Do not kill Donno: Let the redemption ride roll | MARK HUGHES COBB

After season two, you wouldn't expect to feel anything like this, but since season three ….

Do NOT kill Donno.

"Big Sky" (broadcast on ABC, though I'm watching through Hulu) has been quirky, eccentric and erratic, considering the usually high standards of its creator ― David E. Kelley, of "L.A. Law," "Picket Fences," "Chicago Hope," "Boston Public," "Doogie Howser, M.D.," and Being-Married-To-Michelle-Pfeiffer fame ― and yet continually tense, well-written and likably acted enough to keep me yelling "Call for $^@&@*! BACKUP this time!"

It's fair to anticipate eccentric and quirky from a guy who once built up a steam-driven train of an antagonist, Rosalind Shays (played by the indomitable Diana Muldaur, who chomps down like a cross between Margaret Thatcher, an English bulldog — if that's not redundant — and a Komodo dragon) and ....

Spoilers, for a 32 years ago "L.A. Law" episode:

Drops her down an elevator shaft.

I mean, if you can't write your way out of a story corner, send the wicked witch plummeting down a malfunctioning plothole, I guess. She screams briefly, then you hear — something — bouncing, multiple times, off metallic objects.

The episode's title? "Good to the Last Drop." No, that is me not kidding.

It reminded me of the first-season-ender for tragically underrated "Crime Story," which ran 1986-88. It was produced by Michael "Miami Vice" Mann, and looked it. Basically a slick, rock 'n' roll-powered action-adventure set in the '60s, following the Mafia from Chicago to Las Vegas, "Crime Story" built up a cadre of juicy characters, including Dennis Farina as Lt. Torrelli, the top cop obsessed with taking 'em down, Stephen Lang as the obsessed attorney, Ted Levine (Yes, Buffalo Bill, before "Silence of the Lambs") as a demented thief who decides he's destined to become an Elvis impersonator, but finest of all, Anthony Denison as Ray Luca, rising young star of the thugs. He's utterly despicable, sociopathic, seemingly unstoppable. You get why the good guys want, nay, need to wipe him off the map.

By the end of the season, apparently thinking the show would be canceled, looking for a boffo finish, the writers finagled idiot-child Pauli (John Santucci, fantastically dim) into escaping with unconscious Ray — Lt. Torelli and he shot it out, bloodily — to a deserted hideout.

A hideout decorated in drab colors, faded pastels, furnished with oddly plastic-appearing accoutrements. And posed family mannequins. In a desert. About 65 miles northwest of Vegas. In the early '60s.

Ray wakes, and screaming at Pauli — the only friend he has left alive — frantically jumps into their car, but they're enveloped by a rapidly rising fungus-shaped cloud.

That episode's title? "Ground Zero."

The only thing tough enough to erase Ray Luca, and that wall-of-hair pomade? Atomic bomb.

The second season crumbled, possibly because creators cooked up a bull-hockey excuse for how Ray and Pauli escaped. Sure, you want the color back. But come on, give us an evil twin. Ooh, a nuclear-irradiated, mutated Ray-monster! America's own Gojira.

In Montana, Big Sky country, wide-open spaces offer startlingly blue, sunny air, a bevy of humans appearing far too healthily beautiful to be normal, and clots and gobs of gooey denizens from the underworld. It's all that space. Mankind was not meant to be existentially contemplative more than, oh, 15 minutes per day. Lotta room for smugglers, traffickers, and all-around badness to wander lost in.

The heroes are fine, golden even: Kathryn "Queen Lagertha from 'Vikings' " Winnick as deputy/P.I. Jenny; Michelle's sister DeeDee, my close personal friend, as Denise, office manager for PI firm Dewell & Hoyt (which makes my brain say Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, thanks Moe, Larry and Curly); Kylie Bunburry as Cassie (whose stunning beauty is exceeded only by her horrific taste in men, and FAILURE TO CALL FOR BACKUP 98.9 PERCENT OF THE FRAKKING TIME); and the sadly underused J. Anthony Pena as Deputy Mo Poppernak, GO TEAM MO.

Thankfully, he's getting more play these recent seasons, and not just as the slow-witted butt of jokes. One thing about characters in Kelley's world: They may debut outsized, to the point of simplicity, but can grow and deepen.

Villains run wild from the jump: Brian Geraghty (a brilliant young Teddy Roosevelt in "The Alienist) gets under the skin of Ronald, a hybrid of Norman Bates and Charlie Starkweather; the Amazing (He's earned the capital A) John Carroll Lynch as both highway patrolman/incidental sex trafficker Rich Legarski, AND Rich's hippie-dippie twin Wolf; the Also Amazing Ted Levine, Buffalo Bill yet again, as bloody beast of a rancher Horst; freaking Reba McEntire, this season, whose eerie Joker leer scares the shivers out of me …. There's much more, but spoilers. Kelley and team know how to write delicious evil.

Where they really shine? Between the lines.

In season two, Donno (Ryan O'Nan, who I will now watch in any- and everything he does) presented a feral animal, a brute enforcer for sinuous, sly, wolf-eyed Ren (Janina Gavankar, also magnetically watchable), heir-apparent to a drug kingdom, and ultimately herself not quite as hideous as suggested.

Beautiful, brilliant and mean. In other words, exactly my type, curse the Fates.

Her right-hand muscle Donno — just one name, like Cher, Elvis or Prince — seemed near-mute, a greasy slab of hair and belly unable to think for himself. Remorseless. Awful. Unblinking.

And a surprisingly poor shot, for a thug. Must have been raised by stormtroopers.

But in season three, Kelley and crew apparently recognized they'd buried this gem in the dust, and worked to redeem and unearth uber-Donno: Yes, he's still quick and ready to maim for his beloved Tanya (Jamie Lynn-Sigler, who carries off a terrific arc herself, over two and three), but also a deadpan comic genius.

And master sandwich maker, which somehow fits, given his penchant for short-sword-sized knives.

In the first half of the two-part season finale (SPOILER), there's a wild-west style shootout — because in "Big Sky," they continually top the previous Worst Person in the World champion — over a kidnapped child, during which (SPOILER) beloved Desmond-Brotha! (Henry Ian Cusick) from "Lost" surprisingly donates his previously selfish (He set steel wheels in motion by trying to electronically rip off $15 million from The Wrong People) life for his step-daughter, and (SPOILER) Lyle Freaking Lovett ambles out pre-shootin', because while he's a snake-eyed ruthless SOB, he draws the line at kid stuff, and then Donno looms up BLAZING — pushing Tanya to safety, simultaneously — like some implacable djinn out of dusty legend, but with smoking lead replacing fiery tornadoes.

And (SPOILER AGAIN), as you may have guessed, he suffers one of those wounds where no one knows you're hurt until after the smoke clears, and you slump, and someone pulls back your jacket from the lower left side of your abdomen — It is ALWAYS there where you get surprisingly gun-shot in a TV/film melee, so buy abdominal armor accordingly — and spots the shocking amount of oozing blood.

Medically speaking, that's survivable, as there are relatively few major organs down that way, but also because now WE LOVE DONNO. As, finally, does Tanya. If he had to suffer a lower-left-abdo-shot to get a kiss?

Worth it.

And (SPOILER) Donno utters one of the best dying/love lines ever, assuming he's croaking, to Tanya: "Not killing you was the best thing I ever did."

So while we wait -- possibly weeks, given the also-erratic nature of "Big Sky" scheduling — Donno's fate lingers in limbo.

Do not kill Donno, David E. Kelley. Big, bad mistake. That would cost you viewers. Including me.

Heck, I'd rather you kill a dog.

But don't kill a dog.

I don't really hashbrown, but will hashbrown for this. #Don'tkillDonno.

Also, don't ever think about hurting Mo, though I wouldn't so much mind if you smoked one of the more smug too-attractive heroes. Teach 'em to call for backup next time.

Don't kill Donno.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Do not kill Donno: Let the redemption ride roll | MARK HUGHES COBB