‘Big Sky: Deadly Trails’ Recap: ‘Do You Love An Apple”

Written by Emily Auskaps

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season three/revival premiere of ‘Big Sky: Deadly Trails’. To revisit the season two finale, click here.
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This season of Big Sky: Deadly Trails wasted no time reminding us that this version of Helena, Montana and its surroundings are a brutal and violent place. No sooner do we meet a young male hiker, than we witness him being chased off a rocky cliff by a wild-eyed man with a knife to the tune of “Do You Love an Apple” playing on an ancient cassette recorder.
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The hiker’s family report him missing after he fails to make his regular phone call home and have enlisted the help of Dewell and Hoyt. At Denise’s suggestion, Cassie takes the flyer with the man’s photo and description out to see Sunny Barnes.

Sunny Barnes is an upbeat and enigmatic woman who is clearly the one in charge of her family’s glamping set up. Already familiar with Jenny, she introduces Cassie to her son, Cormac, and promises Cassie that she will keep an eye out for the missing man while out and about around the camp.
Satisfied that her preparations are complete, Sunny and her husband Buck greet the newly arriving guests to their campground. A diverse bunch, the first to be greeted are a teenage girl named Emily and her stepfather, Avery. Sunny kindly informs her the best cell reception is by the fire pit. Sunny next attempts to diffuse the situation between a bickering young couple, Paige and Luke, who are traveling to celebrate his birthday. Luke obviously preferred Cancun to camping for his birthday, but Sunny assures him he’ll come to love it, for this is paradise.

Meanwhile, Beau and Jenny are kept busy when they discover the man, they found jogging down the road in nothing, but his underpants and socks is a corrections officer whose uniform, gun and vehicle were taken by a female inmate in his custody. He initially claims that she overpowered him but is forced to admit she instead pretended to seduce him, punched him in the throat and relieved him of all his belongings save the skivvies and his badge.

They learn this woman, Faith, became desperate to escape after the girl that she raised as her own, Maddy, wrote to her in jail. Calling her Mommy in the letter, Maddy wrote she was being taken to Ireland by her aunt and uncle. Her father had gone to jail and lost custody of her. It is Faith’s love for Maddy that gives Jenny and Beau the leverage they need to talk the woman out of any further violence. They give them a moment to embrace one another before they are forced to return Faith to jail for life.

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Tonya and Donno have stuck around. Donno is cooking behind the counter of the newly rebranded Blue Fox Diner and is still as awkward as ever. Tonya has reinvented herself as legitimate businesswoman, selling real estate, including Cassie’s late father’s beloved ranch. Cassie visits Tonya in the diner to inform that she’d like to buy the ranch. Tonya condescends Cassie that the ranch is well out her price range and there are plenty of cash offers. Cassie fires back that Tonya is duty bound as licensed real estate agent to make the disclosures about the property like the drug lab and murders that occurred, which Tonya clearly has not done. It’s clear that it’s in Tonya’s best interest to seriously consider Cassie’s offer to buy the ranch.
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Evening has fallen on the camp when Sunny approaches Paige and asks her to go find Luke so he can join them for all the activities. Paige finds Luke well outside of camp, playing a game on his phone. She joins him on the rock where he’s sitting and teases him that he’d best change his attitude, or he risks missing out on the birthday surprise she has planned for him. As Paige whispers into Luke’s ear, “Do You Love an Apple?” abruptly begins to play. She’s startled, but he brushes it off and draws her close to kiss her. Just then, blood begins to drip on her face, and she screams.

Sunny and Buck show Paige the carcass of a dead coyote, and explain her experience away as simply being part of nature, but she is not reassured in the least. She begs Luke to leave the camp, immediately. Much to her shock, Luke is suddenly enthusiastic to stay, he now finds it exciting. With extreme reluctance, Paige agrees to stay.

Cassie is taken aback when Tonya agrees to her offer on the ranch after nothing more than a comment that it was lower than the other offers. Cassie wants to know the catch; Tonya says there isn’t one. Seeming satisfied, Cassie shakes hands with Tonya as Donno looks on.

Jenny arrives to join Cassie and Beau at his trailer for a movie night. Finding he will be outvoted; he steps away to call his daughter while they decide on a movie. As Beau listens to the ring tone, we learn that his daughter is Emily, the girl attending Sunny’s camp with her stepdad. She ignores the calls and instead sends Beau a text that they’ll talk later. Cassie and Jenny can tell Beau is upset about missing time with his daughter and are surprised to learn she’s staying at Sunny’s camp, though they do their best to reassure him.

At camp, Sunny is alone by the campfire after everyone has gone to bed. She burns the flyer Cassie had given about the missing hiker and makes a pair of s'mores. First humming, the singing “Do You Love an Apple?” she walks out into the trees to bring her other son a snack.

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