It’s not the endless snow that makes AppleTV’s The Last Frontier feel like Christmas. It’s all the sneaky gifts the show’s tucked into each episode in the form of some of the most intricate and intriguing subplots I’ve ever seen in crime fiction TV. And it’s back to back too. It wasn’t too long ago that procedurals and crime thrillers were primarily obsessed with dysfunctional gray men for their heroes and foes. So not only is it more fun that The Last Frontier surprisingly leans to the side of good with most of their characters, except for most of the federal convicts, of course, but Frank Remnick and Havlock are a fresh shift from the usual toxic testosterone fest. The 4th episode of Jon Bokenkamp and Richard D’ovidio’s show combines an increasingly chaotic exacerbation of the situation in Fairbanks, all thanks to the convicts who’ve managed to make it so far without getting caught. Does Havlock even need to create diversions?
Spoiler Alert
What are Kitty Van Horn and Vivian planning?
The Alaskan wilderness isn’t usually the place where you expect to find a federal convict caught in a bear trap. Kitty’s in a lot of pain. So it’s a good thing for her that Vivian is willing to help her out. It practically looks like Kitty and Viv have known each other for a while, and Viv works for the formidable woman now yowling in pain. Viv’s got a plan. She’s snuck into a nearby house to get help by holding the resident, Ruth Reed, at gunpoint. You’d think Kitty would be grateful to be out of the trap digging into her leg. Wasn’t she just saying how much she didn’t want to die like a bear in the wild after surviving 14 years in prison and a plane crash? But this Kitty has nails. Come on, you know I had to go there. Kitty smashes Ruth’s head in and the two leave a red trail dragging her body into the house. There’s this almost post-apocalyptic quality to the very odd circumstances that Fairbanks has found itself in ever since the crash. You’re almost numb to the tragedy that’s just happened when you see Kitty and Viv gather supplies, try on clothes, and basically have a party. Who doesn’t want to survive and live well? But don’t root too much for the homicidal duo’s justifiable excitement yet. They’re truly terrible. You see, Ruth was a state trooper. So it’s a good thing for Kitty and Viv that she’s dead, right. Oh wait, there’s some fight left in Ruth yet. But I guess The Last Frontier isn’t overtly sentimental. So Ruth’s effort to defend herself only serves as a platform for Kitty to showcase just how terrifying she really is. She doesn’t break a sweat when she saran wraps Ruth’s head. In fact, she gives her a couple pats when the job’s done. So yeah, I’d say that Kitty and Viv are far more vicious than Havlock. Speaking of the big bad, it’s good to see that that insane fall from a great height hasn’t killed Havlock. It wouldn’t be as fun without his shadow following Frank and Sidney even when there’s complete silence between them. Ruth’s body was quickly found. And you know how jittery cops will be to solve the murder of one of their own. The FBI’s at the scene even before Frank and Sidney, not that they’ve made any progress without them. They haven’t even thought to check the trail camera. But thanks to Frank, now they have. That’s how they can even conclude that Havlock had nothing to do with this. I shouldn’t speak too soon though. You see, the sweater Viv changed out of before leaving was the one that Havlock had borrowed from Frank’s closet to shoot the random video. Viv has crossed paths with Havlock. So catching these two is now all the more urgent for Sidney and Frank. Kitty isn’t doing a great job blending in at the diner they’ve stopped at. What makes it even more complicated for them is the fact that they’ve got a trooper in the next booth. It’s time for us to see what Viv is good at. Without Viv’s freakishly quick and adept plan, Kitty wouldn’t have been able to make it through the back door. She was told to lock the lavatory door on her way out so that people think she’s in there. Viv’s absolutely oscar-worthy when she plays the part of an abused young girl who’s just gotten away from her awful mother. Her whimpers catch the attention of a woman. And when she gets the trooper to help her out, you think Viv’s gonna get in trouble now. But this is exactly what Viv wanted. While the woman was away getting the trooper, Viv swiped her car keys and scrammed. There’s no stopping Kitty and Viv. Kitty went away for killing 5 of her beaus and only got caught on her 6th Black Widow kill. She married rich, so she’s currently a multi-millionaire. Now what’s a woman like her doing with Viv–a young con woman who’s been dodging prison since she was 13 and committed her first crime. It makes sense that Viv wants to run. Her luck ran out when she got a short sentence for a crime she did commit. We’ve already seen a pretty impressive exhibition of her smarts. But even the smartest ones make mistakes. Kitty and Viv left behind a phone book with a page ripped out. Jane can get the library open any time of the day. So Frank can quickly get his hands on a phone book to look for the page that Kitty and Viv ripped out. As it turns out, they weren’t calling anyone. They’re heading for a very unfortunate local place that offers flightseeing tours. Talk about bad advertisement! As Sidney quickly figures out, Viv and Kitty are trying to get a pilot. They want to fly away from this death trap.
How does Kitty get a deal from Sidney?
Alaska’s a moody place. And that’s a tricky thing to understand for all the outsiders who’ve joined in to help out the police and the locals in their manhunt for Havlock and their search for Kitty and Viv. As is expected from someone who’s literally married to him, Sidney understands that this can’t be it for him. Nothing with Havlock is ever that simple. And what do you know? Not a bone in his body has broken in the fall. How does he do this? Nevermind. We know better than to question thriller logic. Sidney said another thing right about her criminal husband. He’s not violent. But he can be so if it’s necessary. To think that Cole was just complaining about the armed locals, half of them minors, joining the search group because the man who owns the area has approved of that. Even being armed doesn’t save a guy from being taken down by Havlock. And once he’s in his victim’s outfit, he blends into the search group no problem. That’s Havlock for you. But you can see how Alaska’s quirks practically make it a character in The Last Frontier. It’s a place where kids of single digit ages have guns and don’t hesitate to go looking for a federal criminal in the woods. It’s also a place where a man needs some talking down from his grandma because he’s been selling t-shirts to commemorate the plane crash. The old guys here are not what you’d call super technologically skilled. So the old man who runs Aero Excursions, the place where Kitty and Viv were headed, obviously had his password, which is literally just the word “password” without any upper or lower case shenanigans, stuck on the computer on a sticky note. Frank and Sidney were too late on this one. Kitty and Viv have already gotten the manifest of local pilots, and they’re obviously out hunting for their first one on the list. It just so happens that Kitty absolutely hates the name Slade, and that’s the name of the bush pilot they’ve kidnapped so they can fly off to Canada. On the surface, Kitty’s appearance doesn’t really warrant much fear. So it’s understandable that a young guy like Slade thinks an old woman like Kitty and a skinny young girl like Viv can’t really hurt him. The smash Kitty lands on his land with a meat hammer should do the trick. The dynamic is set. Slade knows he’s working for them. But fuel’s crazy expensive and hard to get in Alaska. So here’s where Kitty’s fat purse comes in. Well, technically, it’s her glasses. They have a secret compartment for a chip she can use to access and transfer her funds. She can do whatever she wants with Slade once they’re in Canada. But for now, she has to help Slade get the fuel for the ride. The only reason you’re a little hopeful about Slade’s chances is that Frank and Sidney have gotten a tip about their location. But then you see that Kitty’s made a run for it with her pilot and left Viv behind. I get it. Kitty’s dying. And a dying woman doesn’t really have anything to lose. Viv isn’t too heartbroken over being abandoned by Kitty. She doesn’t have a lot to say to the cops except to point out general direction of the runway Kitty’s plane is about to take off from, and that Kitty is dying. And that too she only does when Sidney gets her the deal of a lifetime. And when she’s asked about Havlock, all she says is that she saw him on the plane. But that can’t be right. When did he give her his sweater if the plane was the only place they met? You can see how Viv’s usual tactic of playing lamb isn’t working on Frank or Sidney. But she doesn’t need them to think that she is a harmless creature. She’s plain in her demand about being absolved of all the crimes she’s ever committed in exchange for information. When the scene shifts to the dirt road Slade is going to use as a runway, his warning about the air pressure worsening her lung condition doesn’t matter to Kitty. She’s gonna die anyway. But lucky for Slade, his life is saved when Frank figures out their location from Viv’s clues and rolls in with a fleet of cops. There Kitty goes–out on the snow–looking for just about any alternative to being arrested. And it’s here that Frank’s morals and ethics are at war with each other. The cops don’t mind the idea of Frank putting a bullet in Kitty. She’s killed a trooper, so it’s personal for them. I mean, she actually asked them to kill her, so Frank will be doing her a favor. But as we’ve come to know in conversations I’ll get to later, Frank Remnick respects human life. He can’t kill a person no matter how bad they are or how bad they want it. So it looks like the last days of Kitty’s life are going to be excruciating. Not like she doesn’t deserve it. But then there’s that undeniable forgiveness you feel for a dying person–someone who might as well have been a bear in the snow. So you don’t really mind it when Kitty attacks Frank in a suicidal frenzy, and gets her wish fulfilled when Sidney shoots her dead. Well, it’s not Canada. But I’d say that Kitty got an easy release.
Who is the courier?
Over at the CIA HQ, something’s got Mark so spooked that he’s calling a person whose name makes him uncomfortable–Sidney. Mark’s got a problem he can only share with Sidney. Remember Armen Zhdanko? In the 3rd episode of The Last Frontier, Havlock broke into Sidney’s XenoGate account to send a message to this Zhdanko guy, warning him about something. Now that Mark’s operation to get Zhdanko from his home in St. Petersburg is a bust, he’s right in his suspicion. No-one knows how, but Havlock has managed to tip Zhdanko off before the CIA could nab him. How did he even know that the CIA was after Zhdanko? Mark doesn’t have much for Sidney to go on. All he has is a single picture of a man Zhdanko met outside his home 3 days ago. He handed over a little briefcase to this mystery man the CIA has been calling the Courier. Sidney is only now finding out that this Russian guy is the hacker who originally stole Archive 6. So the only thing that makes sense is the theory that Zhdanko transferred Archive 6 to a hard disk, and this Courier person is going to hand it over to Havlock. Now, the memory chip that Frank stole from the evidence told them that Havlock sent a lot of money to St. Petersberg. The recipient has to have been Armen Zhdanko. And Havlock doesn’t take too long to get in touch with him again. He’s actually likeable when he pretends to buddy up with two guys in the search party who weren’t really the best parents to their puppy. By then, Havlock had already stolen a key from someone’s jacket. And when these doofuses lose their key, he gets to play the gentleman and offer them a ride to their cabin so that he can get access to the internet. These two were due for a dressing down for not feeding their dog enough. And it’s kinda nice to see them all quiet when Havlock hacks their computer and video calls Zhdanko. The Russian spy he’s trying to do business with is cagey. And why shouldn’t he be? It doesn’t seem like he knows Havlock too well. So he might well only be doing this for the money. Havlock was the highest bidder. And when Zhdanko starts to open up, he gets to know that the Courier has been in Fairbanks with Archive 6 from the day before the plane crash. He’s been waiting for Havlock. And now, it’s time for the Courier to deliver what he’s been safekeeping for the buyer. But Frank isn’t too far behind. He’s already gotten his men to look up any strange man who’s flown to Fairbanks from Russia. It doesn’t take long for them to zero in on the one man who had an original passport, but a whole bunch of fake documents. The name Vincent Thiago is obviously an alias. Frank needs to intercept the exchange before Havlock skips town again.
What Will Happen To Luke?
You know, there’s no way you can say for sure that Sidney can be trusted. Yes, she’s sweet, she seems sincere in all her efforts and actions, and she doesn’t really show any obvious red flags so far. But I can’t help but feel like keeping my mind open to the idea of Sidney being the biggest player in the game. I mean, everything we know about Sidney comes straight from Sidney’s mouth. How often do CIA agents tell the truth about themselves to a Marshal they don’t know. But my cynicism doesn’t keep me from finding it sweet how Frank wants to make her feel welcome with a chunky jacket and a proper hat for the Alaskan cold. It’s also a genuine moment of a person acknowledging the goodness of another person when Sidney basically comes out and says what she thinks about Frank. He’s a good guy. For a cop, he’s a fantastic guy. But is Sidney only trying to cozy up to Frank so that she can get access to the case? If Frank doesn’t help her, the FBI will push her out within the matter of a day. When she opens up to Frank about her very strange marriage with an enemy of the CIA, your heart breaks for her. The flashbacks, the authenticity of which I can’t vouch for, by the way, do paint a picture of a relationship where both of them fell hard for each other. But it wasn’t like hiding a relationship from a disapproving parent for Sidney and Levi (I like how she calls him that). They were hiding it from the CIA. Sidney was a nervous rule-follower, scared of staining her father’s reputation. If Sidney is lying to Frank about having always loved Levi, she must have lied to Levi too. And she’d have to be a master liar for that. In the flashbacks, Sidney let Levi make a bad agent out of her when they risked an operation just to spend time together. And every time she looked at him, she let herself take a whole lot of risks. The marriage was fake at first, just to throw their target off the scent. But when Levi proposed for real, Sidney said yes in a heartbeat. Their love story obviously doesn’t have a happy ending. But I’m still not sure who the bad guy is. If Sidney’s telling the truth, then Havlock was cruel enough to play with her heart to get what he wanted. This might not have been the time for Frank to have an epiphany about Viv, but the connection is unmissable. The idea of exploitation made Frank think of why Viv would even help Kitty for that long. She was after the money. And after stealing it from Kitty by literally stealing the chip in her glasses (which Frank doesn’t know about), she called the cops on herself. She knew she’d be able to cut that deal. And with Kitty’s money, she could start over like they show in the movies. This deduction doesn’t really help Frank. They’ve already signed the deal. And Viv is officially a free woman. What she has to say about her real meeting with Havlock sounds vague, but believable. I can see Havlock helping her out by giving her his sweater. And I can also imagine him telling her that he’s going to meet an old friend. That has to mean Sidney, right? In the middle of all this, Frank really hasn’t been worrying about Luke as much as he should have. Sarah’s been having a pretty weird time at work with her boss forcing her to sit down with the resident therapist, Todd. He sounds kinda like your regular Toby at first. But since Sarah can’t continue working unless she goes through a psych eval after what she’s been through, and we meet this Todd after all, he seems like a smart guy. He knows how to get Sarah to open up even when she fights it. But is it because he’s a good therapist or is it because he used to date her when they were in high school? Yikes. How is this even ethical?
But even if it was someone other than Todd, Sarah wouldn’t have said anything different. She doesn’t want to talk about her feelings. She wants to bring her son back home. It’s taken her this long to voice what’s been keeping her anxious all this while, because sometimes you just don’t realize the root of it all. Good for Todd. And as soon as she knows that she’s not about to risk losing another kid, she wants to take her car out to the cabin. But her car’s with the police. So to her dismay, Todd has to accompany her. There’s a lot left unsaid between Frank and Sarah. She doesn’t even tell him where she’s headed until she’s halfway there. She knew that he would’ve stopped her. So she didn’t wait for his permission. On her way to the cabin, Sarah’s yet again more talkative than she’d like to be. It’s here that she proves my last week’s theory about her keychain true and reveals something big to Todd. There’s a chip that Havlock gave her. She was supposed to hand it over to Frank. But she’s kept it hidden in her keychain because she’s terrified of losing everything she loves in this case. Sarah’s fair in her fear. She’s been through something similarly traumatizing in Chicago when Frank worked there. She doesn’t want to risk what she’s worked so hard on fixing. So you can imagine how scary it is for her when she gets to the cabin and doesn’t find Luke and Kira. What’s worse? She finds Clint’s body. But she’s done a great job raising Luke. He’s a smart kid. Being on the wheels while the convict who’s kidnapped them freaks out and shoots his gun is scary for Luke. But he’s a smart kid. He’s sent a signal to Kira in code with a story about one of their friends whose dad died because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. When Kira gets the message and tightens her seatbelt in the back, it’s Luke’s turn to pull off something insanely cool. He clicks open the convict’s seatbelt and crashes the car.
Thankfully, in the ending of the 4th episode of The Last Frontier, Luke and Kira are saved by the belts. The convict is pretty badly hurt, but he’s a scrappy one. Luke makes the bravest decision when he asks Kira to run while he distracts the bad guy. Luke’s in a much better physical condition. So I’m not too worried about his chances.
