How ‘Untamed’ draws a full circle
It’s easy to lose yourself when a loss starts defining you. But if Untamed taught us anything, it’s to hold on when you’re not ready, just yet. When the Netflix mini-series kicks off, it does so with a free-falling body plummeting from the top of El Capitan. And when you try to make sense of the bloody chaos, a screeching silence brings those thoughts to a halt.
Yet, from mystery to meaning, what Untamed does is draw a beautiful full circle.
Wonder how? Untamed permeates several layers of storytelling. One of the richest areas is that of family, identity, and loss. The Netflix series plays with opposites, not only in terms of thematic treatment but also aesthetically. This is why when the gruffy, desolate Agent Kyle Turner first comes on the screen, there’s a sense of sympathy and, to an extent, pity.
But when he leaves, the sense of fulfilment becomes palpable. Yet, Untamed’s full circle is not just confined to narration. It’s made of the little things, and most importantly, the characters.
So, for those wondering how Untamed draws a full circle, here’s how.
An Untamed full circle:
Unresolved trauma to redemption
The first time we meet Agent Turner in UNTAMED, we do so by the side of a lake. Deeply lost and immersed in a conversation with his son, it takes a while before we realise the truth that Caleb is long gone. But the phone rings and breaks the quietness like a saviour in disguise. Thereafter, Jane Doe’s investigation becomes a thread between Turner’s life and death.
Although Turner takes up the case, he’s still haunted by Caleb and his divorce. Not that Jane Doe’s death has much to do with Caleb’s case, but it does force Turner to confront all of it together. When UNTAMED first introduces Agent Turner, there’s not much life left in him.
But when it all comes to an end, he walks away from Yosemite to find a semblance of healing. He even leaves behind Caleb’s collection of toys for Naya Vasquez’s son – something Turner didn’t allow him to touch the first time around.
Finding meaning in mystery
UNTAMED doesn’t tease death. It shapes with one – that of Jane Doe. The Netflix series opens with the mystifying death of this unidentified woman. As the show progresses, the threads of her identity slowly come to unravel, revealing Doe to be Lucy Cook.
Despite assuming Lucy to be just another unidentified person, the finale reveals that she is Chief Ranger Paul Souter’s secret daughter, who was abandoned and raised in foster care. What strikes viewers the most about her identity is that Souter’s sense of kinship seemed like a clean sheet, unless Lucy’s death brought his darkest secret to life.
Although Souter was presumed to be the only thread of reconciliation that kept Turner and Jill going on, a brotherly figure watching from above, UNTAMED is rather cynical for pulling that one knot that undoes everything.
The devil lies in the details
UNTAMED shatters the pedestal in more ways than one by subverting the protector archetype. Take Shane Maguire, for instance. Despite being a trusted wildlife officer, he is both a drug trafficker and Lucy’s lover. And when you connect his links with Sean Sanderson, followed by subsequent blackmails, UNTAMED exposes the shadow self.
But casting Shane aside, when confrontation gets tense, Souter confesses to accidentally killing Lucy, in turn taking his own life out of guilt. Together, they both complete the arc from hidden sin to public reckoning.
Endings with beginnings
Turner initially comes across as a self-absorbed Federal Agent, drowning in his own pain. But when he leaves, he ensures he passes on the baton to Naya as the new ISB. From meeting Turner on the side of the lake, seemingly ready to let go, to his leaving Yosemite, completely unready for death, UNTAMED ensures the last chapter serves as an anchor to go on.
The untamed wilderness that once deepened isolation becomes a place of release and rebirth. By closing the loop on its major mysteries and with personal traumas now confronted, UNTAMED comes home, this time riding on a horse through a herd of elk.