TV Recap: “Big Sky” – Season 2, Episode 7 – “Little Boxes”

Big Sky returned tonight on ABC with “Little Boxes,” the seventh episode of season two. Things were left on uncertain ground for several characters in the previous episode. Mark Lindor had snuck back onto Wolf’s property to have another look around, Travis had been taken by Dietrich with Jenny hiding under the bed, Harper found the man in the van in need of urgent medical care, and Smiley was murdered by Donno. Find out what happens next in this week’s episode recap.

Wolf Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) finds Mark Lindor (Omar Metwally) in his shed and accuses him of trespassing. Mark notices the locked door with airholes and asks what it’s for. Wolf tells him it’s where he puts violent dogs and Mark insists that he open it up. When he does, Mark enters and Wolf closes the door behind him. Mark draws his gun and threatens to shoot, but Wolf opens the door slowly and says he was just joking and tells Mark he’s going to escort him off his property now.

Inside the house, Agatha (Romy Rosemont) keeps watch by the door while Ronald (Brian Geraghty) and Scarlet (Anja Savcic) sit on the couch. Ronald can see Mark and Wolf walking outside and when he thinks it’s the most opportune moment, Ronald stands up and yells. Agatha presses the remote to his shock collar and holds the button down, with Ronald falling to the floor and seizing up. Scarlet gets angry and lunges at Agatha, who hits her in the head to stop her. Mark doesn’t seem to hear the scuffle inside, but Wolf does and he rushes back to the house as soon as Mark drives away. He finds Ronald unconscious, Agatha performing CPR, and Wolf takes over, checking Ronald’s pulse as he accuses Scarlet of conspiring to escape with him. Just then, Ronald comes to and attacks Wolf, a fight that is short-lived when Agatha presses the remote on Ronald’s collar again. Wolf has to tell her to release the button, but he promises Ronald that the next time he tries something like that, he won’t stop her.

Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) comes over to Cassie’s (Kylie Bunbury) house to tell her that Dietrich took Travis and she hasn’t been able to find him. Cassie asks if Jenny checked Dietrich’s favorite bar, Boot Heel, and Jenny tells her it was locked. Cassie has a hunch that they should go there and check again and after breaking in, they find a cardboard box on the pool table addressed “To the liar.” Jenny knows she needs to call it in, but she can’t resist finding out what’s inside immediately. She hands Cassie a pair of tongs and Cassie carefully opens the box so her fingerprints won’t get on it. Inside, they find a severed human hand with a smiley face tattoo. Jenny recognizes it as Smiley’s hand and gets worried because Dietrich was taking Travis to see Smiley. Cassie sees that there’s something in the hand and using the tongs, she pulls out a small bag of white pills. “I’d say that’s a message,” Cassie tells Jenny. “From Dietrich or the cartel?”, Jenny asks.

Dietrich (David Meunier) and Travis (Logan Marshall-Green) sit in his truck waiting for Smiley to meet them, but Dietrich grows impatient and decides to head to Smiley’s house. While they’re en route, T-Lock (Arturo Del Puerto) pulls up to Smiley’s house and knocks on the door, which swings open. He takes a step in and slips in blood just as Dietrich and Travis arrive. T-Lock runs and hides in the bathtub as Dietrich and Travis enter and see the bloody crime scene of Smiley’s murder. Dietrich accuses Travis of doing it, but after they hear a noise from another room, Dietrich instead decides to trust Travis again, motioning for him to grab a metal baseball bat as they search the house. T-Lock moves around as the men search the home and ends up slipping out the front door, but not without leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind, which Dietrich and Travis follow. They see him driving away and get in Dietrich’s truck to follow him.

Madison (Lola Reid) is at home when someone knocks on the door and she answers. It’s Harper (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson) who has driven the white van to her friend’s house and asks for help. Madison gets her brother Bridger (Jeremy Taylor) and asks him to call Max (Madelyn Kientz). By the time Max arrives, the teens have taken the man from the woods to the basement and have him laying on a table. The man’s name is Creary (Ryan de Quintal) and he’s the father of a boy named Shane who drowned. They need medical supplies and Madison suggests she go talk to “Hot Pete,” a friend of theirs whose father believes the world is coming to an end and has a bunker full of supplies.

Jenny brings the cup with Harper’s fingerprints on it that Cassie collected in the previous episode into the station and asks Deputy Poppernak (J. Anthony Pena) to run it for prints. He asks her if it’s related to the hand, indicating that she has already called it in and had it documented. She tells him it’s not related.

Ren (Janina Gavankar) sits on a sun chair drinking rose wine listening to Alanis Morisette when Tonya (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) interrupts with a binder she prepared. She’s put together information on wise real estate investments for Ren, who is impressed by her initiative. Among the properties is a horse ranch that Tonya says she wants to get. When Tonya leaves, Donno (Ryan O’Nan) comes to talk to the boss because he traced the last phone number Harvey called, which was a call to a lawyer named Chuck Ryan.

Madison arrives at Pete’s (Sterlin English) house and flirtatiously asks for medical supplies, adding that it needs to be kept a secret. He takes her into his basement, which looks like it could be a store with all of the shelves of supplies. Madison helps herself to bandages and Pete throws in some prescription pain medication.

Scarlet finds Ronald locked in the shed but trying to break out of it. She questions his decision to reveal himself to a U.S. Marshal, which would’ve resulted in him going to prison. He argues that he’s already escaped from a Marshal’s care and can do it again. Scarlet believes that Ronald has jeopardized her chances of being reunited with her daughter Phoebe, but he tells her he knows Wolf and Agatha are lying about where Phoebe is. He tells Scarlet that if Phoebe was somewhere on the ranch, they would have seen her by now.

Mark arrives at Dewell & Hoyt to find Denise (Dedee Pfeiffer) bundled up at her desk because the boiler is out. He tells her about his interaction with Wolf when Cassie comes in and overhears. He tells her that he felt something was off about Wolf, but apologizes for bringing her back into the Ronald Pergman case and stops talking about him.

T-Lock arrives at his house and scurries to pack a duffel bag of clothes. Just as he reaches the front door to leave, Dietrich and Travis enter and stop him. Travis uses the handle of the bat to knock T-Lock down and Dietrich beats him up while interrogating him about Smiley. The beating stops when Dietrich’s phone rings and he answers, listening to whatever the caller had to say and responding with “Sit tight, keep your big mouth shut.” He tells Travis that the cops are at the bar and hands him a gun.

Max ditched Creery’s van in another neighborhood and shortly after returning to the basement, the teens hear a noise upstairs. Bridger and Madison’s parents announce that they’ve arrived home early from their conference. Bridger races upstairs and his dad seems suspicious about what he was doing in the basement. Just as he’s about to go down, Max comes up and acts like she was there working on homework with Bridger. Having a girl over is a house rule Bridger broke, but he could be in a lot more trouble if his dad went downstairs. Bridger texts Madison to let her know their parents are back.

Cassie and her dad Joseph (Jeff Joseph) bring Cassie’s son Kai (Gabriel Jacob-Cross) to the horse ranch he wants to buy to see it one more time before making the decision. Kai is excited to pet the horses and Joseph is so happy that his dream of owning a horse ranch is about to come true. A truck pulls up and the realtor lets him know that his next appointment just arrived. Cassie watches as Tonya gets out of the truck, asking what she’s doing there. Tonya won’t tell her who she works for but says she’s there on behalf of her new boss.

Dietrich arrives at the Boot Heel and Jenny asks the officers to clear the room so she can talk to him. She asks him what happened to Smiley and he pretends not to know anything, so she opens a file with photos of the severed hand and bag of drugs found in the box. She asks him if the cartel did it and he acts like he doesn’t know anything. She asks about his other partner Stone (meaning Travis) and if the Cartel has him too, but Dietrich instead gives her a name: “Ren Buhler. She’s the one the cartel sent.”

Wolf gets a phone call from his publicist who has changed her mind and wants to meet with him about his new book. He needs to leave and Agatha is upset that he will be leaving her alone with Ronald and Scarlet so soon after she was attacked. “Aggie, we are so close,” he pleads. “This book could change everything.” Scarlet is in the doorway and overhears as she makes her presence known. “Where is my daughter?” Wolf tells her that being separated from Phoebe is an important part of her healing process, but she demands an honest answer. Agatha pulls out her phone and shows Scarlet a picture of her daughter. “Phoebe is with my sister in Helena in a nice safe little place that’s called Nuevo Nirvana.” Scarlet asks when she can see her and Wolf tells her that after last night, seeing her daughter is a reward she hasn’t yet earned. Scarlet apologizes and leaves, but grabs something off an end table on her way out.

Jenny and Poppernak arrive at Ren’s trailer and Ren acts confused as to why her name is being linked to a cartel. She plays it cool and giggles at the thought, reaffirming that she’s in the real estate business and hasn’t done anything illegal. Jenny tells her it would be illegal if it’s a front organization and adds that murder is illegal, asking her if she knows anything about a severed hand or a man named Stone. Ren flirts with Poppernak and Jenny decides it’s time to go, but on her way out, Tonya comes in. Jenny is very suspicious that Tonya is now working for Ren.

Scarlet watches from a hiding place by the shed as Agatha kisses Wolf goodbye and he drives off to meet with his publisher. With Agatha back in the house, Scarlet grabs a shovel and breaks the lock keeping Ronald in the shed. She tells him where Phoebe is as she uses the device she swiped to remove the electric collar from his neck. She gives him the plan, that she will distract Agatha while he breaks out, finds Phoebe, and comes back for her. The two crazy lovebirds reaffirm their love for each other before Ronald departs.

Tony finds Donno anxiously cooking back at Ren’s house and he tells her they should’ve heard from Dietrich by now over the severed hand message they sent. Tonya asks Donno if he likes killing and without making eye contact, he says “I’m good at it.” She worries aloud if she will have to kill while working for Ren. The doorbell rings and Donno is quick to grab his gun, hiding behind the door as Tonya answers it. It’s Ren’s brother Jag (Vinny Chhibber) with his guard Dhruv (Yuvraj Dhesi), who knocks Donno to the ground as Jag asks where Ren is.

With the supplies Madison got from Pete, the teens have bandaged Creery up and while Madison, Bridger, and Max have dinner upstairs with the parents, Harper stays with the recuperating man. After dinner, Bridger’s dad asks him to take the trash out. Ren drives by with a Post-It note, sees Bridger and smiles.

Jenny is at work when she gets a phone call from Travis, answering and asking where he is. “No matter what happens, I love you,” he tells her before hanging up. We see that he has T-Lock at gunpoint and has led him to a cellar door in a clearing. He instructs T-Lock to open it, which is a struggle with his bound hands. T-Lock cries and pleads as Travis puts his gun to T-Lock’s temple.

Cassie gets a text from Jenny letting her know that she heard from Travis. Mark enters her office and Cassie pours him some of her drink. They talk about the ranch and Cassie tells him about the other potential buyer. She asks him about Wolf, but Mark tells her that’s not what he came to talk about. He begins to analogize about coworkers getting wires crossed when Cassie interrupts him with a kiss. “You really do talk to much,” she flirts. She goes in for another kiss and Mark hesitates at first, as if to tell her about the sparks between him and Jerrie, but he doesn’t say anything and then leans in to kiss her back.

Ronald has made it safely off of Wolf’s ranch, finding a highway as the song “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds plays. He sets off down the road.

Big Sky returns on Thursday, December 16th with “The End Has No End” on ABC. I leave you with an episode description of what’s to come.

Jenny and Cassie trade stories on recent run-ins with Tonya, leading Cassie to confront her about working for Ren. Having left the ranch—and Wolf—behind him, Ronald revels in his newfound freedom, but old habits threaten to derail his plans. Elsewhere, the kids receive advice from an unlikely source, Travis is finally honest with Jenny and, later, Cassie receives devastating news.