Spoilers ahead for the winter finale of Big Sky on ABC, called "Let It Be Him."
Despite only coming back from a winter hiatus less than a month ago, Big Sky has aired the winter finale that seemingly wraps the arc from the first half of the season before moving into a new cast of potential villains. It was a deadly episode that definitively ended the journey of one of the two big bads, but there are still some loose ends, and I think that one of them shouldn't be tied off anytime soon. Big Sky needs to let Brian Geraghty's Ronald live.
Legarski met his doom in "Let It Be Him," but not due to his body failing after Cassie's gunshot or Ronald breaking into the hospital to silence him or anything that viewers might have come to expect from this series. Instead, after some serious introspection, a suspicion that his memories were returning, and a realization about what her husband had planned to do to her with his hammer, Merrilee beat her husband to death with his own hammer in his hospital bed. Big Sky killed off what could have been a long-running big bad of the series with Legarski's death, which leaves viewers with Ronald.
Look, I obviously wasn't rooting for Ronald to win in "Let It Be Him," and I want justice for Jerrie and the Sullivan girls as much as anybody. Ronald just turned out to be a pretty brilliant TV villain over the past couple of episodes. Sure, he snapped and unwisely murdered his mom and a priest then took a boy hostage, but he was masterful in how he escaped. And this is a TV show, after all. From a story perspective, I'd like to see more of his particular brand of villainy on this show and the heroism it brings out in Cassie and Jenny.
Ronald booby-trapped his mom's house before the police could storm it, and I don't mean in the fun kinds of ways that Kevin McAllister would have pulled off. He disguised his mom's corpse as the boy, took off in the priest's Tesla, and then used Tesla's technology to use the priest's body to keep the car on autopilot with the boy in the passenger side while he made his escape in his rig. He's in the wind, but Cassie and Jenny are determined to find him.
Still, the new castings for Big Sky indicate that the show is moving on from the first case of the series, which leads me to one fairly awesome conclusion: Ronald is more than just the surviving big bad of the series' first case. Ronald can be the Big Bad of the entire series, and a downright nemesis for the people who couldn't catch him.
I want Big Sky to let Ronald live so I can keep looking forward to Cassie and Jenny chasing down the case even as they have to focus on what's in front of them. The best villains are the ones who aren't killed off or defeated straight out of the gate, and Ronald's combination of crazy and cunning has been chilling in the best way.
I'm not suggesting that Ronald should get a redemption story, or never be punished for all the awful things he has done. I just think it would be a waste for Big Sky to pick up after this winter finale by dispatching with Ronald in the next episode. As somebody whose most recent experience watching Brian Geraghty before Big Sky was him reprising his role on Chicago P.D., his performance in Big Sky has been masterful and brand new, and something I'd love to see more of down the line.
For now, however, we're going to have to wait for Big Sky to return on Tuesday, April 13 to find out if and how the show moves on from Ronald now that Ronald has escaped. For some viewing options while waiting for the spring premiere of Big Sky, be sure to check out our 2021 premiere guide, and don't forget to vote in our poll below about whether Ronald should get to live.
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