The trek down the lonely highway continues. Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick’s begrudging buddy cop duo will be back for season 3 of Big Sky.
The ABC crime thriller, which debuted in November 2020, follows Cassie Dewell (Burbury) and Cody Hoyt (Winnick) as they team up to solve mysterious cases that haunt a small town in Montana.
The show is based on the popular novel series The Highway by C.J. Box. While the first season followed the ex-cop and private detective down a dangerous path surrounding a mysterious highway kidnapping, the second season dealt with the pair investigating a car wreck that lead to surprising secrets from their past.
In addition to Burbury and Winnick, the hit series includes DeDee Pfeiffer (Denise Brisbane), Brian Geraghty (Ronald Pergman), Omar Metwally (Mark Lindor), Anja Savcic (Scarlet Leyendecker), Janina Gavankar (Ren) and Ryan Phillippe (Cody Hoyt) in supporting roles.
Phillippe, who was promoted as the star before the show’s premiere, was tragically killed off in a shocking narrative twist by the end of the pilot. While Cody was always marked for death, there was a debate about how and when it should actually happen.
“I’ve been with this project since the inception and we kept playing with ‘When does Cody die?’” executive producer Ross Fineman revealed during the show’s Paleyfest L.A panel in March 2021. “For a while there, it was actually in the second script, and there was a great cliffhanger, which I can’t remember at the moment, at the end of the first script.”
While Fineman worried that giving the ax to the most marketable actor could “alienate” the Cruel Intentions star’s fans, the show was careful to “keep Cody alive emotionally” to ensure viewers stayed invested.
Phillippe, for his part, was surprised but ultimately satisfied with the decision about his character’s fate.
“I was shocked certainly, and I think that’s also what made me so excited about it,” the Crash star said of the twist during a November 2020 Big Sky panel. “So often in entertainment, you can see what’s coming a month away, and to have moments in a series like this where it kind of takes your breath away, when you are absolutely shocked and did not see it coming, it’s exciting to me.”
Scroll through for everything we know about Big Sky season 3:
