ABC left us with a lot of questions in last week’s episode of Big Sky and the suspense is temporarily over with the twelfth episode of season two, titled “A Good Boy.” Will Jenny and T-Lock save Rachel and Max? Will Cassie and Mark catch up to Ronald before he gets back on his feet? And what really brought Verr Bhullar to Montana? Let’s see which questions were answered in this week’s episode recap.
(ABC/John Britt)
Scarlet (Anja Savcic) has Dr. Cowley (Benito Martinez) at gunpoint as he works to fix Ronald Pergman (Brian Geraghty) on his kitchen table, his home under construction. The doctor’s wife Gail (Alexandra Barreto) enters the kitchen and is shocked by what she sees, turning to run. Scarlet chases after her, finding the woman trying to call for help. Scarlet hits her on the side of her head with the gun, knocking Gail out. Dr. Cowley rushes in and Scarlet demands his cell phone, refusing to let him check on his wife until he’s taken care of Ronald.
Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) talks through the plan as T-Lock (Arturo Del Puerto) gets wired up, explaining that she will be following him to the parking garage where he is to exchange the duffel bag of drug money for Rachel and Max. When Jenny steps away, she finds Travis (Logan Marshall-Green), who tells her this plan is a bad idea. He would rather get the state involved, but when he can’t guarantee that Max and Rachel would be safe, she tells him it’s a risk she won’t take. Travis decides to join her, but she reminds him that she’s in charge.
Max (Madelyn Kientz) wakes up on the floor in Bob’s basement, her mother Rachel (T.V. Carpio) still tied to her chair calling for her daughter. The door opens and Bob (Alex Knight) comes downstairs with breakfast, a donut for them to split. Rachel begs him to check on Max’s head wound from their altercation and he takes a looking, saying “Just a little bump on the head there” as he stuffs a quarter of a donut in Max’s unwilling mouth. He looks at Rachel, saying “Your turn.”
Verr Bhullar (Bernard White) has Ren (Janina Gavankar) and Jag (Vinny Chhibber) pulled into a meeting in Ren’s living room, Alicia (Constance Zimmer) behind them in the kitchen. Ren and Jag argue over who speaks in response to his questions about the new operation, with Jag ultimately winning the argument. Verr asks about the transportation drivers and Jag introduces Tonya (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), who tells Verr that the drivers are very grateful for the high wages they’re being paid. Donno (Ryan O’Nan) is present and chimes in that he has the addresses of all of their loved ones should anyone step out of line. Verr announces that he would like to move their operation out of Canada, and make Montana their hub, saying they should sell everything. Jag is shocked that his father would sell the home he grew up in and Verr tells his son that this softness is a problem. Ren says she thinks it’s a great idea as Alicia informs them that getting Verr out of Canada would be good for his health. Ren looks at her suspiciously.
Dr. Cowley stitches up the wound on Ronald’s abdomen and when Scarlet asks how he’s doing, he confesses that Ronald has lost a lot of blood. Gail is tied in a chair and Scarlet has a gun pointed at her head, saying “He can’t die.” As the doctor examines his forced patient, he discovers something inside Ronald’s ear, pulling out a microchip typically used in pets. Scarlet takes it from him and studies it in shock.
Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) waits outside of Antlers N Coffee, Mark Lindor (Omar Metwally) bringing her a cup of coffee. They’ve lost Ronald’s tracker again and Mark thinks they’re on a fool’s errand and should call it quits and take Wolf in. Cassie protests, but he says this doesn’t mean they give up looking for Ronald. However, when they get back to the car, Wolf Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) says that he’s picked up Ronald’s location again, showing them the moving dot on his screen.
Jag and Ren stand outside the house talking about their father’s uncharacteristic decision to suddenly move everything out of Canada. Ren asks Jag what he knows about Alicia, learning that her dad met her through the accounting firm he uses, that they’ve been dating for four months, and she’s gotten him into yoga. Ren is worried that she’s now involved too much in the business, telling Jag she could be getting a share. Jag says he will do some digging but will need Ren to distract her. Ren gets offended by his suggestion that they go get manicures and get manicures and gossip.
Jenny and Deputy Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena) prepare T-Lock to leave the station. T-Lock sees Travis down the hallway and gets nervous, but continues with the mission. T-Lock drives his blue Mustang into the parking garage Bob told him to meet him at, with Jenny, Travis, and Poppernak sitting in Jenny’s truck outside one of the two entrances. They listen to T-Lock on his wire as he takes a call from Bob, who says he has new instructions. So that nobody can hear, he texts T-Lock: “Take off the wite. Throw it away or else Rachel dies.” Jenny is worried by T-Lock’s silence and Travis says they need to pull out right now. On his phone, T-Lock follows Bob’s instructions to proceed down a stairwell that leads to the public library, exiting from a library door where the police have no visibility to him. He is told to get in a maroon van with keys inside and drive 60 miles down the highway. Inside the parking lot, Jenny finds T-Lock’s wire on the ground near his car. All seems lost, but Poppernak has traced T-Lock’s phone and sees that he’s on the interstate.
Bob waits outside of a van in an abandoned mill and calls T-Lock, who had just taken the exit Bob told him to. His next instructions are to drive two more miles where he will lose cell service and find a walkie-talkie and flashlight taped to a telephone pole. When T-Lock gets to the walkie-talkie and calls Bob, he is instructed to smash his cell phone and walk through a brick gate. As Bob waits, he opens the backdoor of the van and looks at Max and Rachel bound in the back of the van, their mouths covered with duct tape. “Your knight in shining armor approaches,” he tells them.
Having trailed T-Lock but lost his signal, Jenny pulls up behind an abandoned maroon van with its door open and she and Travis get out to inspect. Jenny notices the broken tape around the telephone pole as Travis finds T-Lock’s phone smashed on the ground. There are multiple directions he could’ve gone in and Poppernak suggests they get a drone to fly over, stepping away to try to call for backup, but he doesn’t have any service.
T-Lock follows Bob’s directions in the dark and we see that Bob has climbed a tower to watch him with night vision. Inside the van, Max has gotten the tape off her mouth and screams for help. Rachel motions towards the front of the car and Max understands what she means. Max shimmies towards the front, sticking her legs between the seats and using her foot to turn on the hazard lights.
Jenny notices blinking lights illuminating trees behind the mill. She starts to head that way, but Travis stops her, saying it’s too dangerous. She tells Poppernak to take the car and drive until he gets a signal to call for backup. She tells Travis if he’s scared, he can come with her. They sneak quietly towards the lights.
Mark speeds down the highway and gets behind a car, which Ronald’s signal is coming from. He swerves in front of it, forcing the driver to pull over. Mark and Cassie get out with their guns drawn as Gail gets out of the car, begging them not to hurt her and explaining that a woman made her swallow a microchip. “She said that she would kill my husband.” Gail is frantic and Mark asks her to take a breath and tell her where Ronald and Scarlet are.
Phoebe (Zoë Noelle Baker) comes into the kitchen and sees her mother holding a gun as Dr. Cowley works to heal the wound on Ronald’s shoulder. Scarlet hides the gun behind her back and tells her daughter there’s nothing to be afraid of, telling her that the doctor wants to give Ronald and her some new clothes and asking her daughter to go “Shopping” in his closet for clothes for them to wear. Phoebe makes eye contact with Dr. Cowley and can see that he’s scared as she exits. With Phoebe gone, Dr. Cowley tells Scarlet that she’s putting her daughter in a terrible position, asking what happens when they leave. Scarlet raises the gun towards him and tells him to shut up and get back to work.
Bob has lead T-Lock around in circles and sneaks up behind him, announcing his presence by saying “Boo.” He tells T-Lock to drop the bag of money and step away, but T-Lock doesn’t want to release the bag until he’s seen Rachel and Max. Bob says they’re playing by his rules and T-Lock reluctantly drops the bag, apologizing for spending some of the money. Bob bends over to look inside the bag and asks what else he bought. “This,” T-Lock says, pulling a gun out of his pocket and pointing it at Bob, his hand shaking as he demands to know where the girls are. Bob calls his bluff, walking towards him. “Everybody thinks I’m so dumb but I’m not and I’m not a bad person,” T-lock says. “Rachel saw that in me and I’m just trying to do good by them.” T-Lock pulls the trigger and shots Bob in the chest, watching him collapse on the ground. T-Lock turns around, screaming for Rachel as Bob rises to his feet and draws his own gun, shooting T-Lock in the back. T-Lock falls to the ground and rolls over, bleeding through the left side of his chest as Bob unbuttons his shirt to show off his bulletproof vest. “Maybe next time,” he teases, about to shoot T-Lock in the head when Jenny fires from the side, hitting Bob in the leg. Bob grabs the duffel bag and limps away, with Travis chasing after Bob as Jenny rushes to T-Lock. She tries to help him, but he is dying. “Tell Rachel I’m sorry,” he says as his last words, dying with his eyes open.
Travis chases Bob to a chained-up gate, Bob climbing the fence. Travis shoots Bob’s hand and he drops the duffel bag but makes it over the fence. Travis watches Bob run away on the other side, not attempting to stop him with his gun. He picks up the bag of money and looks around to make sure nobody saw him.
Jenny finds Max and Rachel in the van and soon after, an ambulance arrives to take them to the hospital. Before they leave, Rachel asks about T-Lock and Jenny tells her that his dying words were an apology to Rachel. Max consoles her mother as she cries and Jenny walks away. She goes to Travis and asks what happened. “I lost him,” he says and she asks about the money. “Bob’s still got it but I wounded him. He ain’t gonna get far.” Jenny says they will send a K-9 unit after Bob, kissing Travis and thanking him for his help. Jenny’s phone rings and she steps away. Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer) tells her that Cassie and Mark are on their way to a house where Ronald is allegedly hiding and she’s worried because they don’t have backup. Jenny rushes out to help them.
Ren plays piano in the living room as Verr comes in, complimenting his daughter and calling her playing “Sublime.” She asks what’s wrong as her father is not one to give out compliments. She asks why he’s really leaving Canada. “Life is short,” he says, “I just want us all to be together as a family here in Montana.” Verr leaves to check on dinner and it’s clear that Ren doesn’t believe his answer. Around the corner, we see Alicia waiting, asking “Did you tell her?” Verr shakes his head and replies “No, not the right time.”
Dr. Cowley finishes his work on Ronald and tells Scarlet that he needs to rest, but she tells him they don’t have time and forces him to give Ronald drugs to get him through. He pulls a syringe out of a bag and injects something into Ronald. Scarlet hears tires on the gravel driveway and goes to the living room, seeing Mark’s Jeep pull in. Inside the truck, Wolf recognizes his truck. “Ronald is here,” he announces. Inside, Ronald is woozy as Scarlet tries to help him get dressed. Ronald tells Scarlet he loves her and she says it back as she suddenly collapses to the floor. Dr. Cowley stabbed her in the neck with a sharp instrument. “What did you do?”, Ronald demands, finding the strength to stand up, grabbing Dr. Cowley’s head with both hands. He violently snaps Dr. Cowley’s neck and he collapses to the floor. Ronald picks up Scarlet’s gun and bends over to check on his unconscious girlfriend.
Cassie and Mark sneak into Dr. Cowley’s house with their guns drawn. They follow a trail of blood drops to the kitchen and find Dr. Cowley and Scarlet both on the floor. Cassie is about to check for pulses when they hear a noise and turn around. They split up to search the house, which is covered in tarps due to the construction. Cassie finds Phoebe sitting in a room with her headphones on. She asks Phoebe where Ronald is. “He’s with my mommy,” she says. In another room, Ronald watches from the shadows as Mark enters. Mark hears a tarp tear and follows the sound, finding an open window.
Meanwhile, Wolf has been fighting with the handle in Mark’s Jeep that he’s been handcuffed to. He breaks it and gets out of the car, watching Ronald sneak into a barn and following him. He tackles Ronald to the ground from behind and takes the gun from him. “Ronald, my dear boy, this is the end,” Wolf announces. “Do it,” Ronald says just as Mark enters on the opposite side of the barn, yelling at Wolf to put his gun down. “Why? So you can arrest him? I don’t think so.” Mark threatens to shoot, but Wolf says he doesn’t care. “I am going to put him down,” Wolf promises. Mark shoots, which prompts Wolf to pull his own trigger. Both Wolf and Mark collapse. Ronald gets up, stunned, noticing that Mark is breathing heavily. He picks up his gun from Wolf’s motionless body and walks to Ronald, who is trying to reach for his gun on the ground. Ronald kicks it away.
Cassie heard the gunshots from inside the house and ran outside, rushing to Mark, who tells her he’s okay and that Ronald ran into the other barn. He called for backup and begs Cassie to wait, but she doesn’t listen, running into the barn, which is dark and full of big machinery and scaffolding. She hears a noise and says “Why don't you come out, Ronald?” There is a quick response, asking “Are you going to take me in?” Cassie moves to the sound of Ronald’s voice, but he manages to sneak up behind her, driving a hay hook into the right side of Cassie’s chest, knocking her to the ground. Ronald grabs Cassie’s gun and points it at her. “Look what you made me do. You couldn’t leave me alone. You had to keep looking for me.” A door opens and Phoebe enters, crying “Help me, my mom’s hurt.” Ronald tells Phoebe to go back inside with Scarlet and Pheobe looks down at Cassie as she backs away. With Ronald distracted, Cassie quickly pulls the hook out of her chest and jams it into Ronald’s neck as he collapses to the ground. Looking up at her, Ronald gasps “I was a good boy” as Cassie pulls the hook out of his neck and he goes unconscious. His eyes are open, his body still. Cassie picks up her gun and limps towards the door that Phoebe left through.
What an episode! Big Sky will return next Thursday, March 24th, at 10/9c on ABC. We don’t have a description of it yet, but we know the title: The Shipping News.” I’ll see you for another recap next week.