Spoiler alert! Comprises main particulars about Tuesday’s season premiere of ABC drama “Massive Sky.”

ABC’s solely new fall drama, “Massive Sky,” launched with a bang Tuesday, leaving certainly one of its important characters with a bullet of their head.

Primarily based on C.J. Field’s 2013 novel “The Freeway,” the thriller (Tuesdays, 10 EST/PST) marks the community TV return of “The Follow” and “Ally McBeal” creator David E. Kelley, who’s additionally behind HBO’s “Massive Little Lies” and “The Undoing.”

It follows two teenagers (Natalie Alyn Lind and Jade Pettyjohn) and a intercourse employee (Jesse James Keitel) who go lacking after they’re kidnapped by a menacing long-haul truck driver named Ronald (Brian Geraghty). Three detectives – Cody (Ryan Phillippe), his estranged spouse Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) and new girlfriend Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) – are tasked with discovering the lacking younger girls, the newest in a string of disappearances of their rural Montana city.

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However the investigation takes a grisly flip when Cody asks state trooper Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) for assist probing a bunch of native truckers a couple of potential sex-trafficking ring. Within the episode’s startling last moments, the normally chipper Rick whips out a gun and shoots Cody useless in his truck earlier than the credit roll.

“Oh, boy, I am in for it. I will get backlash from my followers,” Phillippe says with fun. On social media, “they’re all excited within the feedback pondering I’ve a brand new present, like, ‘My man is again on TV! I can not wait!’ However how usually are you actually shocked to the purpose the place your jaw drops? I hope that occurs right here.”

Because of upcoming movie tasks, Phillippe, 46, was unable to decide to a possible full season of TV, which made Cody’s early exit extra interesting to him. Plus, he preferred the thought of enjoying with viewers’ expectations.

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“It is a very daring factor to have one of many lead actors, who’s closely featured within the advertising and marketing, exit within the first episode,” says Phillippe, who final starred on TV in USA’s “Shooter,” from 2016-18. “It units the bar for the hazard that lurks throughout the present and the truth that nobody is secure. That is going to create much more rigidity and dedication from the viewers to lean in and actually deal with what’s taking place.”

Govt producer Paul McGuigan, who additionally directed the episode, says there was no pushback from ABC about killing the present’s greatest star.

“The community was actually eager about doing that,” McGuigan says. “They thought it was an excellent twist to the story and an excellent opening. It retains the viewers on their toes and provides a way of jeopardy to the entire sequence. And there is going to be different surprises you will not expect. We wish individuals to benefit from the curler coaster experience.”

Cody’s loss of life can have ripple results not solely on the investigation, however on his household and colleagues. Early within the premiere, Jenny learns that Cody began seeing Cassie whereas they had been separated. The 2 girls will now be compelled to put aside their private baggage as they seek for Cody and the lacking teenagers.

“Each nice buddy film you’ve got ever seen all the time begins from that time of friction,” McGuigan says. “They need to earn every others’ respect and have every others’ backs, as a result of they’re going to discover themselves in peril (because the season goes on).”

Upcoming episodes may also discover Rick’s villainous facet and his prison reference to Ronald, who might have compromised their sex-trafficking operation by kidnapping two sibling ladies whose household is in search of them.

Due to his fractured marriage, Rick “feels very very like a loner, as Ronald does,” McGuigan says. “And so they each really feel like they’re doing the best factor. It is a warped sense of the world, however Rick looks like he is giving these disenfranchised younger girls a objective by promoting them (to individuals) in Canada or wherever.”

And regardless of his premature demise, Phillippe teases that Cody will return in flashbacks all through the 10-episode first season.

“Cody is not too long ago clear and sober, so when Jenny and Cassie cannot get ahold of him, they’re fearful he fell off the wagon – that he is in a gutter someplace and crashed his automotive,” Phillippe says. Plus, “the homicide is fairly effectively lined up, so it should take them a short time to seek out out. After which, over just a few of the episodes, you get a glimpse into what my character’s relationship with Cassie was like and the place that was starting to go. You get a glimpse into the household life between Jenny and our son (Gage Marsh). So my presence will stay in a point.”

This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Massive Sky’ ABC: Ryan Phillippe breaks down that surprising premiere twist