Last year, HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country” embraced the eerie potential of the Alaskan wilderness as the backdrop of an absorbing mystery. Drawing on Native folklore, rural isolation and all-consuming Arctic darkness, director Issa López created a sense of place that was just as fundamental to the anthology series’ season as Jodie Foster’s star power.
The Apple TV+ thriller “The Last Frontier” takes the same setting in a much goofier direction, if knowingly so. Where “Night Country” was all moody prestige, “The Last Frontier” is borderline camp, starting with the fiery CGI plane crash that unleashes dozens of convicts on the snowy jurisdiction of U.S. Marshal Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), who’s returned to his hometown of Fairbanks after a traumatizing few years in Chicago. The brainchild of “The Blacklist” creator Jon Bokenkamp and screenwriter Richard D’Ovidio, “The Last Frontier” is at its most enjoyable when it embraces its network TV roots, pitting a generically gruff family man against a veritable zombie horde of escaped criminals at a one-per-episode pace, like any good procedural.
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Unfortunately, “The Last Frontier” saddles Frank with a co-protagonist in CIA operative Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett), and itself with a cumbersome espionage plot that lacks the regional specificity or rapid clip of the primary story. Among the prisoners let loose in the Alaskan woods an agency asset codenamed “Havlock,” a man who’s turned against his handlers and is now deemed so dangerous he’s introduced hooded and handcuffed to his seat on the plane. This allows “The Last Frontier” to pull off an entertaining bait-and-switch, putting stunt veteran-turned-director Sam Hargrave in front of the camera as a bearded, wild-eyed inmate who certainly seems to be Havlock. (Hargrave helms a couple episodes, including the pilot he appears in.) Instead — mild spoilers for an episode that’s already available to stream — Sidney identifies Havlock as one Levi Hartman (Dominic Cooper), a man with ties to both our protagonists: Sidney recruited him, and he takes Frank’s wife Sarah (Simone Kessell), a nurse, hostage.
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After that reveal, though, “The Last Frontier” gets bogged down in a serialized plot that’s more convoluted and generic than the simple pleasures of maniacs running amok and small-town cops chasing them down. Rather than using Sidney primarily for city-slicker contrast with Frank and his deputy Hutch (Dallas Goldtooth of “Reservation Dogs”), there’s far too much real estate given to her personal life and office politics. The babyfaced Bennett is unconvincing as a seasoned spy, and her chemistry with Cooper is almost nonexistent. The insanely overqualified Alfre Woodard and John Slattery play Sidney’s CIA superiors, though they’re physically isolated from the action in Langley and thus sparingly used. That leaves Sidney and Frank to piece together Havlock’s motive and master plan. Their endless prevarications over stolen databases, Russian hackers and exposing the deep state make the eyes glaze over.
But just in time, there’s usually a ridiculous action set piece involving snowmobiles, horses, helicopters or some combination thereof to make the viewer perk up and pay attention. (There’s a “Mission Impossible”-adjacent one involving a truck dangling over an icy cliff that’s a particular favorite.) Black widows, con women, demented doctors and even a guy going berserk in his underwear make for an engaging rogues’ gallery for Frank and his folksy colleagues to face down. In this context, Frank’s generically traumatized backstory and clumsily depicted marriage — in which Frank finally agrees to retire and open a cozy bed and breakfast with Sarah just before the chaos breaks out — are less impediments than part of the kitschy charm. It’s the show promised by the positively jaunty opening credits, so unusual for Apple’s typically sleek and tasteful stable of dramas.
“The Last Frontier” sadly puts this version of its premise further and further on the back burner as the 10-episode season goes on. The Sidney-Levi side of the proceedings is less interesting but more dominant, demonstrating a strange misunderstanding of the show’s appeal. The further “The Last Frontier” gets into the halls of power or Sidney’s past as the daughter of an agency legend — yes, she’s the CIA’s version of a nepo baby — the more you’ll wish we were back out on the frozen plain, hunting for murderous psychopaths as the elements do their worst.
The first two episodes of “The Last Frontier” are now streaming on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays.