Untamed Series Review: A Mystery That Gets Lost Between Shortcuts and Déjà-Vu

Untamed Series Review: There’s a reason Netflix’s new thriller series is worth seeing, Untamed. It’s not its protagonist Eric Bana (known for playing the Hulk in the 2003 film of the same name or Ettore in “Troy” in 2004), it’s not the yellow plot typical of this genre of story and it’s not even the direction that, it must be said, it’s not bad but it doesn’t shine either. What are we talking about? We’ll reveal it to you in a moment, but in the meantime, here’s a small overview of this limited miniseries (and which therefore ends with its first and only season), which is available on Netflix from July 17th with 6 episodes. The series Untamed opens with one breathtaking sequence: two climbers climb the imposing El Capitan, a symbol of Yosemite National Park, when a female body falls from above, entangling itself in the ropes. It is not a simple tragedy: it is the first piece of a mystery that unfolds between valleys, forests, and disturbing silences.

It is covered by Kyle Turner (Eric Bana), a lone agent for the ISB, the federal investigation unit dedicated to crimes in national parks. With him, nature is part of the crime scene, and every environmental detail –leaves, traces, silences – can be proof. It is a powerful incipit, which promises a journey into the dark side of a place loved and photographed all over the world. However, if the images seduce, the narrative, unfortunately, soon stumbles upon the already well-trodden paths of the crime genre. In short, a man Untamed. One could only choose this word to define a hermit protagonist and the uncontaminated nature of the American hinterland, face to face with the traditions of the Native Americans. All elements that form a story, like many others, are original in their way, but fail to leave their mark to the end.

Untamed Series Review: The Story Plot

The Netflix series seemingly presents itself as a thriller with the classic ‘case of the week’ to solve. Bana is Kyle Turner, a lone wolf who took refuge in his own pain after the end of his marriage to Jill (a precious Rosemarie DeWitt). He is part of the park’s investigation department and is a thorn in the side of many colleagues. Why? He always manages to see beyond his nose, managing to solve cases starting from the traces left in nature. It also happens with Jane Doe, a mysterious woman he thinks he has already seen, and who two climbers see falling from the mountain. Did she commit suicide, or was it a tragic accident? Or maybe there’s something else going on?

Kyle has various suspicions and shares them with the only ranger on his side, longtime friend Paul Soter (Sam Neill). Also helping him in the investigation is Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a policewoman who came from Los Angeles, and therefore from the chaos of the metropolis, to find herself in a completely different type of confusion dictated by uncontaminated nature. Here, the show becomes a buddy series with the meeting-clash between two polar opposite detectives who can learn from each other. Furthermore, the case continues along all six episodes that make up the miniseries, thus transforming it into a single horizontal thriller.

Untamed Series Review and Analysis

Untamed mixes various elements, and consequently, the murdered girl is only a pretext to investigate the protagonists’ past. This, because all of them have a family drama to deal with: Kyle is confronted with the end of his marriage and Jill with starting over with another man; Vasquez with being a single mother with a dependent child; Soter with having a daughter who enters and leaves the community, leaving her grandparents to take care of her granddaughter. The eyes of childhood are those that act as a counterpart to the adult protagonists: it is as if Manchester by the Sea meets Walker, Texas Ranger in a mix that convinces halfway. This is because the transition from one genre to another is not necessarily fluid. Furthermore, the many subplots implemented risk destabilizing and confusing the viewer, causing him to lose interest.

Yosemite Park, he becomes the absolute protagonist alongside Turner, who knows him like the back of his hand. The same goes for an old friend of his, a native American, bearer of that narrative line, which, however, is lost along the way. It’s a shame, because it would have been interesting to delve deeper into this sense, playing with the habits and customs, traditions, and graffiti of that community. A difficult but still coexistence-free precisely thanks to the wild identity of the park. Upbringing great overviews and having shot in those places gives an additional and decisive factor to the aesthetic construction of sequences and shots: not postcard images, but a possible danger around the corner. Almost as if we were in a horror movie. The direction must express the double identity that embodies that wild and uncontaminated nature, including animals. Playing with those colors and sounds and making them part of the story. Putting them at the service of the protagonists’ interpretations, made up of silences and glances. Souls who cannot find peace. This is exactly what he talks about in Untamed: aspire to inner tranquility by facing your own ghosts, in whatever form they show themselves to us.

Is this plot compelling enough to glue us to the screen? We say it right away: no. Untamed tells the story of a classic crime-tinged thriller. There is a dead person, there is an investigation, there is a link behind the main story with the lives of the protagonists, and there is a twist. All according to the rules, but the trump card of this series is not its plot alone; it cannot keep the viewer’s attention high. Helping a somewhat weak plot is a good performance by the protagonist of this story that cinema and small screen lovers know well, Eric Bana but he too can’t do it alone because to give a boost to this thriller something more was needed, something different from the usual game of secrets to reveal, twists and turns, unexpected ties and a past to make sense of. And this is the setting of the story, the real ace up the sleeve of a series that, without it, would not have made any difference.

The best part of Untamed, in fact, is the background chosen for Kyle’s story, the location in which this story comes to life, which is literally spectacular. And to tell the truth, the title of the series, “Untamed“, already suggested it to us, which literally means “indomitable”, “wild”, just like the nature that forms the backdrop to its story. Untamed, after all, is filmed inside the third-largest national park in California, a true naturalistic gem that offers breathtaking views in its 3,074 km² of total surface area. We are talking about Yosemite National Park, a protected area in the United States that embraces part of the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California. And the only real reason why it really makes sense to see “Untamed” on Netflix is precisely this: the wild nature of the shots, the mountains, the waterfalls, the deer, the woods, the enchanted valleys. Magical panoramas that glue much more to the screen than the classic cities that are now the backdrop to almost all TV series.

Here, however, nature becomes the real protagonist of a series which, although it does not stand out for its quality of narration and screenplay, makes the difference because it shows us natural beauties that literally pierce the screen. And even just to absorb a little of this magic, this sense of peace, serenity, and beauty that only wild nature can offer, gives “Untamed” a chance on Netflix. Turner is the prototype of the lonely, gruff investigator, marked by a family tragedy that still haunts him. A former FBI agent, who took refuge in Yosemite to escape the ghosts of his past life, prefers silence to dialogue, horses to cars, and bourbon to human confrontation. He is the right man in the right place for those who love the protagonists “tough and pure”, but he is all too familiar in a television panorama already full of similar figures. Counterbalancing him is Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a rookie ranger from Los Angeles and dealing with not only geographical but also emotional transfer. Single mother, determined but still inexperienced, is forced to team up with Turner, creating a dynamic that works, also thanks to the good chemistry between the two actors. However, this relationship also follows clichés already seen, reluctant mentor and motivated young partner, with some spark of humor to ease the tension.

If there is one element that really sets Untamed apart from so many other thrillers, it is the setting. Yosemite is not just a background, but a silent and cumbersome character. Its immense spaces, its snow-capped peaks, dense woods, and impervious paths frame every episode, becoming a constant source of tension and wonder. The aerial images, the fiery sunsets, the sound of streams or waterfalls: everything contributes to creating a unique atmosphere, in which beauty mixes with danger. The cinematography, signed by Michael McDonough and Brendan Uegama, is one of the high points of the series. Each scene looks like a postcard, but not idealized: nature is alive, changing, even hostile. It is this contrast between wonder and threat that gives Untamed a strong visual identity, even when the writing falls short.

Despite initial promises, the plot of Untamed soon slides towards predictable tracks. The mystery of the young woman who fell from El Capitan is intertwined with other unsolved cases, ties from the past, and personal secrets that directly involve Turner. But instead of building a complex, layered network, the series prefers to simplify: a few key characters, overly comfortable connections, twists that aren’t really surprising. There is an attempt to touch on broader themes – the abandonment of parks by the state, the presence of communities on the margins, internal conflicts between institutions – but these reflections are left on the surface. The interweaving remains effective all in all, with a good pace and well-managed moments of tension, but that depth is lacking, which could have made Untamed something more than a well-crafted mystery.

An interesting but underdeveloped cast moves around Turner and Vasquez. Sam Neill plays Chief Ranger Paul Souter, father figure and loyal ally, while Rosemarie DeWitt is Jill, Turner’s ex-wife, still involved – in her own way– in his life. Both bring to the screen a human warmth that is lacking elsewhere, but their roles are often sacrificed for plot needs or to push the protagonist further and further to center stage. Other characters –such as the former sniper-converted wildlife agent or younger rangers – appear and disappear without a real story arc. This impoverishes the world of the series, which, despite being set in an immense place, ends up appearing inhabited by a limited number of figures, all functional to the resolution of the main case.

The Untamed tone oscillates between contemporary Western and rural noir. There is the mythology of the lone hero, the sense of frontier, the challenge against a difficult and unpredictable nature. But there are also echoes of quality crime series, from True Detective to Reacher, with tormented protagonists and settings full of symbolism. The problem is that Untamed never really chooses which direction to take; it remains somewhere between the entertainment product and the denunciation story, between investigative journalism and existential reflection. The consequence is a somewhat confusing narrative identity: engaging, yes, but not memorable. It is perceived that the series could have dared more, especially in the development of its most original themes, but prefers to remain safe, relying on already proven schemes.

The narrative structure of Untamed consciously goes against the expectations of the crime genre. The initial murder, while present, does not really drive the dramatic tension. The clues, the interrogations, the twists and turns are there, but they never steal the show. The spectator is called upon to decipher rather the cracks in the protagonists, to read the inconsistencies of their behaviors, to observe how the investigation turns into an opportunity for inner confrontation. In other words, Untamed is more The Leftovers than True Detective, more interested in trauma processing than puzzle solving. This authorial choice is also his most divisive point. Those who approach the series expecting a classic thriller may be disappointed by the narrative rarefaction, but those who love stories where the investigation shifts from the “out” to “inside” will find a cohesive story, carefully written.

Direction, entrusted to multiple hands but always consistent in style, avoids visual emphasis. No virtuoso car movements, no jump scares: Untamed, he works on expressive minimalism, patient observation of faces, and narrative use of landscapes. Nature is not a place of peace or spiritual epiphany, but a vast and silent space, which reflects the strangeness of the characters concerning themselves and the world. There is no aestheticization or charm: the very tall trees, the mists, the isolated clearings serve to build a sense of emptiness and disorientation. Lo Yosemite, he almost becomes a character in himself: inaccessible, mysterious, indifferent. Another great advantage of Untamed it’s the dialogue work. There are no sound bites or narrative explanations: the script trusts the intelligence of the viewer. The characters speak little, but when they do, it is out of necessity, not to fill spaces.

Every exchange is full of unspoken emotional tension, and this makes conversations impactful. Editing also reflects this approach: the six episodes are essential, never verbose, and the pace is measured but not tiring. That said, the final resolution of the thriller plot could leave a sense of dissatisfaction. After five episodes built on a careful layering of mysteries, the sixth closes the central case with some rapidity, leaving some subplots hanging or barely sketched. It is a choice consistent with the authors’ desire to shift the center of gravity to the emotional experience of the protagonists, but it risks reducing the impact of the investigative plot. The crime, although serious in its implications, is solved with sobriety, and this could disappoint those who followed the series expecting a more powerful and narratively decisive climax.

Untamed Series Review: The Last Words

Untamed is a series that could be surprising: it takes the form of a thriller but empties them of tension to fill them with life. It is not an adrenaline crime, but a loss journey. It is a story that talks about the sense of guilt, the relationship between human beings and the environment, and above all, how personal wounds can find an echo in vast spaces, where no one listens. A small, but honest story. Untamed is a visually powerful and well-acted thriller, set in one of the most fascinating places in America. However, behind the spectacular images and the constant tension lies an all-too-familiar story, which chooses the security of what has already been seen instead of exploring new narrative paths. The result is an enjoyable series, but one that leaves no mark.

Cast: Eric Bana, Lily Santiago, Sam Neill, Rosemarie DeWitt, Wilson Bethel

Creators: Mark L. Smith, Elle Smith

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)