By George & Josh Bate
The following is a non-spoiler review of all 10 episodes of The Last Frontier
With the likes of Severance, Slow Horses, and For All Mankind under its belt, Apple TV (the streaming service formerly known as Apple TV+) has cultivated a sturdy reputation as a home for prestige drama television. But, with its new series The Last Frontier, the streaming service, arguably for the first time, blends prestige drama television with intricate, cinematic action and a ‘90s thriller narrative to create a gripping 10-episode thrill ride that proves difficult to stop watching.
From co-creators Jon Bokenkamp (The Blacklist) and Richard D’Ovidio (The Call), The Last Frontier takes place in rural Alaska and follows Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), a U.S. Marshal tasked with protecting the quiet community of Fairbanks. The tranquility of the remote landscape is suddenly unended when a prison transport plane crashes in the wilderness and frees dozens of violent inmates. As Frank desperately tries to wrap his head around the ever-escalating situation, CIA operative Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett) arrives in town, determined to apprehend a mysterious prisoner named Havlock (Dominic Cooper) with ties to a greater conspiracy.
The first moments of The Last Frontier set the tone for a decidedly different television series than frequenters of streaming services will be accustomed to. Helmed by director Sam Hargrave (Extraction, Extraction 2), the series kicks off with an ambitious, bombastic, and chaotic action sequence involving a plane full of convicts falling out of the sky. It’s the kind of intricate, well-framed, and excellently choreographed action sequence one would expect in a top-tier action film, like a Mission: Impossible movie or the aforementioned Extraction films. But, instead, it’s the opener for an Apple TV series and, as such, previews a show grander in scale than arguably anything the streaming service has produced to date. Hargrave doesn’t cease there as he packs another whopping action sequence into the first episode, this time one that is achieved as a captivating oner with no discernible interruptions or edits. While the action sequences occur more sporadically as the episodes progress, they nonetheless continue to play key roles and elevate The Last Frontier above and beyond many similar shows.
In addition to gripping viewers from the get-go, this opening set-piece also lays the foundation for an excellent premise tailor-made to be explored in long-form storytelling. A clash of worlds occurs as a plane full of violent convicts – the epitome of chaos and danger – crash lands (quite literally) on the doorstep of a quiet, peaceful town. With Clarke’s Frank Remnick and his colleagues tasked with re-capturing the myriad of scattering prisoners, the show soon welcomes in an episodic structure of apprehending the prisoner-of-the-week, which is encompassed by an overarching story involving Dominic Cooper’s particularly elusive and mysterious prisoner Havlock. Some of these prisoners-of-the-week prove more interesting than others, especially as the plot surrounding Havlock intensifies and becomes increasingly intriguing at the expense of everything else, although they all provide the series with an intensity and sense of urgency that renders the episodes riveting viewing. The series does well in individualizing the various prisoners, mainly by casting an impressive ensemble of actors in the roles, including Johnny Knoxville and Clifton Collins Jr. Knoxville in particular stands out with a performance unlike anything we’ve seen from the actor before, while Prince Amponsah surprises with a scene-stealing turn as another of the prisoners.
The Last Frontier’s stacked cast continues with Haley Bennett, Dominic Cooper, and Alfre Woodard playing key roles in the main narrative throughline of the series. Cooper’s Havlock is introduced in epic and dramatic fashion, being forced to don a hood over his head and excessive chains in a manner similar to Bane at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises. And, while Havlock doesn’t quite live up to the grandiosity of his introduction, he nonetheless fascinates as a compelling antagonist. Havlock is shrouded in secrecy and questions, although one thing is certain – the CIA, led by Alfre Woodard, desperately want him apprehended. To do so, they dispatch Benett’s Sidney Scofield, the operative who trained Havlock. Over the course of the season, layers of Havlock and Scofield’s relationship are unveiled, as are the intricacies of Havlock’s motivations and actions. The end result of these revelations are a tad easy to forecast, especially given the show’s resistance to push Havlock into situations that will forever compromise the audience’s perception of him. However, there are plenty of twists and turns along the way that make a rather generic espionage story lacking in much novelty captivate regardless.
Less captivating, unfortunately, are various side plots relating to Frank’s family. Simone Kessell (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yellowjackets) plays Sarah, Frank’s wife and the mother of their child Luke (Tait Blum). Sarah and Luke occupy a variety of more ancillary narrative threads that intrigue far less than anything going on with Frank, Havlock, Scofield, and the escaped convicts. Although not a fault of Kessell nor Blum, who deliver fine performances with the material at their disposal, these threads deprive the series of momentum every time they are revisited and had us thinking how much more relentless and engaging the episodes would be had these threads been trimmed significantly.
Frank, himself, however intrigues throughout the season. At first, Jason Clarke’s lead is a straightforward everyman – the kind of small town folk who says it as it is. But, eventually, we come to learn more of his character and discover that he is more complicated than what initially meets the eye. Clarke plays this slow transition perfectly and crafts a solid lead character out of Frank. With Frank harboring secrets and Scofield and Havlock doing the same, this leaves Dallas Goldtooth’s Hutch as the audience’s point-of-view, of sorts. The actor and writer known for his work in Reservation Dogs and most recently seen in Dexter: Resurrection plays Frank’s partner and best friend. If you’ve seen Twin Peaks, Frank is to Truman what Hutch is to Hawk. Through their interactions, Hutch poses questions and gives opinions that mirror the audience’s thoughts on the show, a subtle yet important writing decision that gives the series a much-needed anchor.
Hutch and Frank also serve as representatives of the small town that come into conflict with Haley Bennett’s larger world of espionage and politics. Just as how the show features a clash of worlds between the peaceful town of Fairbanks and the violent prisoners on the loose, the series also explores the clash of worlds between Frank’s hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and Bennett’s secretive and evasive CIA agent. Their hostile back-and-forth is engaging, albeit repetitive, but their conversations about the clashing of their respective worlds quickly grow tired. This kind of clashing of worlds has been depicted in countless other movies and shows, and The Last Frontier doesn’t do anything with this trope to stand out. What’s left is a multitude of scenes that depict a circular argument in which Clarke and Bennett’s characters frustratingly get in the way of one another as they banter about the differences of their respective cultures, rather than putting their heads down and collaborating effectively to achieve a common objective.
By the end of its 10-episode run, The Last Frontier manages to not lose narrative momentum, despite hiccups along the way. The central story resolves in satisfying fashion and, thanks to brisk pacing and increasingly heightened stakes, remains suspenseful until the very end. Again, the espionage story may be generic, but it is elevated by some well-crafted twists and turns and plenty of cinematic action.
VERDICT: 7.5/10
The new Apple TV series The Last Frontier stands out from the myriad of other offerings across streaming services in fusing prestige drama television with intricate, cinematic action set-pieces and a ‘90s thriller story. Kicking off in resounding fashion with a bombastic opening action sequence worthy of big-screen entertainment, the series retains a level of intensity and spectacle seldom seen in similarly plotted shows with a variety of well-shot and excellently choreographed action scenes. The opening scene lays the foundation for a great premise tailor-made for long-form storytelling, allowing the show to dabble in conflicts-of-the-week of variable quality while following a consistently more interesting overarching story. This overarching story may play a tad generically but features some solid twists and turns and a satisfying conclusion that make the journey worthwhile. Solid lead performances from the trio of Jason Clarke, Haley Bennett, and Dominic Cooper are accompanied by an anchoring turn from Dallas Goldtooth, who serves as a pseudo-proxy for the audience’s point of view. Although side plot lines involving Clarke’s character’s family fall flat and conversations about the clashing of a rural culture with a bigger world of politics and espionage quickly grow tired, the show maintains its momentum with brisk pacing and increasingly heightened stakes. Despite its flaws, The Last Frontier achieves a level of distinctiveness through its integration of top-tier, cutting-edge action seldom, if ever, found in television and serves as a satisfying throwback to action thrillers of the 1990s and early 2000s.