Big Sky: Deadly Trails ends the first half of its season on a delicious note.
Big Sky Season 3 Episode 10 is dramatic, intriguing, and, more than anything else, just plain fun. And it can be weird to describe a crime drama as fun, but that’s what Big Sky can be when it’s on its game. It’s quirky and clever and keeps the audience plenty engaged.
And this is precisely what you want out of a winter finale.
The hour is a set-up for the second half of the season, which will most likely see the fall of the Barnes family.
For a family that started the season so strongly, they’ve been falling apart steadily for weeks now.
Sunny is doing her own thing, with the singular focus of saving Walter. And that’s almost been her life’s mission in many ways. Since she couldn’t be there for Walter growing up, she’s found her own ways to be the mother to him that she wanted to be.
(Let’s ignore shunning him to a life in the woods, with the occasional smores treat when she’s feeling generous.)
Saving him and whisking him away after the house fire, setting him up with the cabin, and now trying to clear his name are all Sunny’s ways of making amends and protecting her son. But her quest to save Walter has put her at odds with Buck, even if she doesn’t fully realize that yet.
The way these two are lying and tip-toeing around each other right now will explode eventually, and probably in the worst way, at the worst time.
Buck’s main goal here seems to be still protecting Sunny, Cormac, and the family name, while Sunny gave that dream up a long time ago. It really does seem like she’s content to let it all burn down if she can save Walter, which would be almost sweet if there wasn’t so much collateral damage along the way.
For his part, Walter is still sticking to his story about killing Paige, but now that BJC (what I’m calling Beau, Jenny, and Cassie because I can’t think of anything clever) are onto him and his connection to Sunny, it’ll be interesting to see how willing he is to protect her, especially once we see what happens to Paige.
Reaching out to Donno and Tonya to help with Paige was very smart for Sunny, even if it was for naught. They’re all in trouble at this point, one way or the other, so teaming up is better than going it alone.
Tonya: Just to be clear, Donno and I, we are not people you mess with.
Sunny: Likewise.
Though, once Tony gets his hands on that money, Paige is truly of no value to him, and, therefore, he wouldn’t need Tonya and Donno anymore either. But considering they have no clue Avery has the money, they’re still under the impression there’s money to be found, so finding Paige is still the priority.
My head hurts from thinking about all this.
Side note, poor Cormac is going through it right now! His little discussion with Cassie shows how conflicted he is about everything he’s hearing, but it feels like, at some point, he’s going to find himself in a situation where he’s going to have to make a choice. And what does that choice look like for him?
It’s setting up to be Cassie versus his parents essentially, and while right this minute, if I had to choose, I would say he picks Cassie, it wouldn’t surprise me if all signs point to a happily ever after for the two, just for him to pull the rug out from under her at the last minute.
Elsewhere this hour, Poppernak and Jenny teamed up to investigate the death of a groom on his wedding day. And the mystery somehow involved cheating, dinosaurs, and ugly jackets!
Not to sound like a broken record, but these cases are great, even if we were robbed of the Beau and Jenny pairing. It’s okay, though, because you can never have enough Poppernak!
Everything seemed pretty straightforward: it was OBVIOUSLY the bridesmaid who randomly chatted up Poppernak. Right?
Nope! Things went sideways really fast. And suddenly, Jenny was getting pushed into the dirt with no repercussions, and a T-Rex was just chilling in the middle of Montana with one man and a shovel protecting it from the world.
This mystery ended up taking a turn towards the crazy, but I always appreciate it when something is both outlandish and engaging. Skylar waking up on her wedding day ready to kill her future husband and then kill her bridesmaid is absolutely WILD. And the way she showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever!
Much like Cormac, Skylar was going through it.
It wasn’t necessarily a super tough case, but it affected Jenny enough that all she wanted to do was blow off some steam with Beau. And it took ten whole episodes before the show gave us definitive proof that, at the very least, there’s some attraction between the two co-workers.
Beau and Jenny deserve to be happy. Let’s get that out of the way first.
Jenny has been to hell and back, and she’s had a relatively troubled romantic past, and Beau is divorced and in a new state surrounded by lovely people he’s getting closer to every day.
And while maybe the love triangle I was considering won’t be a thing, and Cassie will continue to figure things out with Cormac (and perhaps even Mark if he returns one day), we could be setting up for Beau to have his heart pulled in both Jenny and Carla. And let’s be serious; he’s still hung up on Carla.
So, in theory, Jenny deserves better than someone who isn’t going to be all in on her. Plus, they have an excellent partnership right now that works well as it is. We all know that throwing romance into the mix can make things complicated and unmanageable.
But you can’t deny the chemistry, so it’d be foolish to think they won’t be revisiting that super sexy grazing of the hair and face when the series returns.
As for Beau and Carla, there’s a reason their marriage imploded once. And for as shady as he can be, Avery loves Carla, and she loves him as well. If he can avoid the country singers after him, he may stand a chance at getting his family back!
Though, now that Beau has Carla and Emily under the roof of that airstream and ready for a lifetime of George Foreman grilled hamburgers and movie nights, he may not be so willing to let them go a second time.
Odds and Ends
- I, too, would like to be Poppernak’s plus one at a wedding.
- Minus the murder, that wedding looked beautiful!
- The Meredith reveal was a letdown because, for some reason, I had this idea she would end up playing a much bigger role or be a much bigger mystery. Ultimately, she just changed her name and got married, and that was that. Cool.
- Buck isn’t going to touch Cassie. I don’t care how that hour ended! He wouldn’t dare!
- I miss Mark Lindor, and I’m not afraid to admit it!
- There are a lot of loose threads still dangling out there, including but not limited to: who killed Luke, what Cormac did with Emily’s knife, where Gigi has been, and the identity of the bleeding hearts killer.
- Sunny couldn’t have found a better hiding spot for Paige?
- My one wish before this season ends? Give me REBA, Jensen, Darius, and Lyle in one season together. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense for them to all cross paths at the same time. I would like to see it.
So many things to consider as we move into the back half of this rejuvenated Big Sky Season 3, so please get into the comments section and let me know what you’re looking forward to seeing when the show returns.
And also, let me know your thoughts on the season thus far!
You can watch Big Sky online via TV Fanatic anytime your heart desires, so you don’t miss a second of the action!
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.