Big Sky Season 3 Finale Recap: The Buck Stops Here — Plus, Grade It!
Big Sky came to the end of its Deadly Trails in Wednesday’s Season 3 finale — was the Bleeding Heart Killer brought to justice?
Read on for the highlights of “That Old Feeling.” And when you’re done, make sure to let us know what you thought about the episode and the season!
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BUCK WILD | Buck stops at a bar, looking for a new ride, then kills a man who hears Emily and Denise screaming in the truck and tries to help. Around the same time, Carla shows up at the bar where Avery was killed; Beau says that Buck has their daughter, but he promises to bring her home. And when Jenny gets a lead on Buck’s activities at the roadside bar, Beau calls Cassie and recruits her for the hunt.
Walter arrieves at Sunny’s house and suggests that they kill Buck. But she tells him she has a plan, and she slips past Deputy Poppernak in order to confront her husband. Jenny and Beau intercept her, however, and bring her to the station for questioning. “We found Buck’s bunker. He is the Bleeding Heart Killer,” Beau tells her. “I know,” she whispers. She says Buck asked for help escaping, but she had no interest in that; when they found her, she was on her way to talk him into turning himself in, she claims.
So Beau and Jenny — with Sunny in the backseat — meet up with Buck in a shady looking abandoned building. When the short meeting is over, Buck is leaving with Sunny, with the loose promise to call with the captives’ location when he’s a considerable distance away. Beau fumes and is thisclose to losing it, but what other option does he have?
In the car, Buck has Sunny ditch the tracker that the sheriff’s office gave her. He spouts some blather about how he just wants them “to be us again.” He asks if she can ever forgive him. “If you do the right thing and give those women back, I’ll consider it,” she answers. He protests, but then has her call Beau and give him the coordinates to the ladies’ location. Then he has her toss her phone out the window. When Jenny, Beau and some of the sheriff’s deptuies get to the location Buck gave them, it’s a trap: The trailer is rigged with explosives, and it detonates as they approach. The good news? The only body inside is the guy Buck killed at the bar.
SUNNY TAKES ACTION | Elsewhere, Sunny has Buck bring her to the spot where he asked her to marry him, then she reminds him that he broke the promise he made to her years ago. “I gave you everything, and I thought I knew what kind of a man you were, but I was wrong,” she says. He vows to change. He apologizes. But she’s not interested.
She pulls him close and kisses him, then announces “That was my goodbye kiss.” Walter approaches with a knife, and they fight. Buck gets a huge rock and smashes Walter’s face in, then Beau takes a leap at Buck and they go tumbling down an embankment. After a scuffle with yet another knife that Buck had hidden in his boot, Beau nearly strangles him as he demands to know where Emily is. The only thing that stops him from killing the man is Jenny’s timely arrival; she pulls the sheriff off the old man.
But Sunny has HAD ENOUGH. She points a gun at Buck and kills him. Jenny swiftly moves in to handcuff her while Beau looks numb as he realizes their last link to Emily’s location is gone.
CORMAC WITH THE KEY DETAIL | A detail in security footage from the bar’s parking lot reveals that Buck’s got a distinctive key ring with him; Cormac recognizes it as the one used to open the gate to land they used to hunt on. So Cormac leads Cassie to his father’s hunting grounds. They’re in a cabin on the grounds when she gets the call from Jenny, and breaks the news of Buck’s death to Cormac. He recalls that there’s an old mine shaft on the property, and that’s where the duo find Denise and Emily, freaked out but all right. Beau is on the scene as soon as he can be, and Emily runs into his embrace while Jenny hugs Denise.
Back at the station, Sunny is arrested. We learn that Walter will live, and that he won’t be in very bad legal trouble when he recovers. Sunny asks Jenny and Cassie to look after her boys, and makes it clear that she’s not sorry for what she did: “Some bills you’ve just gotta pay yourself no matter what the cost.” Later, before Cormac goes to sit by Walter’s hospital bed, Cassie kisses him.
HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU | Donno is alive (!), albeit in slightly rough shape. Tonya brings him to the diner, offers to make him grilled cheese and gives him a stuffed animal white horse named Gandalf. She apologizes for getting greedy and not listening to him. He ignores that, pointing out that she kissed him when she thought he was going to die. “I felt something… it was like my first time at Tim Horton’s, maple glazed and then Bavarian cream,” he says in awe. She whispers that the money that everyone was chasing all season is theirs now, then takes his hand, saying, “We make a good team.”
That night, Beau swings by Jenny’s, and she invites him in for a beer. He reports that Carla and Emily are moving back to Houston, but he’s not sure what his plans are. He thanks her “for everything,” he puts his hand on her knee, and she holds his hand and looks at him fondly.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the finale? Grade it — and the season on the whole — via the polls below, then hit the comments: Would you like to see Big Sky get renewed for Season 4?
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