‘Anna Pigeon’ Episode 1 Tracks Sheila’s Killer And A Bigger Conspiracy

Who Is Sheila Drury in ‘Anna Pigeon’?

Like Anna, Sheila was a ranger at Glacier National Park. It’s Anna that finds her after she’s called in early by their boss Geoff Miller (Ryan Northcott) to join the search. Sheila died in the back country just past a crop of devil’s claw that scratches Anna as she makes her way through it.

The cause of her death appears to be a 3-inch deep neck wound that looks to be from a cougar bite. However, there’s nothing else that shows Sheila has been attacked. Anna notes that her belly is still intact, there are no scratches on her arm from the devil’s claw or a cougar, and there are no bite marks on her legs. Sheila’s appearance is pristine with exception to the wound.

Anna knows something isn’t right about the scene, so she calls Freddie for an assist once she and her co-workers have secured Sheila’s body and brought her out of the elements. He’d helped Anna when someone was trying to kill her, and she trusts his insights. Unfortunately, Geoff closes the case before it can even begin.

He didn’t take too kindly to Anna going above his head, and he’s officially ruled Sheila’s death as a killing by cougar. Anna points out that cougars haven’t once killed someone in the park in its entire history. But the rangers will be responsible for the cougar’s death if she’s moved. She won’t be accepted by the mountain lions in the new area and, given the time of year, she likely has cubs that will die without her.

Forbes‘Anna Pigeon’ Won’t Stream On Peacock (Where To Watch Online)By Sabrina Reed

Refusing to ignore her instincts, Anna remembers Sheila’s backpack. As a veteran park ranger, she’d have ensured that everything she’d need in the back country would be tucked away in her pack. But strangely, Sheila didn’t have her water bottle. Anna knows Sheila would never go out there without water which means someone put her in the back country, it’s not where she was murdered.

When Anna comes across the bottle, it’s after Zoe Bear Child (Paulina Alexis), a fellow law enforcement ranger and her mentee, discovers a van with blood on the window. It belongs to Cory Nelson, the young man who threw a banana peel out of his vehicle and got reprimanded for it by Anna. There’s blood in the van and Sheila’s water bottle is nestled with his belonging.

Given Cory’s history with Sheila, he’s easily a suspect. He was a part of a group protesting RV hookups being installed in the park. It was a project Sheila was leading. She had written him up for being on a closed trail. In response, he sent her death threats. But when Anna and ranger Harlan Roberts (Shaun Smyth) find Cory, he’s dead.

Apparently, he’d overdosed on ketamine. Anna and Harlan find his body still in his tent covered in the bugs he’d been collecting. Given the state of decomposition, he couldn’t have been the one who killed Sheila. Cory was framed.

The discovery puts Anna in grave danger. She’s answering a call that she quickly learns is false when she falls off a cliff due to a pit trap. She manages to pop her dislocated shoulder back into place and is yelling for help when someone throws a rock down at her.

Anna falls onto a cliff ledge and is knocked out before she regains consciousness. Through the encouragement of her deceased husband Zach (Jordan Sledz), who appears to her as a vision, Anna climbs back up the cliff despite her injuries.

However, a near death experience isn’t the end of Anna’s day. When she gets back to her cabin, Christina Clark (Nikki Hallow), a ranger who works at the visitor’s center, is there putting a casserole in the oven. It’s such a shock, Anna draws her gun because she can’t immediately place the woman and she was just nearly killed. She puts it away as soon as Christina’s daughter trots in from the back of the house.

Turns out, Sheila and Christina used to date. They’d kept their relationship quiet because Christina’s going through a bad divorce and a custody dispute with her husband. But she makes it clear that he’s not the one who killed Sheila. He’s working on an oil rig. Christina came to Anna’s to be kind since she knows how much work Anna has put into solving Sheila’s case.

Anna asks Christina if she can unlock Sheila’s phone. When she’s able to get in, the first thing she sees is a picture of Jeremiah Paulson out hunting in the park. The millionaire was tapped by the rangers early in the episode to help trap the cougar they were holding responsible for Sheila’s death. The late ranger also had pinned coordinates on a map, giving Anna her final lead.

Who Killed Sheila Drury?

Sheila’s pin leads Anna to where the cougar is being held. She carefully lifts the door to the cage and pulls the tranquilizer dart out of her side. Then, the true culprit reveals himself. Harlan is the one who killed Sheila. It was like Anna’s sister Molly (Tricia Helfer) said—people kill for love, lust, lucre (money), and loathing. For Harlan, it’s lucre.

He’d started his career in the military before transitioning to expeditions and hunting. Though he’s a park ranger now, his lust for money didn’t ebb. As he’d told Anna, their job pays in sunsets but that’s not enough for him, so he agreed to allow Jeremiah to hunt in the park. He’d help him poach animals and in return receive compensation.

Sheila stumbled onto what was going on when she was tracking cats in the park. She confided in Harlan thinking that he’d help her stop Jeremiah, but he killed her instead. He admits to Anna that all it took was a solitary punch, but he won’t say whether he’d used a screwdriver to leave the puncture wounds in her neck.

He’s also the one who set the pit trap for Anna, trying to get her out of his way and off his trail. With his gun drawn, Harlan intends to permanently rid himself of Anna’s meddling, but the cougar wakes up giving Anna the distraction she needs to jump him.

The two wrestle for the gun and it goes off. Harlan’s been shot in the leg. Anna handcuffs him and leaves him even as he worries that the cougar will return. But, unlike what Harlan did to Sheila, Anna isn’t going to leave him to the land to deal with. He’s arrested in the morning and hauled off by the authorities.

Why Anna Pigeon Decides To Stay At Glacier National Park

Throughout “Track of the Cat,” Anna sticks to her plan to transfer parks. She’s a nomadic park ranger and doesn’t stay in one place for long. But by the end of the episode she decides she’s not leaving and takes in Sheila’s cat Piedmont. Her decision has to do with her newly adopted role of being a thorn in Jeremiah’s side.

No one just decides to hunt in a national park on a whim. She knows the wealthy land owner has bigger plans for Glacier and confronts him about it when she sees him again. Jeremiah doesn’t tiptoe around what he wants. While he doesn’t go into detail, he makes reference to the park’s resources and land, both of which he wants for his own and is determined to get.

Anna tells him that the park is for everyone, and she’s not going to let him bring it under his control. Jeremiah warns her to be careful otherwise what she says will have to be backed up. The battle lines are drawn. These two are going to be clashing all season.

Anna Pigeon airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on USA Network. Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for weekly coverage of the series and news about the business of TV. For deeper thoughts on the TV she’s watching, chat with Sabrina on X and Substack.