Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon in Anna PigeonUSA NETWORKAptly named “Hide and Seek,” Anna Pigeon’s second episode initially puts the park ranger on the case of a missing child named Amanda “Mandy” Davies (Avery Oczkus) before her investigation expands into a search for a family of four and a possible homicide. While Anna (Tracy Spiridakos) is looking for Mandy, her brother Austin (Grayson Taylor-Day), and her father Jake (Roger LeBlank), she uses a little known tracking method that may be a first for procedural television—equine air scent detection. It’s a brief moment in the episode but a memorable one as Anna bends down to let her horse Ace smell Mandy’s stuffed lion, Leo.Ace catches Mandy’s scent and leads Anna and her protégé Zoe (Paulina Alexis) to the family’s camp site where they come across a grave covered in goldenseal flowers. Her boss Geoff (Ryan Northcott) wants to dismiss it as the resting place of a pet. Anna suspects the grave is for Sarah, Jake’s wife and the mother of his kids.Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon in Anna PigeonUSA NETWORKAnna Takes On A Missing Persons CaseAnna learns Mandy is missing while she’s looking into why A Cam, one of two cameras monitoring a family of bald eagles, has gone down. A crossbow bolt is lodged into the camera. As she’s working, she hears a teenage boy and a man frantically yelling for a little girl.MORE FOR YOUThe man introduces himself as Mike and his son as Mike Jr. He’s panicked and aggravated as Anna tries to gather information on Mandy to help them search. She and her brother were playing hide-and-seek when he lost her. The urgency isn’t only because she’s young, she’s also diabetic.'The area they were playing in is close to the river. Anna finds Mandy’s pack by its bank. She’s concerned Mandy fell in, and she’s right though the girl managed to get to land on her own. They find her shivering and huddled amongst the foliage a little ways from where they started searching.Forbes‘Anna Pigeon’ Episode 1 Tracks Sheila Drury’s Real Killer And Lands On A Bigger ConspiracyBy Sabrina ReedMike thanks Anna for her help but tries to dismiss her in the same breath. Focused on Mandy, Anna does a cursory check of her physical state to ensure she’s not suffering from a concussion. Mandy follows her directions though she’s mostly concerned about her stuffed lion. Anna agrees to fish it out of the water for her since it’s drifted away and banked further down.When she turns to bring the lion back, the family is nowhere to be found. Mike’s behavior was suspicious to Anna so she and Geoff check in with Freddie (Ronnie Rowe). The FBI agent uses the information she gives him to search through a database where he finds an open case for Amanda, Austin, Sarah, and Jake Davies who were reported missing from Utah six months ago by Sarah’s mother, Laurie.Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon and Paulina Alexis as Zoey Bear Child in Anna Pigeon.USA NETWORK‘Anna Pigeon’ Spotlights Search And Rescue Technique Used By HorsesJake has a criminal record, having been brought up on charges for petty theft and violent altercations. Concerned that he’s a danger to his children, and only knowing Austin said his mom was “at home,” Anna decides to search for the family in the park. After scrubbing B Cam’s footage, Zoe lets her know that it was Jake that shot out A Cam. They begin their search in that area.Riding down the riverbank, Anna and Zoe aren’t finding anything that could give them a lead on where the family could be. Zoe questions why Anna chose to ride out on Ace, a horse that’s considered to be troublesome by the other rangers. Anna says it’s because he wouldn’t get out otherwise, but it seems she’s not only taken a shine to Ace, she’s also been working with him on a tracking method that’s still gaining traction.Anna Pigeon doesn’t give name to it, but it’s called equine air scent detection and it works similarly to how dogs are used in search parties. Horses are given the scent of what they’re tracking whether a person (living or deceased) or drugs and they pick up that scent in the air, allowing them to follow it to its source.Zoe’s skeptical of Anna’s decision. However, the elder park ranger knows it’s being used in Maine so she pushes on and lets Ace smell Mandy’s stuffed animal. The short reference is to organizations like Maine Mounted Search and Rescue and Highlands Search and Rescue who train their horses to detect scents and assist in efforts to locate missing people.Ace tracks Mandy’s scent further downstream where the rangers come up on an empty encampment. The Davies have been living off the land, making the park their home. Off to the side, they find a grave. The goldenseal flowers on its surface memorializing whoever had been buried in it. Anna believes it’s Sarah.Grayson Taylor-Day as Austin Davies, Paulina Alexis as Zoey Bear Child, Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon and Avery Oczkus Mandy Davies in Anna Pigeon.USA NETWORKWhat Really Happened To Sarah In ‘Anna Pigeon’ Episode 2Despite punching a pharmacist when he couldn’t get Mandy’s insulin because he was two dollars short, and abandoning his kids when the alarm went off, Anna began to change her tune on Jake. Seeing the faith Austin and Mandy have in him, she knew he’d come back for them and try to use the passports he secured to cross the border.Jake does as Anna expects the following day, though using a bird call to signal his presence to his kids while they were in the ranger station and throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window as a distraction wasn’t on her bingo card. Jake scoops them up just as their grandmother has arrived to take them back to Utah.Strong-willed, and having served in Desert Storm, Laurie forces Anna’s hand and tags a long as they go chasing after Jake and the kids. Laurie shares that Sarah had cervix cancer and she wasn’t responding to treatment. One night her daughter and her family just picked up and vanished. Laurie had no idea where they’d gone only that Sarah had decided to try things Jake’s way, which meant using goldenseal flower as an alternative treatment for cancer. Animal studies have shown that compounds of the plant have appeared to slow tumor growth, however, there’s a potential for toxicity when used long-term and there isn’t any human data to support these findings.Forbes‘Anna Pigeon’ Won’t Stream On Peacock (Where To Watch Online)By Sabrina ReedLaurie doesn’t hold a high opinion of Jake and that’s worsened when she learns from Anna that her daughter died in the park. After Anna confronts Jake in the woods beside the Kintla Lake trail, convincing him to put his crossbow down and kneel, it’s Laurie who shoots her gun in the air as he makes a desperate attempt to get Anna to back off.Scared and shaken, Austin and Mandy come out of hiding as they watch their grandmother point a gun at their father and Anna point a gun at her. Laurie blames Jake for Sarah’s death. Her anger leads her to truly consider killing him even with her grandchildren looking on.But Jake doesn’t stray from his stance that he did right by his wife. Chemo wasn’t working, it was just taking her further away from their children and she couldn’t stand the thought of dying in a hospital. She wanted to be present for Mandy and Austin, and she wanted to be some place beautiful so Jake brought her to Glacier National Park. Sarah died the way she wanted, unfortunately, it meant Laurie didn’t get to say goodbye.Listening to Anna, the grieving mother gives her gun to the ranger. But ultimately, it’s Austin who makes the decision on what happens next. Though he doesn’t want to leave his father, he knows they’ve ran out of options and he needs to put his sister first. They weren’t able to get her the insulin she needs and crossing the border without it was always too much of a risk.Taking his sister’s hand, he walks over to Laurie and the children embrace her. Overcome with emotion, Mandy runs back to cling to her father, but is later led away so that she doesn’t have to see Anna arrest him.As for Sarah, once Geoff and Zoe finish with the excavation paperwork, her remains will be sent home where she can be properly buried and honored by her family.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.