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Well, damn.

Stories are divided into episodes, and kids must spend a ticket to advance to the next one: Two free tickets appear four hours after you open a new episode, or you can buy them. In the stories, kids choose from a multiple-choice list to influence things such as the main character's facial features and outfits, dialogue, and reactions to events. The first three episodes are out on HBO Max today and I will be posting recap/reviews of the next two episodes shortly. I got screeners pretty late and didn’t realize three episodes were.

This is your official spoiler alert because we are doing a deep dive into Big Sky Season 1 Episode 5, and if you don’t want to hear about another shocking last-minute twist, then this isn’t the review for you.

It’s pretty crazy to think about Big Sky only having five hours under its belt and already delivering us enough shocks for an entire series. And here we are heading into a winter finale in which we’re down another core character. However, this one will not be missed.

Once the credits were rolling, you could easily rewind the episode in your brain and see how things were always leading up to that ending. But at the moment, watching the episode unfold, it still didn’t feel like we were at the point where the girls would be saved and the bad guys brought to justice.

And when Cassie and Jenny showed up at the barn just a few minutes too late, it was entirely in line with what you thought would happen. Ronald and Rick have gotten the jump on Cassie and Jenny from the beginning. And even though the ladies were SO close, they were still missing some pieces to the puzzle.

But Rick's sudden epiphany that he was going to be a better man for a wife who doesn't even like him, and give up his role as a sex trafficking liaison, should have been our first clue that Rick was on his way out.

Rick's constant soliloquies highlighting this belief that he's a hero of some sort often feel like he's saying it more for his benefit than anyone he's speaking to. He has to say it out loud over and over again so he can believe that his life is a worthy one.

That he's somehow helping the greater good by saving these women from the life they've chosen is the spiel he's decided to live by, and it's the talk he ultimately used to bring Ronald in.

Interestingly, Rick and Ronald's roadside flashback makes it clear that Rick was watching Ronald. He picked up on his loneliness and an innate desire within Ronald to be seen and appreciated, and he played on that to get Ronald to help him.

It's unclear how long they've been working together in the present day, but the fact that Rick never told Ronald what happened to the women after they were transported elsewhere should have told Ronald what kind of partnership this was.

Ronald is weak, and he's reactionary, but he is proving to be not nearly as daft as Rick believes. Confiding in his mother that he had anything to do with the girls' disappearance, feels like something that will eventually come back to haunt him.

But let's get to the major matter at hand here, which is the eventual showdown between Rick and Cassie, which has been brewing for quite some time.

A woman of color daring to question the big, bad Rick Legarski has genuinely had his head swimming since the first time they met. And his obsession with Cassie proved to be his undoing because he let himself get so consumed with trying to best her, he underestimated the hell out of her.

Rick loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice, and he used his persuasive ways to elongate the staircase showdown with Cassie for far longer than it needed to be. As the minute's drug on, it became apparent he was never going to subject himself to being apprehended by Cassie.

His pride would have him with a bullet in his head rather than laying down at the feet of Cassie.

And what do you know? The racist, sociopathic misogynist got himself killed by refusing to surrender.

Talk about another jaw-dropping moment! There are two bad guys here, but who would have thought that'd we lose one of them and potentially get the girls rescued this early in the game.

I say potentially because Rick may be dead, but Cassie's all alone, and someone is coming to collect the girls soon, and we have no idea who that is. There could be a whole caravan of people about to descend on the bar for all we know.

Jenny is on her way, but could it potentially be too late?

The aftermath for this will be plenty. For Cassie, she will have to deal with killing someone, even if that person was horrific. And seeing as how they still have no idea Ronald exists, they're no closer to finding out that Rick murdered Cody.

Rick's death, much like Cody's, gives the narrative a spark, and it makes you realize how few series out there raise the stakes like this so soon into a season. Again, another man out there needs to be caught, but getting rid of Rick is another major sign that Big Sky isn't playing it safe.

No one is safe on this show, and of course, that makes you nervous as a viewer because the characters you get to know and love could be snatched away at any time. But it also adds a sense of mystery and intrigue when you truly can't predict where things will go.

And as it stands right now, we have no idea what's next, but we will be eagerly awaiting the show's return.

Odds and Ends

Ryan Phillippe alert! He and Cassie went fly fishing, and his carefully crafted words to her helped lead her to the underground portion of the barn. So are we now going to get Rick flashbacks like we get Cody's?

Denise was helpful and didn't seem too creepy this hour, but she will always be under the microscope.

There is a lot to like about this show; there really is. But they've struggled thus far to establish Cassie and Jenny as the leads. With Rick's death, that should clear more screen time to develop them more on-screen.

Okay, folks, now it's your turn to tell me how shocked you were at that ending! Or maybe you weren't at all. Either way, I'd love to hear from you?

Will the girls get rescued?

Where does the story go from here?

Leave your comments down below and watch Big Sky online right now via TV Fanatic!

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Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.