With the Trump Administration firing personnel in our national parks, there are still brave rangers fighting crime in Netflix’s new series, Untamed. Aussie Eric Bana brings his talents as a superhero (he once played The Hulk) to his role as an agent from the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch working in one of America’s gems, Yosemite. The scenery is spectacular, even if what we are seeing are the mountains of Canada’s British Columbia where the six episodes were filmed.
Anyone fearful of heights might want to skip episode one’s opening. Two climbers on El Capitan are nearly killed when the body of a young woman flies off the mountain’s top and becomes tangled in their ropes. She’s identified as Lucy Cook (Erza Franky), who went missing when she was a child. Bana’s Kyle Turner still lives with guilt for not finding Lucy. Now that she’s died, he redoubles his efforts to find out what happened and who killed her.
(L to R) Eric Bana as Kyle Turner, Lily Santiago as Naya Vasquez (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025)
Agent Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago) is a former LAPD detective and Turner’s new partner. Her former boyfriend, Michael (JD Pardo), was kicked off the force in LA when he stole drugs and money during a raid. When she wouldn’t back up his lies so he could be reinstated, he became abusive. She fled with their son, Gael (Omi Fitzpatrick-Gonzales), and took the job in Yosemite. She’s having trouble adjusting to her new environment. Turner doesn’t hesitate to throw her into the deep end of the pool (in this case, riding a horse in tricky terrain), but over time, Vasquez shows she’s more than up for the challenge.
Rosemarie DeWitt as Jill Bodwin (Photo Credit: Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix © 2025)
Turner has never recovered from the death of his own five year-old son, Caleb. In the aftermath, his marriage fell apart and his ex-wife, Jill (an excellent Rosemarie DeWitt) is now married to Scott, a dentist (Josh Randall). She’s as damaged as Kyle is and when the two are together, they feed off each other’s pain. Jill survived one suicide attempt and Kyle copes by hitting the bottle. He’s often rescued by his friend, the park’s chief ranger, Paul Souter (Sam Neill).
Sam Neill as Paul Souter (Photo Credit: Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix © 2025)
In flashbacks, we see the young Lucy with her indigenous mother, Maggie (Sarah Dawn Pledge), who is dying from cancer. To prepare her daughter for the future, she talks about the afterlife and how she will always be there for Lucy. Gathering information, Kyle talks to an indigenous elder (Raoul Max Trujillo) who, like so many others, has nothing but flattering things to say about Maggie. That’s not true about Lucy’s father. Blood was found on a bedroom rug when Lucy went missing and, at one point, Kyle thought she might have been killed either by her father or someone else. If Lucy was abducted, she managed to return to the park where, according to another young woman found by Vasquez, she survived by selling drugs.
Sara-Jewel Hughes as Young Lucy (Photo Credit: Cr. Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix © 2025)
Lucy sustained a bullet wound to her thigh and her feet were bloody from running through the forest, evidence that she was being pursued by the killer. Kyle pressures one of his informants, Teddy Redwine (Jonathan Whitesell) to find out more about Lucy’s tattoo that was embedded with gold. But Teddy’s attempt to help results in his death.
Deaths in the park are not good publicity, especially during the summer. Kyle is pressured to solve the murders as quickly as possible. But dealing with what turns out to be a vicious drug ring puts both Kyle and Vasquez in danger.
Untamed is great summer entertainment, perhaps a substitute for a real trip to a national park. The series has been renewed for another season where we will find Turner and Vasquez in another park. One thing we do not know: where in Canada will this one be filmed?
Top: (L to R) Eric Bana as Kyle Turner, Lily Santiago as Naya Vasquez
Photo credit: Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix © 2025
