Eric Bana returns as a battered ISB agent with liver problems and emotional baggage wrapped in a puffer jacket and whisky breath. Untamed looks like an Instagram filter applied to a family drama: visually overwhelming, but inside, everyone is coming apart at the seams. A quiet, slow crime series that doesn’t shout — but lingers.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
Untamed follows ISB agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana), who prefers his whisky straight (from the glove compartment) and his feelings suppressed. When an unnamed young girl is found dead in Yosemite, Kyle is put on the case — with Naya Vazquez, a new and stubborn partner, in tow. It should be routine, but the investigation pulls threads leading to both local secrets and his own family trauma, which he is determined to drown, both on and off the job. Together they dig through a landscape more beautiful than the truth, and discover that Yosemite hides more than waterfalls and hiking trails.
Netflix’s Untamed does almost the opposite of what its title promises. It is anything but wild. Instead, it is a restrained, melancholic and visually gorgeous slow burner, where the characters are more tormented than free, and where destinies unfold at a pace that feels mostly like a walk through a foggy forest with wet socks. Yes, it is astonishing how depressing Yosemite’s beautiful scenery can become.
Eric Bana as Kyle Turner: A man and his whisky
Let’s start with the elephant in Yosemite: Eric Bana. Bana is like a fine wine: he has aged gracefully, and I immediately think he would have been perfect as Joel in the TLOU series. He’s back, and he is... deeply depressed and drunk on the job. As Kyle Turner — an ISB agent with an alcohol problem and plenty of baggage — Bana delivers a deeply human and convincing performance. It’s not a role that screams Emmy, but he carries it with a weary, dry humour and a look that says, “I’ve seen things.” He balances the self-pitying and the self-erasing, and he does it so well that you almost forget Hulk (2003). Almost.
The family quietly falls apart
Untamed is built around a core of family breakdown: broken families, tragedy, violent men, media-hungry bosses, ex-wives with passive-aggressive lines, and trauma simmering just beneath the surface.
It is a series about grief and guilt, and how no one ever really gets rid of either. You feel the weight on the characters’ shoulders, and although as a viewer you never become fully invested in their dilemmas, it is still hard not to feel something.
Plot twists without whiplash
The surprises in Untamed arrive like gentle swells rather than dramatic waves. These are plot twists that make you raise one eyebrow rather than spit out your coffee. And that actually suits the series’ tone well. No one is falling off their chair here — it is more “oh, okay, that makes sense” than “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”
You could wish for a little more courage from the writers, but at the same time it is a relief to have a series that does not try to outdo itself with insane twists and cliffhangers every 12 minutes. It is like being served a lukewarm but tasty soup when you expected chili.
Visually: Yosemite for all it’s worth
And then there are the images. Untamed is a series that is more beautiful than most of its characters. The camera loves Yosemite, and so do we. The way the light slips through the treetops, the mist hanging heavy over the mountains, and rivers winding like metaphors for everything left unsaid between the characters — it is cinematic therapy. If you’ve ever had a bad day, just watch ten minutes of Untamed, and you’ll want to go hiking, write poetry and shut up for a week.
It is vaguely reminiscent of Nomadland in its aesthetics — just without Frances McDormand and the existential depth. It is pure nature porn, but it works, and that alone is probably enough to lift the series a full star.
Season 2 and the big question: Do we care?
Untamed doesn’t end with a bang, but with a soft whisper. And then it is announced that season 2 is on the way. It feels a bit like being invited to a conversation you’re not entirely sure you want to have, but will probably show up for anyway — just to see whether Kyle Turner finally gets his life together or falls into yet another bottle. I’m curious enough, at least, because there is something reassuring about Untamed. It is not a series you binge with your heart in your throat, but one you let seep slowly into your blood, like a quiet hangover from emotional choices made many years ago.
Conclusion:
Untamed is not groundbreaking, but it is honest. It is a character-driven story wrapped in beautiful images and gentle melancholy, where the pace is slowed down and the focus is turned up on human mess. You do miss a little more bite, a little, like True Detective - season 1 gave us, and more courage — but maybe that is exactly the point. Not everything has to be wild. Sometimes it is enough just to be human.
Rating: 4 out of 6 stars.
It never becomes True Detective S1-exciting, but it is not trying to be. And that is actually perfectly fine.
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