Kylie Bunbury stars as private detective Cassie Dewell
Credit: Darko Sikman
Having charmed us with The Mandalorian’s Baby Yoda and given us more Mickey Mouse content than we could shake a set of giant plastic rodent ears at, for its next trick Disney+ is serving up a heart-warming tale of sex-trafficking, feuding lovers and corrupt cops.
Big Sky is obviously a teeny bit of a departure for a streaming service that has to date marketed itself as the home of wholesome family fare. As if to underscore that point an otherwise cliché-devilled and predictable opening episode concludes with a jaw-dropping twist straight out of Game of Thrones (though unlike GoT it doesn’t go so far as to push any children out of windows – it’s still Disney after all).
Last modified on Tue 23 Feb 2021 11.08 EST
âYou were the one who said donât get attached, that you keep your feelings in a jar, inside a locked drawer! Your words!â
And yet you think â are they? Are these really anybodyâs words? Has anybody actually ever said such a thing in the annals of human history? And if so, did anybody within hearing keep a straight face and/or stay the hand that could rightfully have felled them for such an utterance in the heat of a pseudo-marital row?
And here, in an inscribed nutshell, we have one of the main problems with David E Kelleyâs drama Big Sky, streaming on Star, the new grownup channel from Disney+. The script is woeful. Woeful. He does this sometimes. For all the precision-tooled efficiency of LA Law (ask your great-grandparents, children. Get them to explain Harry Hamlin while youâre there. He was a rubber man who came to life in Mad Men), the quick distillation of headline issues into plots for Ally McBea
Big Sky.
It s hammer time.
Big Skynailed the final moments of big bad Officer Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) in a shocking twist that brought home the brutality of the man s actions. Still resigned to his hospital bed, Legarski had left viewers to wonder over the last few episodes if his apparent inability to remember his sins was an act or the very real consequence of being shot in the head.
By the end of Tuesday night s episode, it seemed fairly evident that even if it wasn t an act, Rick was starting to remember. And Merilee (Brooke Smith) could not abide by the idea that his memory loss might allow him to go free, never truly answering for his misdeeds. So, she took matters and a hammer into her own hands, battering his brains out in his hospital room.