Big Sky Review: Dead Man’s Float (Season 2 Episode 14)

A fan favorite returns but too much soap opera melodrama weighs down Big Sky Season 2 Episode 14, “Dead Man’s Float.”

On Big Sky, this kind of cheese is best enjoyed in moderation. It is laid on way too thick this episode, especially where Travis and Jenny are concerned.

Travis with his animated eyebrows and forehead scrunches, the macho displays of dominance and rugged machismo. Jenny with her forced dramatic self-importance. 

Ren: This one continuing to be a problem. She’s got a hero complex.

Jenny admirably held down the fort with Cassie gone on the last episode, “The Shipping News,” but a less solid version is present here. To be fair though, some of the material is very after-school special. 

We are expected to immediately care about the Ford family based solely on Jenny saying she knows them. That’s it. 

It makes the scene of informing the parents of their son’s death hollow and the emotion flimsy. The father’s arbitrary rage against Jenny, even though she apparently knows his whole family, comes across as cliched and trite. 

Other than an already-present sympathy for the lives claimed by fentanyl-related overdoses, we don’t have reason to invest in the Fords. Perhaps that reason hasn’t yet been revealed, but in the meantime, I am underwhelmed (and a bit annoyed) by their introduction to the story.

This wasn’t an issue when the Kleinsasser family was introduced in Season 1. Just sayin’

Luckily, the whole episode isn’t dimmed by the aforementioned lackluster storytelling. We still have the Bhullars, and Tonya and Donno and whatever weird thing they’ve got going on.

But most notably, Jerrie Kennedy returns to Helena. Having gone home to be with her dying mother on Season 2 Episode 5, “Mother Nurture,” Jerrie left not only Dewell & Hoyt behind but US Marshal, Mark Lindor with whom romance had sparked at an inopportune time. 

I love how Jerrie so cooly addresses the elephant in the room as well as her reaction to learning about him and Cassie. And I love that she comes back at all. 

It was an exit worthy of Jesse James Keitel’s beautifully-crafted complex character and the show could have easily left it at that. Bringing Jerrie back while Cassie is gone gives the sense of filling that particular absence. 

It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with Jenny’s investigation complicating things for everyone. 

Stray Observations:

• Never related to Donno more than when he says he’d do anything to protect Ren. 
• This modern Montana quick draw exchange is so perfectly Big Sky.
  Bryce: Mountain West Three-draw champ 2017 and 2019.
  Donno: What happened in ’18?
  Bryce: I didn’t compete. Divorce.
• Jenny’s wardrobe cracks me up. It is always generic-looking classic rock tees with a ripped v-neck, a leather jacket (how many does she have?), skinny jeans, and boots with heels that were made for walkin’. 

What did you think of this episode of Big Sky? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Big Sky airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.

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Jesse James Keitel Talks ‘Big Sky’ and the Groundbreaking Role of Jerrie Kennedy [Interview]