassie hides in a starwell with a gun aimed at her, feeding her these lines. Jenny and Gigi are unshackled and they head towards the stairs to leave. Jenny sees Cassie, who motions for her to stay quiet and get away. As soon as Jenny and Gigi are out of the barn, Cassie goes on her radio and gives the all clear for her police backup to enter. Poppernak handcuffs ‘Ma.’ Outside, Jenny and Cassie hug.
(ABC/Anna Kooris)
Carla (Angelique Cabral) and Beau have a moment outside the trailer and she thanks him for helping protect her and Emily. He tells her he has a bad feeling like he did in Houston before his partner Randy was killed. “It feels the same, like something is coming and I’m powerless to stop it,” he reveals. It’s clear that Beau blames himself for Randy’s death and is now hard on himself for not being present for his wife and daughter in the aftermath. “You are here for us now,” Carla says. “It don’t make up for the way I checked out,” Beau bows his head in shame. “I forgive you for all that,” Carla says. Beau promises not to let anything happen to her or Emily. “I’ll always love you,” Beau tells her, holding her hand by the fire.
Avery has somehow found himself in the custody of Tonya and Donno, his arms and legs tied to cinder blocks and his mouth gagged. Donno is ready to have some progresssive amputation fun with Avery, but Tonya wants to talk first. Removing the gag, Avery tells them he has the $15 million. Tonya thinks he’s bluffing since Paige was the only one who knew the sequence of the key phrase, but Avery says she’s an amature and it was easy to crack. He tells them the money is in a secure account and if they kill him, nobody gets any of it. But if they help protect him, he will give them more money than their employer was offering for it.
Gigi completes a police statement against the Whitlow family in the police station. “Now I understand how putting bad guys in jail has some appeal,” she says to Jenny. “Then you’ll understand why I can’t just let you walk away,” Jenny says as Poppernak comes behind Gigi and handcuffs her. “Sometimes you really disappoint me, Jenny bear,” Gigi says as she is escorted away. “Right back at ya,” Jenny responds, “and I love you, too.”
Cormac (Luke Mitchell) sits at the bar in the Boot Heel drinking. A woman takes the seat next to him and he turns to find his mother Sunny, asking him what he told Cassie about their family. “That’s between me and her,” he coldly responds. Sunny is upset that Cormac is choosing Cassie over his own family, but he tells his mother that she chose herself when she lied to him. “Your dad started drinking again,” she warns him. “I think he might’ve done a bad thing.” Cormac shakes his head and sighs. “Anything can be buried under enough lies, right mom?” He puts some money on the counter to cover his tab and gets up to leave, saying “I’m done” to his mother.
Emily stands with Denise staring that the board tracking the Bleeding Heart Killer and lamenting over the bad coffee Emily made. Denise hands her some cash and asks her to get them fancy drinks from the cafe down the street, asking for a hazelnut latte, which Emily thinks is gross. Denise asks Cassie if she wants anything, but Cormac just called her and she’s going to get Jenny to go meet with Sunny to get some answers.
“I love nutmeg too, Emily,” Tony (West Liang) says as Beau’s daughter picks up the coffee order. “Do I know you?”, she asks. Tony tells her he’s just a “fellow spice lover,” which weirds her out. She asks how he knew her name and he points to the cup, with a barista’s handwriting declaring her name in large letters. Emily chuckles as she grabs the order and heads for the door. “Have a nice day,” Tony says, going to the window and watching Emily walk away. He then looks over at a red car. Tex (Lyle Lovett) is behind the wheel. Tony nods, giving his henchman orders to go get her.
Next Wednesday, January 11th, ABC has an important question for Big Sky fans – “Are You Mad?” That’s the name of the 12th episode of Season 3. Check out the episode description and come on back for another juicy recap after it airs.
Jenny, Cassie and Beau uncover the truth about the Bleeding Heart Killer, but before justice can be served, chaos breaks out. Avery’s involvement with Tony’s crime family escalates to a standoff; Emily and Denise are put in grave danger; and despite her recent revelations, Sunny’s family ties continue to pull apart. As Cassie, Jenny and Beau work to clean up the mess, the killer is still on the loose, ensuring no one is safe.
Past episodes of Big Sky are streaming on Hulu and if you have the Disney Bundle, you can watch Donno’s favorite movie, The Fox and the Hound, on Disney+.