‘Big Sky’ Recap: ‘The End Is Near’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Eight of ‘Big Sky’.
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When we last settled in to discuss the fascinating new ABC series, Big Sky, the situation was finally improving. For disgraced Montana State Trooper Rick Legarski was finally in custody and awake and was forced to face his past transgressions and dear Grace was doing a fine job of assembling a case against him. Since she was able to help the police find the fisherman that Rick murdered in cold blood and of course, she took the time to identify Rick as her attacker and one of her captors. Plus, it seemed as though Cassie and Jenny were about to put creepy ol’ Ronald Pergman behind bars since they were at the Legarski home to discuss Ronald’s sketch with Merrilee, whilst Ronald was upstairs trying to steal any evidence that could tie him to these incredible crimes.

But alas, as ‘The End Is Near’ was quick to inform us, that a happy ending isn’t in sight just yet, nor is justice for that matter as well. Because Ronald heard Cassie and Jenny coming and was quick to escape into the night and retreat to his creepy sanctuary on the outskirts of town. Which of course motivated the police and Dewell and Hoyt Private Investigations to press harder on the search for their missing man, and it also motivated them to turn up the heat on The Big Rick. Because as his mental faculties began to slowly reassemble, the prevailing belief was that at long last, he’d start to remember something about his involvement in this whole mess and that would help lead them to Ronald.
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However, despite everyone's best efforts to get him to recall his actions and ID his partner, he simply couldn’t remember a single thing. Which was unfortunate for certain, since it likely meant he wouldn’t face a trial in the slightest, since he wasn’t competent to take the stand. Which prompted Cassie and Jenny to bust into his room at the hospital in both a stealthy and direct manner, respectively. All in the hopes that their faces or their emotions would finally get him to snap out of his fog and prove to the world that the past was still embedded somewhere within his damaged brain. But nothing worked, making it seem as though Rick would indeed evade the long-standing sentence that he deserved and sadly the sour nature of that, was only amplified further by Ronald’s journey in this tale.

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Because not being able to capture him at the Legarski home led to outright disaster. For Ronald now felt empowered and invincible, and since he no longer had to worry about Rick coming down on him or his mother lecturing him… he basically felt as though he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and that led to the kidnapping of the local paperboy when the young man (named Erik) realized that Ronald’s face matched the sketch in the paper. And in true Ronald fashion, he was quick to lock Erik up in a specially designed cage in the basement, all so that he could enjoy raw and unrestrained power over someone else once again and what that alone is pretty darn awful and disastrous, this particular act only empowered Ronald further and motivated him to take his fury to the Nth degree when another opportunity to exert power presented itself.
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For the local priest in Helena was toyed with, when he stopped by to check in on the Pergman family and he was eventually murdered, when he discovered the house of horrors in the Pergman basement and well, at this point… Ronald has transformed into quite the monster. Because he’s got quite the taste for murder now, and he’s reveling in the raw power that it gives him. And he’s also enjoying the fear that he’s generating from Erik and it’s inherently obvious now, that young Erik is in serious danger. Because this time round, there’s no way in hell that Ronald is going to exercise caution in this matter, nor will he be methodical in the slightest, and that brings forth a new race against time, to save another innocent life.

In the end, this was quite the intense and frustrating tale and that is a compliment for certain. For we really did think that swift justice was coming, but instead we are left with more chaos and more incredible twists and turns, and this episode deserves serious credit for taking the plot in this wild and unsettling direction after joy and resolution started to settle in. But what matters more, is that the ending of this story did a wonderful job of setting up a bold new segment. One where our heroes are going to have to work fast and hard to save to a life, and where it seems that old Rick Legarski might be hiding in the recesses of a twisted brain after all, as evidenced by the return of an old habit and it should be quite interesting to see where these new plot twists are going to take us, in the weeks to come. Until next time.

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