WARNING! Spoilers ahead for the winter finale of Big Sky! Back away now unless you're already caught up!
Viewers who've been tuning in to ABC's hit detective drama Big Sky have been hooked basically from the jump. The series has delivered a number of shocking twists, beginning with the death of a major character in the series opener. The recent winter finale kept that daring tradition going, by appearing to actually kill off another big character: Montana state trooper Rick Legarski. Now, Legarski's portrayer, John Carroll Lynch, is opening up about what this unexpected winter finale death could mean for the rest of Season 1.
Fans of Big Sky weren't left in the dark for long when it came to the case of the missing women, as we were quickly shown that Legarski was the brains behind the kidnappings, having enlisted the help of trucker Ronald Pergman to take women for a sex trafficking ring. Of course, at the end of the premiere, we also saw Legarski shoot and kill one of the lead investigators on the case, and now it seems that he's gotten the ultimate comeuppance for all of his crimes.
Cassie and Jenny finally put the pieces together, leading Cassie to a standoff with Legarski and her shooting him right in the head. When asked by Entertainment Tonight how Legarski's death is going to impact the rest of the season, Lynch said:
There are a lot of ways it could go. How is she going to [get around this]? He's certainly setting up, in his argument, things that could be really dangerous and damaging for her after shooting him. Was it a justified shooting or not? That's a question I think people can ask. Certainly from the audience's point of view, it was, but from an evidentiary point of view, was it? She could be in a lot of trouble.
Now, assuming that this whole Legarski death isn't a fakeout, a la him beating his wife to death earlier in the season, you're likely wondering why Cassie would face any blowback at all for killing him. While Jerrie, Danielle, and Grace will all be able to confirm that Legarski was one of their kidnappers, the fact remains that, even though he spent a good amount of time taunting Cassie and had his gun in his hand, he wasn't actually pointing it at her or any of the kidnapped women. Though, I would like to imagine that everyone in the room will be able to agree to a tiny lie to make sure that the shoot looks clean.
John Carroll Lynch seems to be implying that Legarski wasn't just blowing smoke with his threats to Cassie, and that there really are some kind of measures in place to see that she won't get out of shooting him easily, despite finding him in the midst of an active kidnapping. There's also the not-so-little matter of Legarski's partner in crime, Ronald, who was nowhere near the scene of the crime when Cassie found where they'd been hiding the women. According to Lynch:
You'll see the impact of the character throughout the season. They catch Rick red-handed but they don't necessarily catch Ronald red-handed. The question is, since there is no honor among thieves, how much can people trade off one to the other if there's any circumstance to do that? One of the things I love about the show is how it keeps everybody guessing about what the allegiances are, and since anything is possible and anyone can die, it really creates a circumstance in which you just don't know what's next. That's why it's such good TV -- you want to find out what happens next and you want to see characters like Rick Legarski get their just desserts, and this was dessert.
This makes you super nervous, right? Lynch mentions the "allegiances" of all the characters, and I can't help but think that this means that someone we've been trusting this whole time is actually involved in the sex trafficking ring. At any rate, there's no way that Legarski and Ronald are at the top of this operation, so it's not impossible that an even bigger Big Bad will show up to cause a lot of trouble for Cassie, Jenny and anyone else who tries to help them.
As for everyone who's, at least, overjoyed that this will be the last we see of Legarski, though...well, not so fast:
I will be appearing in other episodes, in what fashion will be fun to find out.
Oh, come on! Well, I suppose this means we'll just have to keep watching Big Sky to see what else the show has in store, especially with regards to evil Legarski. The series will be back with its midseason premiere on Tuesday, January 26, at 10 p.m. EST, but for more on what to watch in the new year check out our guide to all of the winter / spring debuts!
