Big Sky showrunner teases Jensen Ackles and Reba McEntire in season 3 glamping mystery

Big Sky showrunner teases Jensen Ackles and Reba McEntire in season 3 glamping mystery
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Big Sky is back... this time with Reba McEntire and Jensen Ackles.

As fall TV season kicks into high gear, it's time to return to Helena, Montana, and the private investigator offices of Dewell and Hoyt. ABC's Big Sky officially launches its third season on Wednesday night at 10 p.m., and they've got a doozy of a new central mystery with some flashy, fresh series regulars as well.

Now retitled Big Sky: Deadly Trails, season 3 follows cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick), temporary sheriff Beau Arlen (Ackles), and private investigator Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) as they delve into a host of new mysteries, including the case of a missing backpacker.

In the midst of their investigation, they encounter Sunny Barnes (McEntire), the head of a family backcountry outfitter business who seems to have a suspicious number of connections to missing persons cases.

Ahead of the show's return, we called up showrunner Elwood Reid to get all the (hiking trail) dirt on what to expect when things turn deadly in the Montana wilderness.

Big Sky: Deadly Trails
Big Sky: Deadly Trails

ABC/Michael Moriatis

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Could you start by teasing the new central mystery of season 3?

ELWOOD REID: There's a glamping outfit in Montana that is run by Sunny Barnes and Buck Barnes [Rex Linn]. In this family-run glamping outfit, a bunch of guests come up missing. We begin to realize, as the season progresses, that the Barnes family has a lot of secrets. They may or may not have something to do with some of these disappearances, and in true Big Sky fashion, the people that disappear also have some secrets and may not stay disappeared. This season we are also doing little runner mysteries, case-of-the-week formatting, in addition to our big mystery. One of the biggest reasons we're doing that is we've Jensen Ackles. He's an amazing asset and we wanted him and Jenny Hoyt to get out there and be solving cases the week of, and also, get involved in a big mystery for the season.

You've got these two big new stars this season — Reba McEntire and Jensen Ackles. How did both of those casting decisions come about?

Jensen is one of those guys that I've always wanted to work with. He's one of those guys that I've always loved. He's someone my daughter and my wife likes, and a lot of guys like. There's not a lot of people out there that tick all those boxes. And I'd heard nothing but raving from people who worked with him — what an amazing guy he was, what a professional he was. Mutual friends put us in touch. He's from Texas. So, I pitched this Texas-type character that finds himself up in Montana. I can't say enough good things about him. He walks on the set and it changes.

Reba is someone who a lot of us grew up with. I had written a character, and I described her as "Reba McEntire, circa Tremors." I always loved that character. So I called her and pitched her the character. We all have this image of Reba McEntire as being America's sweetheart, country music star. I was very nervous about pitching her this character that goes into some dark places. I was pitching her, and I heard this voice in the background, "Yes, hell yes, you're doing this," and I saw Rex Lin, who's also her boyfriend. He said, "I've been telling her she needs to do this for 10 years." And then Reba stopped and said, "Will you hire my boyfriend Rex?" I know Rex from Better Call Saul and lots of stuff that he's worked on. And I was like, "Well, alright, that's two for one." Working with someone like Reba, you're really nervous. She put me at ease within two seconds. She's a really good person and a hard worker — first to set, knows all of her lines, doesn't leave set, talks to everybody, sings, cracks jokes.

We met Jensen's character, Beau, at the end of season 2, and he left us with more questions than answers. Will we get into why he's retired, and what he was alluding to when he said he's done things he's not proud of?

Yeah. Part of what I like to do with the show is build out their personal life. Jensen's character, we're going to meet his wife, his daughter, and the guy that his wife Mary [is with now], who's a rich guy who is played by Henry Cusick from Lost. We're going to learn more about that. His daughter's up there on the glamping trip too, as the mystery pops off. It's going to pull Beau in personally, and dealing with his wife, we're going to learn why their marriage imploded. Why did she leave him for this other guy? The other big tease for this season is we're going to learn more about Jenny Hoyt's family beyond Cody (Ryan Phillippe) and her son. There's someone from her past that comes up in one of the stories that enters into her life and shakes up her world.

This might just be Jensen and Katheryn and not something you wrote, but they did seem, in spite of this initial rough around the edges meeting, to have some chemistry. Is that something we might see develop further?

It's funny, both of them said the same thing. But I'll say this — Jensen has a lot of chemistry with Kylie too. He's a very charming guy. Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Tonya, she's lobbying, "Can I get with Jensen's character?" Everyone wants to get with Jensen's character, so I've got a lot of takers for romantic leads for Jensen. We're going to play with that idea, and tease it little bit. But one thing you have to be careful with on Big Sky is the minute somebody gets close, they end up getting killed. The actors get very nervous. "If we fall in love and we start having an affair, are you going to kill us off?" We keep everybody honest that way.

You've mentioned that this is a little bit of a darker role for Reba. Can you tease whether she's friend or foe to our heroes?

A little bit of both. What I mean by darker, if you know the mythology of the show, we're not talking Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch), Ronald (Brian Geraghty) darkness. The way I pitched her character is there's a lot of this in Reba herself. She's a mama bear that you don't cross. What's going to be fun is seeing how far she'll go to defend her family. So she's got a little bit of an edge to her, and she's got some darkness to her. But if you squint and you look through the lens of Big Sky, you can justify some of the stuff she's going to be doing. It's Reba; she has that smile and you can't help but like her, even when she's doing some pretty nasty things.

You've also promoted Jamie-Lynn Sigler to series regular this year. Does that mean the Bhullars and her dealings with them aren't over yet, or how will she play into things this season?

She's separating herself from the Bhullars. She's trying to find her way, and we're going to learn that she still has one foot in the criminal world. Also, she's trying to go a little bit legitimate by doing real estate and buying a diner that her and Donno (Ryan O'Nan) work at. Her and Donno are the weird Odd Couple of the show. Much like Reba, Jamie-Lynn is naturally a very sweet person, so it's fun to see her have a bit of an edge and see her do some dark things. Jenny and Cassie don't like her. They feel like they were used by her. She's going to be a little bit of a bete noir throughout the season. Someone that they keep poking into and stumbling into, and they can't figure out what her angle is.

We left things open-ended with Ren (Janina Gavankar) and Jag (Vinny Chhibber) at the end of season 2. Will we see more of them or have they left town?

Well, they left town, but unless I've killed you twice, you can come back. Never say never. Janina and Vinny were amazing, and Janina brought so much to the role. I purposely did not kill them, so anybody can come back. But the focus this season is really on the Reba storyline.

Might we see more of either Scarlet (Anja Savcic) or Jerrie (Jesse James Keitel) this season?

Again, they're not dead. Right now, we have no plans. But I haven't got through the whole season yet. Jerrie is mentioned in the opener the season, and we're always hopeful she can come back into Dewell and Hoyt because she's an amazing addition to the show.

How much might this romance between Mark (Omar Metwally) and Cassie continue to develop?

Mark Lindor is not present when we start the show. There's someone involved in Reba's world that she begins to have a bit of a flirtation with. Last year, we found Cassie in really dark times. Her father was killed. She hunted down Ronald. She was in a bit of a fragile place. And so in discussing with Kylie in the off season, she wanted try to center the character a little bit. It's natural, given everything she's been through, but I don't think she's someone who's going to give her heart immediately to somebody. She gets obsessed with this case of the missing backpacker. That becomes her focus.

At the end of last season, Jenny let Travis (Logan Marshall Green) go to try to find Kate. Will we get any resolution there?

No. We might get a little, but I don't believe so. Right now, given the current mystery with the Reba storyline, our crew has their hands full.

I got the vibe from the way you played it at the end of season 2 that you want to leave it open ended.

That's what's fun about Big Sky, is we can bring characters back. The one character I know all the writers and myself are obsessed with is Scarlet. She's still out there. And in many ways, she was even more terrifying than Ronald. But as long as you're not dead on our show, you can always come back.

If you had to sum up season 3 in three words, what would you say?

Glamping. Murder. Family.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Big Sky: Deadly Trails premieres Sept. 21 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

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