Big Sky has only just returned to ABC in the new year, but a slew of new castings already suggests that the show could be going in a completely different direction. These castings combined with where the winter premiere picked up on the cliffhanger from back in the fall may mean that Big Sky shifts gears sooner rather than later, away from Ronald and Legarski's kidnapping of the two teenagers and onto a new group of people altogether.
Ted Levine, known for The Alienist, Monk, and Silence of the Lambs (where he shared with the screen with another Big Sky actor), is on board the ABC series as a new regular playing a petty and ruthless man at the head of a ranch empire who set up his kids to complete with each other. Deadline reports that Levine's Horst Kleinsasser suffered a stroke and was left only able to whisper, meaning that his ranch work will have to pass on to one of his kids. Kyle Schmid of Being Human will play the angry second-born son in a recurring capacity.
And those are only two of the newcomers! According to Deadline, Big Sky has also added Michelle Forbes, Britt Robertson, Michael Raymond-James, Ryan Dorsey, and Omar Metwally, all as recurring guest stars. With the exception of Metwally, these newcomers will play members of the Kleinsasser family. Forbes plays the loving but steely mother of the family, while Robertson plays Cheyenne, the daughter who was once a favorite of her father's but isn't taken seriously by her brothers.
Speaking of those brothers, Michael Raymond-James plays Blake, the first-born Kleinsasser son with a habit of getting black-out drunk who will return to the ranch after leaving for the city to live his own life, and Ryan Dorsey plays the quiet youngest son Rand who's hiding some secrets and has a love/hate relationship with his mom. As for Omar Metwally, he's on board as Deputy US Marshal Frank Lindor.
With all these members of the Kleinsasser family on the way and a new law enforcement presence, I don't really see Big Sky drawing out the plot with Ronald and Legarski much longer. Spoilers ahead for the January 26 episode of Big Sky Season 1. While Legarski did manage to survive being shot in the head by Cassie, he is at the very least captured, and it's hard to imagine him recovering to the point that he could retake his place as an active threat even if he stays alive.
Ronald is a wild card who may only get wilder now that he's on the run, but he's pretty much alone other than his contentious relationship with his mother and whatever he has happening with Merilee. The Sullivan sisters were headed home by the end of the latest episode, although Jerrie is still in the mix and possibly still in very real danger from Ronald.
The story is pretty complicated at the moment, but it also doesn't feel too sustainable. Add that to the influx of new cast members, and I'm guessing that Cassie and Jenny will be investigating a totally different case soon. They seem to have bonded over their shared loss, and they make a good team.
For now, however, Big Sky needs to play out the rest of the case with Ronald and Legarski, and there are no details just yet about when these new cast members will debut. New episodes of Big Sky will continue to air on ABC at 10 p.m. ET on Tuesdays, and with the mystery of what happened to Cody no longer hanging over the characters, it should be interesting to see where the series takes them.
