Whenever there is a new drama that hits this sort of niche, and by ‘niche’, I mean one that’s not a procedural drama set in a hospital, police or fire station. Therefore, you can imagine how interested I was when I heard about Big Sky, and how that interest peaked when I realised that David E. Kelley, behind recent delights such as Big Little Lies, was involved in producing. Big Sky does not hold up to the standard set by Big Little Lies, but hey, it’s a network drama, often tasked with longer seasons (in the case of Big Sky’s first, 19 episodes vs. Big Little Lies with only 6). However, Kelley knows how to create vivid, unique and interesting characters with crisp clear points of view, and he is no stranger to the demands of network television, so I knew he should be up to the task.
It’s a mixed bag, and interestingly, not in the ways I was expecting it to be. Often with dramas with a mystery/thriller element at its core, common criticisms relate to the dragging out of the plot, the sprinkling of clues being too few and far between, or even the mystery itself growing stale. After watching the first 9 episodes (the first part of Season 1), this is clearly not the case here. The pacing of the central storyline, the kidnapping of three young girls by Rick, a crooked mountain cop and Ryan, a sheltered perverted truck-driver is brisk and sharp, with plenty of twists and turns to boot.
However, to up the pace of the story other sacrifices have been made. In this case of Big Sky, the core protagonists characters are the victims. It’s exactly the sacrifice in a network drama, produced by the same person whose strength is enduring characters, that the show cannot make if it wants to secure longevity. Yet, nine episodes in, the two protagonists Jenny and Cassie, an ex-cop and a private detective respectively, are still nothing but empty vessels that exist purely to push the plot forward.
It’s outstanding how little attention is paid to showing us who these characters are, what drives them, what trips them up, and how they relate to the world they live in. What’s worse, it seems like no attempt has been made to differentiate them. The only attempt to show us who they both are relates to the fact that Cassie has been hooking up with Jenny’s husband, or separated husband (the show doesn’t really bother to classify or explore the relationship), but they both react to the conflict in exactly the same ways. In a particularly misguided scene in the show’s first episode, the two come to blows in a bar over this guy (who, by the way, is immediately killed at the closer of episode 1, effectively killing the story dead in its tracks). But they don’t just come to blows, they physically fight, throwing punches and brawling in the middle of a public bar. The fight is so choreographed, and the punches thrown so intense, that any sort of subtlety that they are anything other than headstrong women is thrown out of the window.
One of the beautiful things about procedural television, or television where something extraordinary happens in an ordinary environment, is that the crime, or mystery, or central conceit, is intrinsically linked to a protagonist's own character, own goals, own fears or desires. The plot should unfold as the characters do, with the audience seeing the onion peeled away to reveal who they really are. I cannot state strongly enough how this absolutely, categorically did not happen. There was clearly no interest in exploring who these people are. It’s a rookie mistake, and one that ultimately hurts the heart of the show.
And let’s talk about the heart of the show, or more accurately, the lack of it. There are numerous reasons to feel slightly uncomfortable at some of the choices the show makes, but I’ll start with the portrayal of the show’s villains, and oh boy, there are a lot of them. If you’re wondering how on earth the producers, David E. Kelley in particular, fails to characterize their protagonists in any meaningful way, it’s because every single morsel of effort is thrown into showing us who the villains are. This is ultimately successful. Rick and Ryan are drawn superbly, and time is taken to show us their desires, fears, strengths and weaknesses, and in classic David E. Kelley fashion, their underlying human quirks that show us who they are. What makes the piece a bit uncomfortable however, is that these characters are beyond saving. They are vile, worthless human beings who kidnap teenagers and sell them into sex-trafficking. There is no redeeming them, yet great pains are taken to show their personal relationships in isolation with the broader landscape of the show. Rick’s strained relationship with his wife, and Ryan’s sheltered and twisted relationship with his mother are portrayed brilliantly in siloes, despite the look-how-quriky-and-unique-these-people-are vibes. At some points, you could almost think you hear the show telling you to feel sympathy for them, to relate and to understand them. Now, I’m all for three-dimensional characters, and shades of grey, but the crimes depicted here are so categorically evil, that the care taken with the portrayal here seems mildly inappropriate.
The crimes both Rick and Ryan commit in the first nine episodes are in no way sugar-coated. In fact, the show takes great delight in showing us just how gruesome these two can be. Only three or four episodes in, when one of the teenagers (the classic younger-but-brighter teenager) escapes, Rick doesn’t just catch up to her and restrain her, he shoots her, twice, in the leg, with a bow and arrow, while she is running away from him. We watch her squirm and topple over, as the close-ups show that both arrows have penetrated all the way through the leg. Meanwhile, Ryan could have been portrayed in a way in which his sheltered existence, and abuse from his mother, causes him to be passive in the crimes committed, and ultimately gives him pause or at least, reservation, to the part he plays. But no, there is no moment of hesitation, no real attempt to dissuade Rick from their attempts to sell them off to the highest bidder, and no remorse felt.
As for the kidnapping plot itself, it’s clear that great care has been made to ensure a brisk pace complete with twists and turns, and by all means it is at least initially successful, but it’s also extremely necessary. If the plot was any slower, or any less shocking, the show would be without a pulse. The wonderful thing about shows with similar concepts, let’s take Desperate Housewives as an example, is that the housewives always came first. Yes the mystery of each season took 22 episodes to play out, but they could pretty much get away with it because the four women were so unique, so well-defined and we simply loved spending time in their company. In the case of Big Sky, if they had slowed the plot down, they would have had more time to explore the world they created, the characters fighting for justice, and let us fall in love with them. As it stands, there is absolutely no time for us to do that (not that they even tried). Only one episode even marginally stepped closer towards showing us these characters, and, not coincidentally, it was the episode where the central story took a breather, and we spent time at a wake.
Unfortunately, even the kidnapping plot, the hook of the show, starts to unreveal pretty much the moment the girls are rescued. To sustain the plot, the tone takes a sharp veer into soap-opera territory. Rick is shot in the head, survives and then either has or pretends to have memory loss. The show doesn’t really even bother to clarify what it eventually was, because by that point the gruesome death by his mistreated wife becomes more appealing, a move that comes on the heels of about 3 other deaths within the space of 20 minutes, and therefore loses all shock-value, as you realise that they are just jettisoning the plot and the characters to reset the show. Don’t think Ryan gets off any easier either, as he kidnaps yet another child for almost literally no reason and murders his mother, a priest, before evading capture and escaping town. When, in the final episode, the big set piece revolves around a car chase between the protagonists and a self-driving Tesla, being driven by a dead priest with a bound child in the passenger seat, you sigh at just how far the plot has completely unrevealed.
Upon reflection, it becomes even mind-boggling that time was sacrificed on the development of the characters integral to this plot when you realise in the last few episodes that half of these characters aren’t even here to stay. Rick is murdered by his wife in the ninth episode, basically terminating both characters, and Ryan murders his mother, It’s again, quite an astonishing oversight. Why create characters so undeniably evil, yet spend so much time on providing them with a stage to shine on?
It would be amiss to talk about the kidnapping plot without exploring the three characters at the center of it, privileged white teenagers Danielle (pretty but dumb) and Grace (younger and smarter), and Jerrie, a transfeminine sex-worker. Again, the perspectives between all three, their lives, and how they ended up kidnapped is rife for exploration, and to the show’s credit, they attempt to characterise all three and explore broad themes that set them apart. However, they could have gone deeper. There were opportunities for them to do so, in particular the earlier episodes, but the moments are sacrificed for more twists that go nowhere (Grace, escapes, is shot with the bow and arrow, and returned within one episode, having learned nothing and essentially rendering it meaningless). The parents are not even featured, so you cannot even tie the kidnapping to an emotional core, or relate to the pain it must be for the people that love you. Part of the issue with our protagonists can be tied to the very fact that they have no emotional connection to this case, other than of course, that kidnapping is a horrible thing no matter who it happens to. The husband’s death appears to be the show's weak last-minute attempt to connect the case to something personal, but because it doesn’t relate to the bones of the story, it fails on all counts.
Instead, precious time is spent watching girls bond in their own silo, often in the form of signing. The show has a few obligatory conversations referencing Jerrie and their identity, but it feels like it’s ticking the box, as nothing really comes out of those conversations that drive the plot or the characters forward. The singing is symptomatic of another issue that goes to the core of the show, and it’s one of tone. The pilot paints a picture of quirky town living, which, although characters and plots are clumsily introduced, it’s something you see growth and potential in. Once the horrors of the central story take ahold, the tone shifts into something far more grim. In episode two and onwards, the shifts in tone are wild and inconsistent, flirting with comedy-drama, pure thriller/horror, some gore, small-town quirks, and oh, of course, some singing (to give us some Nashville vibes) to boot. It’s one thing to have a fluid show capable of taking on multiple genres, but that’s not what’s happening here. Genre and style are key to the telling of a story to capture it in its best light, but here, tone-shifts can happen mid-episode, mid-act, mid-scene and back again, with no rhyme or reason to it. As a new show, I can give some leeway to it, as tone does often take time to be optimised to best bring out the show, but until then, at least try to stick to one, please.
As the plot winds down, and characters are written out or driven away, what are we left with? Well, we’re left with Jenny and Cassie, and because they’ve been so marginalised, who cares? They’ve pretty much taken nothing away from their ordeal, but are in prime position, working side-by-side as private detectives, to be front and center of whatever the next flashy, plot-driven central story is thrown their way. Until then, we’re left with a hollow show, where the audience really has no desire to follow Jenny and Cassie into their next battle. When the new plot is introduced, the show will have to do all of the heavy lifting from scratch, creating a new story, mystery and populating it with quirky characters for our protagonists to likely bounce between, just like soulless pinballs in a bright and flashy arcade machine.
