Who Killed Who, And Why?

I enjoyed my recent time with Untamed, the Eric Bana-starring murder mystery set in Yellowstone National Park. We’re meant to figure out who killed a girl who plummets off a mountain, which is seemingly not a suicide, and things…escalate from there.

Spoilers are going to follow here for Untamed, which should be fairly obvious if you clicked on an article about the ending. So, we’re going to sort through who killed who in the end, and why. Sure, the show spells it out but hey, if you’re watching while on your phone or want a deeper dive, here we are.

Paul Souter (the local ranger chief) killed Lucy Cook, kind of – We learn at the very, very end that Lucy was actually Souter’s secret daughter, whom he gave away to foster care when she was young. She hated him for that and came back to blackmail him lest she tell his wife what happened.

Finally, he tries to “talk to her” and stop her from running after she feels threatened, so he shoots her in the leg. Who among us has not shot someone in the leg to prevent them from running with no real ill intent? But after that, she continues her escape, where she is soon attacked by coyotes, compounding her injuries. She’s seemingly about to die from blood loss anyway, so she does in fact fall off the cliff voluntarily. But yes, we’re going to put this on Souter, who then kills himself rather than deal with the consequences of all this.

The drug gang killed the bait shop kid and the squatter – These two deaths were the hidden drug gang in the mines attempting to clean up loose ends that could lead back to their business. Even though Lucy was one of their runners, they did not kill her. However, there’s a somewhat bizarre moment where a bunch of runners are found dead, seemingly from suicide (debatable).

Jill (Kyle’s ex-wife) and Shane (local wildlife culler) cooperatively killed Sean Sanderson – This is a man who has been missing in the park for five years, where Kyle (Eric Bana) discovered that he abducted and killed his son Caleb, as seen on Shane’s wildlife cameras. Kyle wanted him arrested and prosecuted, but Jill went to Shane and agreed they should just kill him. Shane did, though we don’t know what they did with the body. It was never found. Kyle found out what happened, but all three never said anything to anyone.

Naya (deputy ranger) killed Shane who was trying to kill Kyle – I mean, this one was pretty obvious. The finale of the tumultuous relationship between Kyle and Shane has the two trading gunshots in the woods once Kyle figures out he was involved with the drug trade and Lucy (though later we find out he had nothing to do with her death).

I’m guessing Shane just figured Kyle was finally trying to kill him over the Sanderson assassination to bury that forever and have him stop holding it over his head for years. In the end, it’s just Kyle and Jill with the Sanderson secret, though Kyle admits culpability in leading a compromised search for him five years earlier to a wrongful death investigator. I’m not exactly sure why he did that or what the end result is supposed to be after he leaves the park. In the end, Kyle didn’t kill anyone except well, a good amount of drug dealers during the raid.

It’s complicated. The two red herrings for Lucy over the six episodes were the drug gang and Shane. I was honestly a little surprised Shane turned out to be bad at all, as that almost seemed too obvious, but I guess it wasn’t in the way we thought. As for the morality of the assassination of Sanderson, I guess that’s for audiences to debate.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy