Big Sky Season 3 Episode 12 Review: Are You Mad?
When you’re wrong and know it, you have to stand in your wrongness.
So, I will stand proudly and admit that I was wrong in my review of Big Sky Season 3 Episode 11 because Buck IS Michael Myers. Getting hit upside the head with a mallet multiple times and not only surviving but kidnapping people is something straight out of Halloween 27.
Buck’s survival and that insane shootout were only a few of the twists and turns Big Sky Season 3 Episode 12 had to offer. This was a penultimate feast.
Big Sky does this thing where it makes you want to rip your hair out one second and then leaves you wide-eyed and not breathing the next.
And in an hour like this, you have to start at the end and work your way back.
We all knew we were leading to something happening to Emily because the foreshadowing was all over the place. That’s why it was so frustrating to see her out and about when her stepfather was actively involved with career killers, and her father had just killed one of them.
Emily should have been whisked far, far away from Montana, along with Carla. But no, they were all going about their everyday lives, and I may have screamed at the TV once or twice about it.
Tony and Tex were in all their menacing glory during this hour, and the stage was set for Tony to make his move and kidnap Emily as a means to make Avery cooperate. They’ve been playing this game for a long while. Unless Tony did something or quit, it was going to continue.
Especially once Avery had Donno as his personal bodyguard.
I have conflicting feelings about Avery because, on the one hand, he was not bright. He lied, and he stole, and maybe his business was flailing, and he would be in some big trouble, but he had a family who loved him.
Walter’s been out here living in the woods, eating the occasional smore when his mom has the time for it, longing for a family, and here’s Avery throwing away the perfectly good one he has.
But still, Avery had no way of knowing just how out of hand things would get, and the last thing he wanted was for something to happen to the two people he loved most.
So like I said, it’s complicated with Avery.
Beau’s relationship with Avery, however, isn’t complicated.
Avery: I know you have no reason to trust me, but you have to believe me when I say to you that I want Emily back, too. I want her back!
Beau: Then, man, you better start listening to me. You better start listening to me and doing exactly as I say.
The two just don’t like each other for various reasons. And once Emily goes missing, Buck isn’t able to see past his grief and anger, to the point where things go sideways during the meeting with Avery and Tony (though it’s Avery’s fault,) and Beau doesn’t make a move to go in when he probably should have.
If there was some kind of genuine plan for Avery once he got inside the bar, we missed it because it seemed like he was flying by the seat of his pants, just trying to get Emily back.
But introducing a gun got everyone’s hackles up, and from there, the police probably should have intervened, though we’ll never know whether that would have saved lives or made things better. Beau wanted Emily back. He surely didn’t want a bloodbath, nor did he want to now be the one to tell Carla her husband was dead.
Side note: the shootout was riveting, and it had all the makings of total destruction because they were shooting at each other from such close range.
I’d convinced myself this would be how we lost Tonya and Donno, but Tonya, ever the chameleon, was perfectly fine! However, Donno was hanging on by a thread and in all his leading man glory.
Donno: Do you remember when you stabbed me with that stick?
Tonya: Of course.
Donno: Not killing you was the best thing I ever did.
It’s easy to forget that Tonya and Donno met under horrible circumstances but gravitated toward each other when they realized they could use one another.
But the using turned into something real, or as real as it can be for two very flawed souls, and Donno would have gone and stepped in front of a bullet a hundred times over if it meant keeping Tonya safe.
The writing was on the wall as soon as Tonya proclaimed this was the last thing the duo would do, but Donno was still hanging on, so perhaps this is the start for the couple that was NEVER supposed to be. Like them together or not, you have to admit they probably don’t belong with anyone else.
Back to the action, though, finding out through Tony’s blood-soaked lips that he never even had Emily and Denise was a surprise in the way Big Sky has mastered. It’s why I’m never willing to fully take things at face value on this show.
I sometimes falter and forget that people survive almost ANYTHING in the series, but I tend not to buy things we can’t see.
We never saw Tony take Emily and Denise, so finding out it was Buck wasn’t shocking and gasp-worthy as much as it was like an ‘OH DAMN’ moment.
Buck mustered up all his supervillain strength to kill a random man in the middle of the woods, steal a car, glue up his wounds, and kidnap someone in a few hours. Can mere mortals even bring this man down? Is this a case for The Avengers?
We, as the audience, know that Sunny doesn’t know much about what Buck has been up to lately, but she probably knows more than she’s letting on about the kind of person Buck is.
She did witness him kill someone, but even beyond that, her own son let her know back in the day that Buck was probably involved in some shady business, and she ignored him.
It’s interesting to see where we’ve ended up this season, with Walter, of all people, making a ton of sense as he lambasts the family who shunned him. Predatory Buck lived behind this idea of protecting his family and their proper name from the likes of Walter while he was out being a serial killer.
Sunny and Buck had built this life with Cormac, where they were giving back through their work and pasting on big smiles and genial attitudes, but it was all a facade. They are both troubled individuals, and to act as if they were too “good” to associate with Walter is a joke.
They were clearly projecting onto others, and Walter was right to walk away from Sunny for good. She was never willing to be the person he needed her to be for him until everyone else was gone.
Or so she thought.
Buck probably could have driven Emily and Denise to god knows where and gotten away with whatever his plan was, but he chose to call Sunny first, leaving her with a choice. Does she alert the authorities? Does she confront Buck on her own?
It’s hard to imagine that with Sunny knowing everything, she now knows that she lets Buck walk away, but I must admit, I have no idea what her next move will be. And where does Cormac factor into everything?
Believing Buck was dead, Cormac was more than ready to help fill in the dots on the map to find that bunker, but could that be because he already knew where it was? This Buck memory he conjured up came at an awfully convenient time, didn’t it?
I want to be wrong about Cormac, and I want the season to end with him and Cassie getting a cute little dance under the Montana stars somewhere, but I was literally burned by Big Sky AGAIN, and I’m not willing to look past any surprises this time. Not until the final credits roll.
Odds and Ends
- Did I miss when Walter and Paige were like in love? That “relationship,” or whatever you want to call it, has always confused me, even more so after that hospital scene.
- Paige traveling back to Buck’s house to kill Sunny instead of getting help or disappearing forever was peak comedy. Revenge over all things when it comes to Paige.
- Tex having a conscience and walking away from the bar was an interesting way not to kill Lyle Lovett!
- Tony didn’t think through just shooting Avery on the spot like Tonya and Donno weren’t right there and going to realize they were next.
- This may be a stupid question, and perhaps I’m just forgetting, but was it ever confirmed who killed Luke?
- My finale predictions? Beau rescues Emily and Denise, and then he returns to Texas with his girls and works on being a family again. Donno lives! Poppernak does something heroic and gets his just dues for being the best. Cassie and Jenny share a beer and a laugh after putting the bad guys away for good.
One episode left! Sound the alarm! Big Sky will hopefully tie everything up into a neat little bow very soon, and I need to know all your predictions! How does this fun season end?
Who makes it out alive?
If the series is renewed for another season, what kind of season would you like to see?
Let me know all your thoughts in the comment section, and please watch Big Sky online right now, so you’re prepared for what’s sure to be a wild conclusion!
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
