#’Big Sky’ sets the bar for shocking TV deaths

“Big Sky” exploded the prime-time playbook by killing off ostensible star Ryan Phillippe in its premiere last fall — and it was just getting started.

The grim reaper has dropped his scythe on several lead “Big Sky” characters since then with an alarming regularity on the popular ABC series, renewed for a second season earlier this week.

“We’re putting out a casting call: ‘Come on to “Big Sky” and get killed!’” said Elwood Reid, 54, the showrunner for David E. Kelley’s drama, which unfolds in the Montana mountains and follows private detectives Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) as they hunt psycho truck driver Ronald Pergman (Brian Geraghty).

“In an artistic sense, it’s fun that nobody’s safe. Also, from a disciplinary standpoint, if anybody causes problems [on the set], it’s like, ‘OK, you can catch a bullet tomorrow and you’re off the show.’”

Reid is kidding, but “Big Sky” has been deadly serious in sending major characters to kingdom come and setting a new bar for unpredictability.

Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch), the cheerfully toxic Montana State Trooper who shot Cody Hoyt (Phillippe) in the head to close Episode 1, eventually met his maker. After surviving a bullet to his head courtesy of Cassie, he was bludgeoned to death — in his hospital bed — by his crazed wife, Merilee (Brooke Smith).

At least Carroll enjoyed half a season on “Big Sky”; veteran actor Michael Raymond-James lasted just three episodes before his character, Blake Kleinsasser — oldest son of the dangerously dysfunctional ranching family featured of late — was nearly decapitated by a shovel to the head, courtesy of his brother, John Wayne (Kyle Schmid) and died instantly. You can’t choose your family, right?

“It’s become this thing on ‘Big Sky’ because we’re doing a show that killed off Ryan Phillippe and the audience is like, ‘Holy s–t, anything can happen to anybody on this show,’” said Reid, who’s also a novelist.

“We say, ‘It’s “Big Sky.” You’re gonna die.’ It’s fun; it creates this anxiety with viewers where they think, ‘I don’t want to give my heart to this character because they could end up dead next week’ — and I think that’s what brings people back to the show. Take Legarski, who literally put a bullet in the head of the biggest star on [the show’s promotional] poster. That informed the show’s tone from there and I see no reason to deviate from that.”

Reid said there are two elements to the show’s sudden-death template — hinting that there’s more to come in that department.

“One of the things that allows us to do this is to get big-name actors who don’t want to commit to 14 episodes or three seasons (or more) of a TV series,” he said.

“We can get really cool names, put them through the wringer and then promise we’ll kill them off. When you do that, actors, just like writers, pull out all the stops. The hardest thing for an actor is trying to modulate a TV performance for five or 10 episodes or seven seasons … but when you tell an actor you’re going to kill them off in three episodes, they pull out every trick in the book and make every moment count.”

“[Rick] Legarski was a good example,” he said. “There was no secret we loved writing for him — John Carroll Lynch is an incredible actor — but David [E. Kelley] said, ‘Oh, I f–ked up, I shot him, but he’s not completely dead.’ So we brought him back and did the whole hospital scenario.

“Sometimes you pull the trigger too quickly; the show wasn’t ready to get rid of Legarski. He brought a lot of color and energy to the series. The minute we killed him we were like, ‘Holy s–t, what did we do? We just killed our best player.’ But I think that’s the flip side of the nobody-is-safe coin: We have to make sure we get all of the story out of these characters.”

Reid said the shockers, such as they are, take on different shadings once they become a part of a show’s DNA.

“Yes, the audience will grow numb to it, but what they never grow numb to is letting them invest in a character. It’s like an arcade game or a bad action movie: Here’s a character who has a cup of coffee and gets hit by a bus. That will get old, but what never gets old is for me to pull out my crafty bag of evil tricks, like having Blake’s brother kill him.

“If you’re just putting characters in there to kill them, it’s boring.”

Some of TV’s most shocking sendoffs of the last decade:

Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo), “The Sopranos”: The likable girlfriend of Soprano crime family henchman Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) meets her maker in Season 5 after tearfully admitting to Christopher that she’s been spying on the family for the FBI — an unforgivable sin. Shortly thereafter, suspecting nothing, she takes a ride with Silvio (Steven Van Zandt), who pulls into a wooded area and guns her down in cold blood as she begs for her life.

Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara), “House of Cards”: In the Season 2 opener, the DC journalist is pushed to her death in front of a speeding subway train by her onetime fling/source, murderous politician Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), who’s cleaning up loose ends to further his career. There were no witnesses, but Frank (and Spacey, for that matter) eventually got theirs.

Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), “Breaking Bad”: It wasn’t shocking that Gus was killed, it was the way he was dispatched — by a bomb planted by Walter White (Bryan Cranston) under the wheelchair of Gus’ mute, bell-ringing nemesis, Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis). The image of Gus walking out of the room and straightening his tie — with half his face and head blown away — is unforgettable.

Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), “Grey’s Anatomy”: The ABC series is known for its surprise twists — but no one saw it coming when Derek — a k a “McDreamy” — was hit and killed by a truck in Season 11 just after saving others from a bad car accident while in Washington, DC. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) curled up in bed with him as he was declared brain-dead: an unforgettable moment in the show’s long history.

Ned Stark (Sean Bean), “Game of Thrones”: Ned’s death-by-beheading in Season 1 shocked the show’s fans, since he was the HBO show’s titular star and was heavily promoted as such. Ned’s sudden demise set the “no one is safe” tone for the series and sent the Stark brood on the paths they would take going forward. Honorable mention: the “Red Wedding” episode in Season 3 (official title: “The Rains of Castamere”).