Big Sky S01E14 Review: Nice Animals – Margaret’s power seems to be growingBy Salome G| May 5, 2021 TV Blogs One of the things I like about the Kleinsassers, if I can say that I like anything about them, is that I still don’t feel like I have a complete handle on who they are. Never is that more apparent than this week, when Margaret finds out exactly how Blake died. She’s seemed soft and passive, even weak, before now. But in a story and a couple of scenes, she proves that she’s just as venomous as the rest of the family. In the story, about what happened right after she gave birth to Cheyenne, she also proves that Horst has always been awful. Because when she arrived home from the hospital with newborn Cheyenne, first of all, she presumably got home all on her own. I presume that because she says that Horst was at home, waiting for her. And not waiting for her so that they could share in the joy of the new life they created. No, he was like, “Where’s my dinner?” What a gem, right? Anyway, she cooked his favorite meatloaf, but this time she added a special ingredient: rat poison. However, it didn’t even break Horst’s stride. After that, she concluded, as she tells Cheyenne, “… that man is too damn mean to die.” Not that she won’t try again, though. As she tells him when they’re alone together, in a scene where she sounds more clear and confident than we’ve ever heard her, she’s going to kill him. Well, alright then. She’s also pretty threatening at Blake’s memorial when John Wayne comes up to her. She embraces him, tells him that she knows what he did, then crushes him in a hug so tight they have to pull her off him. Later, she forces her children to hang just about the ugliest painting you ever did see because “I want everyone to see what lives in this house.” I was going to say, “Well, alright,” but I just said that, so let’s move on. As you should remember, last week’s episode ended with someone (Rand) driving a truck through Jenny and Cassie’s motel room. Jenny survived the attack, but unfortunately, Angela did not. Jenny is upset, obviously, in no small part because she’s the only reason why Angela was there. Wagy is also upset, though. He’s mad that Rand killed one of his employees, of course. But he’s also mad because, in the wreckage, he found documents that Angela had brought to Jenny. As Gil explains to her and Cassie, they detail what exactly has been going on in the Kleinsassers’ back pastures. And it’s nothing that I expected–no human trafficking, I mean. Instead, it’s just good old-fashioned pollution–Horst, in a deal with Wagy, was letting companies pay him to dump their waste on the land. Cole Danvers’s mom confirms that he had found out something that had made him uneasy. Maybe it was just the toxic waste, or maybe it was that and the fact that it sickened undocumented workers enough to kill them. In any case, the women and Gil take the opportunity during Blake’s memorial to sneak onto the Kleinsassers’ land, so they can take soil samples and take photos of the body parts in barrels. However, Wagy, driving by, sees their vehicle and alerts the Kleinsassers. The last we see, Rand is heading over there. Gil said he didn’t want to die on that land, but he might not have a choice. Meanwhile, over in Ronaldland, he’s taken Scarlet and Phoebe on an impromptu camping trip in his new big rig. Never mind that aunty Mary’s body is also in the cab. I like that this storyline has given Jerrie a reason to stick around, but I’m still having the problems with it that I’ve been having. It’s spinning in circles. But if you’re interested, then, hey, it ends in a cliffhanger, too. Little Phoebe gets up out of bed to find Ronald digging a hole for Mary’s body. How’s he going to get out of that one? Probably in a silly way, I’d guess. 7/10 – Not knowing what to make of the Kleinsassers isn’t always a good thing, though. Take Cheyenne, for instance. I still like her, but it doesn’t make sense that for someone who knows all the angles–or at least, is pretending like she does–she doesn’t know yet what’s going on in the back pastures. I mean, she lives there. And again, the Ronald storyline is just running out of steam. It feels like they don’t know what to do with him. As much as I like Brian Geraghty, I can’t keep watching him almost get caught. This ain’t The Americans. Also, congratulations to Big Sky, which has been renewed for season 2.
