‘Big Sky’ Season 2 Episode 11 Recap: What About Bob?

Last week’s Big Sky ended with Max and her mother Rachel disappearing after someone ransacked their house, while at the same time, Cassie and Lindor discovered Wolf, who had been left for dead in his home by Ronald Pergman.

This week’s, Wolf finally opens up to Cassie and Lindor: he wasn’t colluding with Ronald, he was trying to fix him. Wolf explains that he struck a deal with the trafficking syndicate to have them turn Ronald over to him… but that’s pretty much all the info he’s gonna give up to Cassie right now. If she wants more help from him in the search for Ronald, he wants two things: immunity, and help burying Agatha. Wolf makes good on that, after he buries and awkwardly eulogizes Aggie as Cassie and Lindor look on, he reveals that he microchipped Ronald so that he can be tracked. Off they go to find him.

Ronald is… not doing great. Profusely bleeding from his wounds and feverish, the ghost of Rick Legarski comes to him in a dream, telling him that Ronald will be joining him soon. Scarlet desperately wants to get Ronald to a doctor, and devises a plan to get him the medical help he needs.

At Ren’s deluxe Airbnb rental, she plays piano for her father, Verr, and his wife Alicia. As her father berates her for her vibrato, Travis shows up to introduce himself to Verr as the new head of distribution for their drug operation, and Verr’s Spidey senses tingle that he knows Travis from somewhere.

Among the many ways this show asks us to suspend out disbelief, the biggest one for me is the way Jenny and Travis, who are both supposed to be as discreet and undercover as possible, manage to meet so often in so many obvious places to trade information. Travis is (rightfully) shocked when she shows up at the Bhuller’s because she thinks they have something to do with Max and Rachel’s disappearance, and Jenny and Travis literally have a yelling match in the driveway, despite the fact that Ren’s whole family is inside and, oh right, remember how Travis is undercover? No one seems to care though, and Travis admits to Jenny that he used the information she gave him – that T-Lock has all the money – to save his own ass when Dietrich was threatening to kill him. Jenny’s mad but it makes her realize that Dietrich is probably the one who kidnapped Max. During their conversation, Jenny asks Travis what actually happened to his former partner who was killed, it seems a random thing to bring up, and Travis refuses to get into it, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this partner’s connection (to the Bhullers, I assume) soon enough.

Over in an undisclosed basement somewhere, Max and Rachel are zip-tied to chairs and forced to watch Leave It To Beaver by Dietrich’s sole-surviving lackey, Bob. He tells them that they’re stuck there until T-Lock shows up with his money. Where is T-Lock anyway? Making bad decisions as always. This bonehead went and bought himself a new car with the bag of money he stole, and arrives at his sister’s doorstep asking to crash. Once a moocher, always a moocher, first he was living at Rachel and Max’s and now this. The difference now is that he has stacks of cash and offers to pay his sister Anita back for past debts, so she reluctantly lets him in.

Anita discovers T-Lock’s stash of cash and is like, where’s all this money from? But at the same moment, he receives a text from Bob on his burner phone with a picture of Rachel, basically saying “Gimme the money or the girl gets it.” (It shouldn’t be this easy for your blackmailer to just text you a photo of your girlfriend that he’s kidnapped to your burner phone, should it?)

When Jenny and Travis go talk to Dietrich about kidnapping Max and Rachel, he claims innocence, suggesting that it was Bob who’s responsible. Dietrich hires Bob to clean up his messes, see, but in this case, maybe Bob went rogue. Dietrich confronts Bob for making this situation even more of a mess, and Bob not only berates Dietrich for now working with the cops, but he threatens him, telling him, “I don’t take orders from people I don’t respect.” Bob appears to be working for himself now, because that’s certainly not how you treat a man you want to keep you on the payroll.

Ren, Verr, Jag, and Alicia go to dinner at a nice local steakhouse, and while they’re there, Verr encourages Jag to let Ren in on his big plans for expanding their operations into Helena. You’ll recall, this was Ren’s idea and she’s been working with Tanya to set up a base there, but last week, Jag told his father about the idea, taking credit for it. When Jag tells Ren “his” new idea, she grills him on the specifics and he fumbles. She then lays out her entire plan, keeping her cool and showing everyone who the brains of this operation really are.

At their home the next day, Verr compliments Ren on the idea, claiming that he knew it was hers all along. Still, he’s frustrated that she was sent to Montana to retrieve the bags of drugs and cash, and she still hasn’t succeeded at that, hence, she is not ready to lead the enterprise she came up with. Verr tells her Jag will instead. It’s a blow to Ren’s pride, made even worse when he adds that he plans to vet her new hire Travis, which methinks will turn up some interesting information. (Like how Travis Stone is his REAL NAME and also he is an undercover cop? Maybe?)

Jenny learns from Max’s friend Harper that T-Lock might be at his sister’s house. Over at Anita’s, T-Lock’s conscience starts to get the better of him and he tells his sister he wants to turn the money in to the police. She (poorly) advises him to keep the money and make a fresh start for himself instead. I mean, sure, the life of his girlfriend and her child are at stake, but okay, Anita. Just when you thought the sister living in the ‘burbs would be the voice of reason, right? So then Anita is like, “Fine, you wanna turn in the money and go to jail, be my guest,” and then this lady actually makes a grab for the cash herself! The nerve. Before T-Lock can do anything else, Jenny shows up at his sister’s house and drags him to the police station, and he’s all, “Guys! I was just about to come see you and turn this money in!” and he heads to the station with them.

Now that Travis knows that Max and Rachel are being held captive as bait for T-Lock, he tells Ren that if she can help find the two women, they’ll lead her to T-Lock and thus, her missing bag of money. It’s an interesting idea, one that will solve one of Ren’s big problems with her father, but she tells him she can’t help. She suggests that if he finds them on his own and ultimately finds the money, he’ll have no problem getting into Verr’s good graces. And then, Ren and Travis, two of the better looking people I’ve ever seen, hover sexily in each other’s faces, before she tells him, “You know if I kiss you, I’d have to kill you, right? Might be worth it.” But… what about Jenny?! But also, kiss, kiss, you sexy people! Travis has a hard road ahead: do I choose the girl with the strong concert tee-shirt game, or the one with the oversized cardigans?

Max has devised a plan to break out of her zip-ties, so she drags herself to a workbench in the basement where she’s being held, and cuts herself free with a knife that was casually left out for her convenience. She grunts loudly as she cuts the ties, and then as she approaches her mother to free her too, she literally throws a TV tray out of the way, calling attention to what they’re doing. She doesn’t get a chance to free her mother because Bob comes downstairs, and in a struggle with Max, he knocks her out.

Scarlet, meanwhile, has a crafty plan to save Ronald in a discreet way. She drives to a hospital, and then follows a doctor home (to a house that has to be in the most remote location ever), and begs the doctor for help. When he tells them to just go to the emergency room, she pulls a gun on him, telling him, “You fix him, right here, right now!” It’s a clever way to stay off the grid, but what she doesn’t know is that Wolf, Cassie, and Lindor have tracked Ronald and they know just where he is. And they have big plans for him.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.