Plus, where there's smoke, there's intrigue when it comes to a former firefighter's death
If this week's Big Sky is to be believed, Walter might not be the bad guy we've all believed him to be all season long. When we open the ep, Sunny's weirdo son is sitting with Beau and Hoyt in the interrogation room, where they have him held on suspicion of Mary and Luke's murders. They don't know who he is—yet—but they're trying to find out, as well as questioning him about Paige's disappearance. He won't say a lick about Mary or Luke but quickly cops to Paige's death, something that should have made Beau at least a little suspicious.
Meanwhile, Cormac and Cassie are dancing it up at the Boot Heel Bar while a pair of cowboys two-step in the background, which is a nice touch. While there's much flirting and a bit of canoodling from Cassie and Cormac, things still feel a little off, especially since Cassie just can't let Buck's fishy story go. Cormac asks her to drop it—or at least table it when they're together—but she can't, and he walks out.
Speaking of Buck, he's cutting down the Sunny Day Excursions sign now that (one would hope) multiple murders have made people not want to come to their property anytime soon. He cuts his hand on a knife and seemingly gets all hot and bothered by the blood, drawing a heart on the signpost and saying something to the effect of "It's been a while for you and me." In TV terms, this is basically a red arrow pointing to him with the words "bleeding heart killer," especially when we find out later in the episode that Walter insists he didn't kill the camper and that any dolls he ever put with dead people were for their "protection" and so they'd have a "friend on the other side."
If Walter's just a sweet kid, was Buck a serial killer this whole time? It feels like that's what the show wants us to think, and frankly, I'm kind of on board. I don't want to think some foster care kid who was treated poorly just naturally becomes a murderer, but rather that with Sunny's love and care, he's been redeemed, in some respect. Then again, Sunny loved and cared for Buck, too, and we see where that's gotten her.
ABC/Michael Moriatis
Speaking of loving creeps, Carla and Avery. When the former comes to get Emily from Beau's camper, she tells him that she and Avery are still trying to work stuff out, though she admits it's hard. Beau's doing his part by landing Emily a summer job at the Dewell and Hoyt Detective Agency, where later in the ep, she comes through with some helpful tips that help Cassie figure out Walter's identity. (Well, some of his identity, at least.)
What we don't learn until later in the episode, though, is that Avery is working for the big bad guy trying to unlock the crypto account and has subsequently put both Carla and Emily in mortal danger. If he can't unlock the account in a certain amount of time, the crime lord tells him he'll "wake up alone," with his wife and step-daughter either gassed or killed "with a thin wire passed through the corner of the eye," which is an image so horrifying it gives me the shivers. Instead of telling Carla she's in danger, though, Avery tries to get her out of town by renting her an Airbnb with llamas, which she's zero percent interested in. He lets her walk out of their house, knowing full well she could end up dead very soon, and he does basically nothing about it other than trying to unlock the account. He's a full-on dirtbag, and I hope Carla and Emily lose him soon, for their own sakes.
ABC/Anna Kooris
Hoyt and Beau are chasing down the killer of a parachutist this week in the Big Sky B-story, so we get to learn a little about smoke jumping, gender reveal parties, and how there are complaints of thefts whenever houses are left empty when fires threaten. (Is that true in real life as well?) The case is pretty cut and dry, but Hoyt and Beau still manage to get in a guns-drawn police chase, a "former suspect wears a wire" situation, and a big drug bust, so chalk one up for Lewis & Clark county's good guys, I suppose.
In terms of very not good guys, Tonya and Donno are visited by Sunny, who tells them she thinks Paige is still alive. They're interested, but not enough to actually do anything about it this episode because Paige ends up showing up behind a singing Sunny at the episode's close. (Reba McEntire's rendition of "Wayfaring Stranger" = A++) Paige tells Sunny she's "got a beautiful voice," which gosh darn right she does, because she's a country legend, and that's where the episode ends. We'll have to see how everything plays out between the two next time, though I'm wondering what Paige really has to hold over Sunny's head other than Walter's existence.
Stray observations:
- It's worth noting here that Sunny and Buck finally "lanced [the] poisonous boil" and told Cormac about Walter. They said it's a secret they've been keeping from him for 20 years, and that Sunny abandoned him at a church when he was just a baby. Walter ended up getting adopted by some bad people who treated him poorly, and Sunny tried to take him back in, presumably as an adult, but she also had to hide him away to protect him? Based on the clippings Cassie finds under the floorboards, I'm wondering if it's because he burned down the house he was living in, killing his nasty adoptive family? So, Walter's not purely blameless in the world, but he's at least not out in the woods killing random strangers.
- Loved Donno's delivery of a veggie burger to a diner customer with the line, "Go ahead, waste your time." Donno gets some of the best one-liners on the show, and Ryan O'Nan, who plays him, always kills with his dry effect. Fun fact: O'Nan has also been credited as a writer on five episodes of the show, so I wonder if he writes his own gags.
