Eric Bana returns as a martyr ISB agent with liver problems and emotional baggage wrapped in down jacket and whiskey breath. Untamed looks like an Instagram filter on a family drama: visually overwhelming, but internally everyone is disintegrating. A quiet, slow crime that doesn't shout loudly — 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 whiskey straight (from the glove compartment) and his emotions repressed. When an unnamed young girl is found dead in Yosemite, Kyle is put on the case — with Naya Vazquez, a new and stubborn sidekick, in tow. It should be routine, but the investigation pulls threads to both local secrets and his own family trauma, which he assiduously tries to drown out, both on and off work. Together, they dig into a landscape more beautiful than the truth, and discover that Yosemite hides more than just waterfalls and hiking trails.
Netflix' Untamed does kinda do the opposite of what the title promises. It's anything but wild. Instead, it's a low-key, melancholic and visually delicious slow burner in which the characters are more anguished than free, and where fates unfold at a pace that feels most of all like a walk through misty forest wearing wet socks. Yes, it can be incredibly depressing to look at the beautiful nature of Yosemite.
Eric Bana as Kyle Turner: A Man and His Whiskey
Let's just start with the elephant in Yosemite: Eric Bana. Bana is like a fine wine: he has aged gracefully, and I immediately think that he would have been perfect in the role of Joel in the Tlou series. He's back, and he's... deeply depressed and drunk at work. As Kyle Turner -- an ISB agent with a drinking problem and quite a bit of baggage -- Bana delivers a super human and believable performance. It's not a role that screams for an Emmy, but it's worn with a tired, dry wit and a look that says “I've seen things.” He balances the self-pitying and the self-effacing, and he does it so well that you almost forget Hulk (2003). Almost.
The family falls quietly together
Untamed is built around a core of familial breakdowns: broken families, tragedies, violence-prone men, media-savvy bosses, ex-wives with passive-aggressive lines and traumas simmering beneath the surface.
It's a series that's about grief and guilt and how no one really gets rid of either. You feel the weight on the characters' shoulders, and even though you as a viewer are never completely invested in their dilemmas, it's still hard not to feel something.
Plot twists without whiplash
The surprises in Untamed come as mild swells rather than as dramatic waves. It's plot twists that make you raise one eyebrow rather than spit out the coffee. And it actually fits the tone of the series well. No one has to fall off the chair here — it's more “well, okay, that makes sense” than it is “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”
One could wish for a little more courage from the scriptwriters, but at the same time it's a liberation with a series that doesn't try to outdo itself in madcap twists and cliffhangers every 12 minutes. It's like being served a lukewarm but tasty soup where you thought it was going to be a chilli.
Visual: Yosemite for all the money
And then there are the pictures. 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 seeps through the tree crowns, the fog that hangs heavy over the mountains, and rivers that meander as metaphors for all the unspoken between the characters -- it's cinematic therapy. If you've ever had a bad day, watch just ten minutes of Untamedand you'll want to go hiking, write poems, and shut up for a week.
It reminds me a bit of Nomadland in the aesthetic -- just without Frances McDormand and the existential depth. It's pure nature porn, but it works, and that's enough to raise the series a whole star on its own.
Season 2 and the big question: Will we?
Untamed ends not with a bang, but with a gentle whisper. And then it is announced that season 2 is on the way. It feels a bit like being invited to a conversation you don't quite know if you feel like taking, but which you probably troop up to anyway -- just to see if Kyle Turner finally gets his life together or falls into another bottle. At least I'm curious, because there's something reassuring about Untamed. It's not a series, man Binger with his heart in his throat, but one one slowly lets seep into the blood, like a quiet hangover from emotional choices made years ago.
Conclusion:
Untamed It's not groundbreaking, but it's honest. It's a character-driven narrative wrapped in beautiful imagery and light melancholy, where the pace is set down and the focus is turned up to the human mess. You miss a little bit more bite, a little bit, like e.g. True Detective - Season 1 gave us, and more courage -- but maybe that's precisely the point. Not everything has to be wild. Sometimes it's enough just to be human.
Rating: 4 out of 6 stars.
It will never be True Detective 1It's exciting, but it doesn't try to be either. And that's actually quite okay.
