Nowhere To Run
Episode 2 of Big Sky begins with Ronald and Rick working together to bury the blood-stained evidence they have, courtesy of a big old digger and a large lot of land. On the back of this, Rick berates Ronald for his sloppiness in picking up two well-loved girls by the side of the road. Apparently they only pick up unwanted females with no family and because of that, they’re in the firing line now. Ronald takes this baggage home too, where his overbearing Mother continues to grill into him about being out all night. Just like before, Ron hangs his head and walks back out the way he came. With Cody killed off, Jenny and Cassie come to blows again, specifically over whether Cody was in love with Cass or not. Well, it turns out the girls in the basement have a tracker on their phones, which Grace is quick to remind her sister. Just incase they’re not picked up however, Grace wonders aloud how to exploit Ronald’s loneliness. Cass heads up to the abandoned diner and starts speaking to Rick. The state trooper isn’t exactly subtle and mentions how Cody was acting out of character but there’s multiple holes in his story. His version of events see Cody wander off to the Church while Rick held back. With his retirement coming up, Rick wasn’t prepared to do anything that would break the law. He doesn’t exactly have a good poker face either, and his expression drops when Cass mentions searching the truck stops. When Cass gets in the car, she phones Denise and tells her that Rick was acting weirdly. And Rick does nothing to help his cause when he sits in Cassie’s car and starts talking to her again. Back in the basement, Ronald returns to visit the chained up girls. It turns out he’s doing all this because Danielle called him a loser. When he gets closer to Grace, she grabs his nose and the force of this causes the Momma’s boy to start bleeding. Promising to be back soon, Ronald leaves the truck and walks away again, ignoring a call from his Mother by slamming the mobile down on the counter. When he speaks to Rick, he claims they’re both “noble soldiers” cleaning up the muck from the streets. Well first thing’s first, they need to get the hooker cleaned up as they’re going to sell her off. Thanks to Rick’s constant red flags, Cassie heads back to the office and learns that one of the girls – Jerrie – went missing that very same night. She suspects that Rick is involved and he hasn’t exactly been subtle about this either. Anyway, Jenny strikes lucky by visiting the one petrol station that the attendant recognizes Jerrie from vesting. What are the odds! Anyway, she manages to convince him to view the CCTV footage which could help track down the truck Ronald was driving. Down in the basement, Ronald hears the three girls singing and eventually interjects and tells Jerrie they’re cleaning her up – she’s leaving soon. However, Grace mentions how she took pictures and sent them on to her Uncle and it’s only a matter of time before he’s found out. Ronald is clearly rattled and worried he could be caught… which doesn’t make any sense given he was the one helping to bury the car at the start of the episode. Anyway, Rick soon puts him in his place and reminds our antagonist of this fact, incredulously laughing when he finds out the truth about Jerrie. It turns out when he discovers the truth about Jerrie. It turns out she’s not exactly female. Cassie begins snooping around Rick’s life, specifically his ex-wife’s house to try and figure out if Rick is involved in some way. Rick catches wind of this later on too when she rings him, asking whether he’s been hanging around strip malls again. As the episode closes out, Ronald gets into bed with his Mother…who has a portrait of herself up on the wall behind the bed. Because that’s not creepy at all.
The Episode Review
As the plot thickens, Big Sky’s characters thankfully don’t spew quite as much exposition this time around. Rick and Ronald’s plan now comes into focus too, which involves picking up hookers and presumably selling them on. This still doesn’t explain exactly why Ronald captured these two girls, but given his reaction to the phone messages he’s clearly not of a sane mind. And what of Rick too? This guy might as well have “suspicious” written across his forehead because he wasn’t exactly subtle during his conversation with Cass. I’m not surprised she’s suspected him and this antagonistic presence of dumb and dumber doesn’t exactly strike fear in the heart. The Mummy-issue villain has been done numerous times in this medium too and the lack of depth for some of these characters doesn’t do a lot to help this show stand out next to other more prolific examples – Mr Mercedes for example does a far better job of this. Still, the plot is intriguing enough to stick with. It’s not perfect but it’s certainly a watchable enough thriller.
