By the 6th episode of The Last Frontier, the show’s practically a whole new crime thriller each week. But that’s a tried and tested pattern that’s worked great for shows like, uh, let’s say Fringe, and Grimm. I know, I know. One’s a sci fi thriller and another is a supernatural thriller. But it’s the new-case-per-episode pattern, at least in the early seasons, that I’m talking about. The Last Frontier is delivering some truly impressive efforts the uniquely gifted (read: cursed) federal inmates in each episode. And there’s something oddly bewildering about the ways they exploit the Alaskan wilderness and the wildly short-staffed police on their way to death, prison, or freedom. I know The Last Frontier takes some pretty big leaps, some the show doesn’t even bother explaining; not that I mind offering some leeway at all as long as the show’s fun. But explain one thing to me. What are the chances that Frank, Sidney, and the police protecting Fairbanks and the surrounding tundras are so lucky that no two criminal masterminds ever strike on the same day? Why are people like Romero, the Black Widow serial husband killer, and today’s Dr. Death are picking separate days to run their sinister errands in and around Fairbanks? I wouldn’t think too much about it, though. Dr. William Wigg is far too interesting for me to waste anymore time talking about anything else. So let’s get down to the troubles Frank and Sidney have gotten into in this week’s episode of AppleTV’s The Last Frontier.
Spoiler Alert
Who is Dr. William Wigg?
The blanket of darkness Romero wrapped around Fairbanks weighs heavy on it. And as long as it does, the people of the busy Alaskan town will have to make do with a whole lot of firewood. When that happens, the air’s going to be all smoke. Since there’s no power, Fairbanks is practically stuck within itself. Even the airport is closed. So no one is getting in or out either. But Dr. Wigg has been here a while. The chaos that’s permeated the entirety of Fairbanks actually helps him. Because right now, it’s normal for the paramedics to run into a man in terrible condition out on the road. But that’s far from Dr. Wigg’s real state. He’s the picture of health. And that’s really too bad for the EMT who goes to help him only to be hurt in the throat in a fatal way. You think the other EMT in the ambulance will have better luck? Not when Dr. Wigg is involved. The defibrillator he used on her knocks her out for long enough. And in that time, Dr. Wigg’s put his bright medical mind to use and injected her with something that’s basically paralyzed her. He’s got a patient now. How hard can it be for a doctor to pretend to be a medic? Sarah wasn’t supposed to be on duty. She was in the hospital to see Luke. You could say her questions to the doctor about Luke’s wrist are excessive, but she’s a mom. But it’s not just her family that Sarah deeply cares about. Her most defining instinct is her drive to fix things. What better way to do that than to be a nurse who helps fix people. Sarah’s probably not a workaholic, per se. But she can’t just sit on her hands when she sees that a flood of patients are coming into the hospital. Her coworker, Claire, must know Sarah better than to say no when she insists on helping. That’s how Sarah even lands in Dr. Wigg’s path. Wigg’s got a plan for the EMT he’s captured. Pretending to be a paramedic, he’s gotten inside the hospital. The moment Sarah’s eyes catch him is when everything changes, really. Sure, he could be a new guy Sarah hasn’t seen before. Lots of new people have joined in to help out the police in any way they can. But there’s something about Dr. Wigg’s towering presence and ominous smile that’s bound to make you uncomfortable the moment he walks into the room. Moreover, Sarah kind of remembers seeing him in Frank’s files. So her call to Frank is the first clue that gets the ball rolling for the police. But Wiggs hasn’t come here to play doctor. In fact, he’s got no plan to stay. He’s kidnapped Claire. She’s tiny, so that was easy. His instructions to Claire are simple. She’ll call the flight medic and lie to them about the patient having an extra-axial bleed so that they send a chopper down to the hospital to pick her up and take her to Alaska Regional hospital. I guess that’s the closest center where they treat such cases. Clearly, Dr. Wigg plans to hitch a ride on that air ambulance. So it’s a good thing that Sarah pokes her nose into his business, pretends not to know who he is, and stalls him until Frank gets here. It doesn’t take long for Frank to come in. But within the few moments in between, Dr. Wigg was ready to hurt Sarah. So she did what she thought was best and asked Claire to run. Is there a day in her life where she’s not a total badass? But though the police have caught him, it’s Dr. Wigg who holds the power over them. He’s got an interesting story to tell. And because we’ve seen him talk to the man he’s about to tell the police about before, we believe him. But that’s also got a lot to do with this maniacal oncologist’s very spooky past. He has a history of killing patients and coworkers. Can you imagine how lucky he had to be to even survive the plane crash when he’d been flying to his death anyway? He was given the death sentence by the court. So when a man in his position asks you something, you listen. Dr. Wigg actually has great news for the police. One of the pilots of the JPATS that went down, Timothy O’Bannon, is apparently still alive. But he won’t be for long unless Frank gives Dr. Wigg what he wants. It’s a weird ask. He wants the manager of a bank in Seattle to fly to Fairbanks with a box they hold for him. But it’s not too big of an ask, though, is it? O’Bannon’s survival depends on something this seemingly silly. Frank’s not too big of a believer when it comes to his story. He simply doesn’t think that it’s likely that O’Bannon has survived, let alone the fact that Wigg has him. But if the crazy doctor isn’t telling the truth, how could he know very specific details about O’Bannon’s health, the medications he’s on, and his state after the crash? Frank’s got a decision to make.
What happened in Kyiv?
What do you know? I guess even an all-engrossing blackout can’t hold Havlock back. As long as he’s got some tools handy, he can make do. He’s out together batteries and powered some lights and the radio to keep check on things. And that’s really lucky because, when it comes to making sure if Dr. Wigg is telling the truth about the pilot being alive, only one person can confirm that for certain. That’s Havlock. He’s quick to answer Frank over the radio. They trust each other, after all. And like a true gentleman, Havlock doesn’t even ask for anything in exchange for giving Frank the answer that he needs. Of course O’Bannon’s alive. Havlock even adds that O’Bannon was dragged out the plane by some scary looking guy. He’s not wrong about that. You see, it’s not a misdirection that Havlock hasn’t actually done anything bad yet. He kidnapped Sarah, but like Sidney said, Havlock doesn’t do anything unless his life’s in danger. He needed to establish a link with Frank. And the man we see him as when Havlock remembers a mission in Kyiv 2 years back, back when he was still CIA, doesn’t seem like someone who’d want to hurt Frank. Havlock and Sidney were in Kyiv working on an operation where the target was a certain General Volkov. The mole they placed in Volkov’s home, Elizabeth, had no idea that Havlock was CIA. She thought she was talking to a defector when she told Havlock secrets about Volkov and his movements. And when the CIA had enough to break down Volkov’s door, and they didn’t need Elizabeth anymore, they sent Sidney to give Havlock his next order. Dispatch Elizabeth. But how could Havlock just use an innocent woman for information and then kill her and leave her family destroyed? But more importantly, how was Sidney so okay with this? It must’ve been her father’s connection to the Bureau that had lulled Sidney into a false sense of safety. As long as the CIA gave her a crumb of reason they were about to kill someone off for, Sidney was on board. She didn’t care until the bureau came for her. Havlock did warn her that it was only a matter of time before him and Sidney were the targets that the CIA would go after. But like I said, Sidney turned a blind eye to the downright criminal “operations” the CIA ran under the pretense of protecting what’s important. Now that the CIA have come for Sidney, she doesn’t even have Havlock by her side anymore. But she’s figured out one thing even though Frank and Hutch were keeping her out of their discussions about the hard drive. Like Frank, she also thinks that it’s malware that the Courier operated and used to bring down the plane. But it isn’t just her smarts that’ve made her come to this conclusion. Sidney isn’t new to the idea of the CIA using malware to bring down a plane and kill a target because, well, it was her idea. What’s up with this woman’s wildly apathetic perspective on people losing lives? You can’t help but appreciate the karmic pattern of Sidney’s fate. The insanely violent operation she pushed for is now being used against her. Why else do you think Sidney’s losing her mind about the hard drive? She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’s comfortable with literally begging someone for help. But if Frank doesn’t find some way to keep the CIA’s grubby hands off the hard drive, nothing can keep them from pinning the JPATS crash on Sidney. What she’s paying for right now is her blind faith in the government when she was the one killing people. People like Hutch and Frank are different. They work for the government too, sure. But like Hutch says, they don’t necessarily have a whole lot of reasons to trust their ultimate employer. It’s a fundamental conflict of interest when people who want to save lives work for organizations who are most skilled at killing. I guess that’s why Frank and Co. are having to squeeze the most out of their very limited resources while they run multiple manhunts and bring down criminals who scare even other criminals.
What’s Luke’s connection to the gun Frank hides in his basement?
You know what they say about even the smartest criminals making dumb mistakes that get them caught. I think it should really be chalked up to the kind of oversight that’s only human. Take Havlock, for instance. The last thing he expected was that the Marshals would figure out where he is from the background noise on the conversation Frank had with him. Well, more specifically, it’s Briggs who notices the bells in the background. There’s only one place around Fairbanks that rings a loud bell around 2 AM. That narrows it down to an abandoned theatre. They’re spot on about that! But I doubt that the Marshals and the police could’ve gotten Havlock even on their best day. Remember, the situation with Dr. Wigg hasn’t improved at all. Because of the blackout, it’s gonna take far longer than desired for the police to bring in the bank manager and the box. That doesn’t give O’Bannon a lot of time. You see, after the crash, Dr. Wigg assessed his condition, and instead of going for an ancient, barbaric technique that would’ve probably saved him, he drugged him with stolen medication, a medication that, if it’s not administered within the doctor’s timeframe, O’Bannon will die. That’s why Cole and his gang are in such a hurry looking through the hundreds of storage units the bad doctor has to his name. But it’s funny how things work out, no? With most of the force away looking for O’Bannon in Dr. Wigg’s storage units, Frank and Sidney don’t have a lot of manpower when they go in to catch Havlock. It’s only made worse by the fact that the Courier is there at the same time. The crash he orchestrated failed to kill Havlock. So I guess he’s come to finish the job. He’s hardly a match for Havlock though. If Havlock wanted, he could’ve killed the Courier. But there’s a blink-and-you-miss-it scene that reveals Havlock’s real agenda. Havlock plants something on the Courier before dodging the police and running off into the darkness.
In the ending of The Last Frontier episode 6, when you see Havlock listening to the conversation between Hutch and the Courier, you get why he left him alive. Havlock wanted an ear around Frank. But other than the fact that he’s a low-level CIA agent who won’t speak a word against his agency, catching the Courier isn’t completely useless for Frank. The Courier has a thing for old poems. And when he hears Frank’s problem about the plane he can’t land in time, he gives Frank an idea through a riddle. He mentions flames of fire. How Frank goes from that to the World War ll scenario where they lit a runway on fire to land a plane, I couldn’t tell you. But that’s how he gets the idea to make a runway out of an open space by flooding the place with head light from vehicles. It’s kinda sweet how the radio blasts the police’s request for every car and truck owner to show up at the makeshift runway and light it up. You don’t really expect that the bank manager will have any active part in all this, even when she lands in Fairbanks with the box Dr. Wigg has been dying to get his hands on, but weirdly, she does. She happens to be the mother of a boy the Grim Reaper doctor killed. The box, as it now shows, is the keeper of his mementos. What a wild thing to kill a boy and keep his picture among countless others and tuck it away at a bank managed by the dead boy’s mother. You see, Dr. Wigg is a strong advocate for resources being put to judicious use. He doesn’t think that the patients who are certainly about to die in some time anyway should be kept alive. So apparently to save the government’s measly healthcare fund on people who’re on their last legs, Dr. Wigg killed people, the bank manager’s son being one of them. I like how she goes straight to the point and explains how he is guilty of what he is vehemently against. Dr. William Wigg, a criminal who’s killed a lot of people and left their families devastated, is himself a drain on resources. He shouldn’t be kept alive, not according to him, and certainly not according to the woman who’s son didn’t get to live a day longer after meeting him and being diagnosed with late stage cancer. So she puts several bullets in him to fix that flaw in the system. He was about to be killed anyway. I don’t see what a grieving mother did wrong by killing a dying man who took her son away from her. But she’s arrested, and she’ll pay for this unless the jury has some sympathy for her circumstances. It’s an increasingly convoluted episode when it comes to the thematic layers it’s explored underneath the plot movement. The cost and the worth of human life is a big topic of debate this week. Who deserves to live, who deserves to die, who deserved to play God and decide all of that for other people? It’s an odd business. And no matter which way you go, you can’t possibly come to a simple solution to any problem that’s to do with the human mind. It hardly even knows itself. I think Havlock holds human life in high regard, just like Frank. Back in Kyiv, he broke protocol, went against orders, and helped Elizabeth escape safely. It’s probably that point where Havlock turned himself into a target for the CIA. They’re a killing machine. And anyone who threatens their favorite hobby doesn’t stand a chance against their plotting. So you root for Havlock, really. Especially when O’Bannon is recovered from one of Dr. Wigg’s storage containers, and he tells Sidney that it was Havlock who saved the plane and everyone who survived; it doesn’t really scream antagonist, does it? The real antagonist in The Last Frontier seems to be the CIA. Frank’s just gotten a call about the hard drive. Sidney’s in huge trouble, because not only have the CIA gotten to it, but it’s also been decrypted. It’s just what they thought it would be. It’s not malware, exactly. But it’s a software that the CIA could’ve used to sabotage the plane. O’Bannon did say that the controls weren’t functioning right before the crash. So it had to have been someone else who was determining the course of the plane. Havlock is planning something, along with a bunch of people who are about to come to Fairbanks to see proof of something he told them about. They have no other way to know if it actually exists. Is it Archive 6? Are these people potential buyers? While Frank means to be there for Sidney through this seemingly endless period of trouble, he’s got other things to worry about. Luke’s conversation with Kira in the hospital makes him sound like a kid who blames himself for all the bad things that happen around him. But why is that? It doesn’t look too good when, in the ending of this week’s episode, Frank comes home and finds Luke looking for the gun in the basement. If Luke knows about the gun, is it possible that he fired it? Who is Frank trying to protect by hiding this piece of evidence? He’s only started to get back in touch with Chicago. He’s called up his old buddy Mike to find out things about the Courier. And get this. The man’s got only one picture on the internet. And that’s after this Mike guy broke a whole lot of laws and looked through the darkest corners of the internet. It would be pretty funny if he wasn’t even sent by the CIA, no?
