When a prison transport plane goes down in the frozen wilds of Alaska, it’s up to Jason Clarke to restore order in “The Last Frontier,” the new Apple TV+ thriller from “The Blacklist” creator Jon Bokenkamp. Bokenkamp teamed up with Richard D’Ovidio for Apple’s new 10-episode thriller, starring Clarke as Frank Remnick, a U.S. marshal trying to keep order in a stretch of the northernmost U.S. state. The series is now streaming on Apple TV+, with the first two episodes out now and new installments rolling out weekly through December 5.
On paper, at least, the whole thing feels like a brawny, cinematic mashup of movies like “The Fugitive” and “Con Air” — which, to a viewer like me, already sounds intriguing enough. But to really get a feel for the action-packed series (which also includes a nasty CIA conspiracy element), check out footage below from the “oner” in the opening episode — a continuous, single-take fight scene that sucks you right in to the action.
Why The Last Frontier is worth checking out
“I am just super self-conscious about not wanting to bore the audience,” Bokenkamp said in an interview with the Associated Press about “The Last Frontier,” which is also his first streaming project. “I really like something that has a kinetic energy. Sometimes I have to remind myself to slow down.”
In the show, the crash of the aforementioned prisoner transport plane sets dozens of violent inmates free. Clarke’s Remnick not only has to scramble to keep the area safe, but he also starts to believe the crash wasn’t a random event — rather, merely step one of a carefully choreographed plan with nightmarish implications. To put some numbers to the situation, the plane was carrying over 50 inmates when it crashed. Of that total, 34 either die or get recaptured after the crash, leaving 18 in the wind. At one point, Remnick is asked if a perimeter has been set up, to which he answers: “This is Alaska. There is no perimeter.”
If you’ve been missing the kind of story and action that made “The Blacklist” such a long-running favorite, I suspect “The Last Frontier” will easily scratch that itch. Clarke here plays a determined hero trying to hold the line in an unforgiving stretch of Alaska — with the setting itself, all endless snowfields and eerie silence, adding its own degree of menace to the story. A combination mystery-and-survival adventure, “The Last Frontier” easily stands alongside other thrillers on Apple’s streamer like “Hijack,” “Severance,” and more.
