Untamed wastes no time making a strong first impression. The Netflix series opens on El Capitan, with two climbers inching their way up

the sheer rock face, the show quietly letting the risks of height and exposure speak for themselves. Then a body falls, entangling them in

ropes and changing the tone of the series in an instant. It’s a sharp, unsettling opener that immediately sells the idea that Yosemite isn’t just a pretty backdrop, but a place where things can go very wrong, very fast.

 

 

Then Eric Bana’s Kyle Turner arrives. He’s a National Parks Service investigator who operates by his own rules and has a complicated past – with the job and the park itself. Bana is joined here by Sam Neill, a brilliant Rosemarie DeWitt, and Lily Santiago, all playing colleagues and concerned family members caught up in a larger murder conspiracy. Turner is brusque, hyper-competent, allergic to teamwork, and he clocks the preferred “suicide” ruling as nonsense almost on instinct. It’s a familiar type, but Untamed doesn’t linger on making him likable or mysterious. What the show seems more interested in is the problem he’s up against: investigating a violent death in a place this big, this remote, and this invested in maintaining the illusion of safety for those tourist dollars.

Untamed may start with a familiar crime-mystery setup – one dead woman, one brooding investigator, one rookie partner – but it distinguishes itself by dropping it into Yosemite’s vast, unpredictable wilderness, where the park itself seems to hold secrets. What unfolds from there is more than just another procedural; it’s a slow burn that tests its characters, reveals hidden corners of the human psyche, and makes you wonder who — or what — is really in control.

The mystery at the heart of Untamed is a fairly classic one: a woman’s death doesn’t add up and the case is quickly dismissed by others but relentlessly pursued by an archetypal brooding investigator. Turner’s intensity and stubbornness are familiar territory, but the environment (and Bana’s rugged, tortured presence) elevates the story. Yosemite is big. Like, labyrinthine, with hidden paths, remote corners, and unpredictable hazards that make even routine investigative work a logistical nightmare. The terrain constantly pushes the characters, turning what could be a standard procedural into something that demands our patience and its characters’ ingenuity.

The show leans hard on its visuals and sound to convey that presence. Sweeping vistas, dense forests, and staggering cliffs merge with subtle audio cues – rushing streams, snapping twigs, shifting wind – fueling a persistent sense of unease. (In this place, humans aren’t the top of the food chain, and the show delights in reminding us of that fact.) Wilderness replaces the usual city noir, swapping traffic and sirens for open skies and echoing canyons. Untamed explores the tension between the park’s beauty and its indifference, reminding viewers that nature can be both awe-inspiring and unforgiving, and that the landscape itself is a character shaping every twist of the investigation.

Untamed clearly wants to be more than a straightforward crime procedural, reaching for themes that give the story emotional heft, too. Experiences with grief and parenthood run through the series, shaping decisions and relationships, while questions of justice clash with institutional convenience at nearly every turn. The show even gestures toward Indigenous histories and internal park politics, though these threads rarely get more than a moment of attention, leaving more interesting avenues largely unexplored. On paper, it’s easy to see why Untamed could be dismissed as just another Netflix mystery.

There are familiar tropes, somewhat thin character beats, and a final stretch that piles on twists faster than the story can fully support. But somehow, the series works more often than it doesn’t. Its atmosphere, particularly the way the park is felt onscreen, compensates for any gaps in characterization, drawing viewers into a place that feels simultaneously majestic and dangerous. It’s not groundbreaking, but in a crowded field of procedural dramas, Untamed delivers some adrenaline-spiking turns and shocking revelations (especially i

But even scenery as stunning as Yosemite’s, with its towering Sequoia groves and thundering waterfalls, doesn’t work without the performances to match. Neill is the kind of veteran actor who really has nothing to prove at this point, and yet, he effortlessly commands attention here with just a handful of scenes. As Chief Ranger Paul Souter, he brings warmth, patience, and a subtle moral flexibility that makes him feel fully realized in a series where some characters verge on cliché. Neill’s performance has a measured restraint, conveying years of experience and quiet authority without resorting to melodrama. He becomes the ethical anchor of the show, grounding scenes that might otherwise drift into familiar procedural tropes and giving the audience a character so dependable and comforting, it makes his eventual heel turn all the more thrilling.