The Last Frontier starts with everything it’s got: action, mystery, and an atmosphere of isolation that only Alaska can provide. From the very first minutes, “Blue Skies” makes it clear that this won’t just be another story about fugitives and hardened agents — it’s a thriller about trust, secrets, and the moral abyss between duty and survival.

The opening sequence sets the tone immediately. Beneath cutting winds and an almost unreal white light, we witness a high-security military operation at Eielson Air Force Base. A hooded, shackled prisoner is led onto a plane that’s meant to transport inmates to Washington. His name is Havlock — or at least that’s what they call him — and even without showing his face, he commands the screen. He’s the kind of character whose presence alone feels like a silent threat.

Chaos erupts within minutes. An explosion tears through the fuselage, and Alaska’s frozen silence gives way to screams, smoke, and bodies hurled into the void. Havlock, who has managed to fashion a lock pick from his own tooth, breaks free from his restraints and turns the transport into a battleground. The sequence — directed with the choreographed energy of Con Air and the brutality of Seven — bears the signature of stunt expert Sam Hargrave, the same filmmaker behind Netflix’s Extraction. In fact, Hargrave himself dons Havlock’s hood during the zero-gravity scenes, lending the opening a physical realism and visual punch that Dominic Cooper admitted he envied.

From the flaming sky, the episode cuts to the apparent calm of Fairbanks, where we meet Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), a local U.S. Marshal trying to balance work and family life. It’s a deliberate contrast: Frank is preparing a cabin for his wife, Sarah (Simone Kessell), and their son, Luke, when the call comes in — a plane has gone down in the snow. Clarke plays Frank with that moral exhaustion typical of heroes who have already seen too much. His restrained demeanor hides a near-physical urgency.

With an improvised team, Frank flies over the crash site. The snow swallows the horizon, and silence reigns again until a wounded survivor whispers one word that changes everything: “Ambush.” What looked like an accident turns out to be an orchestrated attack. Havlock is loose — and not alone. The ensuing skirmish is quick and brutal, leaving several wounded, including Frank’s partner Donnie, who dies shortly after. The action here is less stylized and more tense, marked by close-ups and abrupt cuts that heighten the claustrophobia — even in open space.

As Frank struggles to reorganize local law enforcement, the episode shifts to Langley, CIA headquarters. There, we meet agent Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett), summoned back to a classified project known as the Atwater Protocol. She holds the key to understanding the Havlock enigma. Jon Bokenkamp — creator of The Blacklist — uses her terse exchanges with her superior to sow the seeds of a larger conspiracy: the villain is no ordinary criminal, but a creation of the Agency itself.

In flashback, we learn that Havlock began as a counterintelligence operation. He was once Levi Hartman, a former Navy SEAL and mathematics professor recruited by the CIA to pose as a defector. His mission: lure out and eliminate real traitors. But the fiction became reality. Hartman came to believe in the role he was playing and decided to turn against the system that created him. The result is a hybrid between Jason Bourne’s assassin and The Silence of the Lambs’ nihilistic philosopher. As Dominic Cooper explained, “He’s a genius, an ex-operative, a mathematician, a teacher… someone who believes the government deserves to fall.”

Back in Alaska, Frank and Sidney form a tense alliance. He’s pragmatic and protective; she’s guarded and evasive. The chemistry between Clarke and Bennett is immediate — built more on friction than trust. As they try to piece together what happened, the escaped inmates scatter across the wilderness, and the brutal cold becomes an enemy of its own. The outdoor scenes are shot with near-documentary realism: the constant wind, the blinding whiteness, and the overwhelming isolation create an atmosphere of silent menace.

The episode reaches its climax when Frank and Sidney track an SOS signal to the cabin of Zeb Webber, a local hermit. The tension grows in silence — pure suspense, reminiscent of No Country for Old Men. The man inside seems to be Havlock. The agents surround the cabin. The confrontation is quick, taut, and violent. But the real twist is psychological: the man they kill isn’t Havlock. It was a decoy. The real trap has already been set elsewhere.

Meanwhile, at Fairbanks Hospital, a survivor from the crash is being treated by Sarah. His face is covered in bandages. The audience already realizes what Frank doesn’t yet know: the man is Havlock in disguise. The revelation scene is a direct homage to Silence of the Lambs — Dominic Cooper removing the eye bandages in a slow, calculated gesture as Sarah realizes, too late, the danger before her. Frank tries to warn her, but the call comes when it’s already too late. She’s gone.

The episode ends with Havlock sabotaging the communication towers, cutting off the town entirely, and blackmailing Frank. What began as a rescue mission becomes a personal war.

“Blue Skies” is a fierce and assured premiere that combines physical action with political and psychological layers. Bokenkamp revives his flair for cat-and-mouse intrigue from The Blacklist, but with a darker, more grounded realism. Jason Clarke delivers a hero on the brink of collapse, while Dominic Cooper embodies a villain who’s unpredictable, magnetic, and terrifying. And Alaska itself is a character: its ice, silence, and vast emptiness amplify every feeling of vulnerability.

If this first episode is any indication, The Last Frontier won’t just be a story about a manhunt — but about what happens when a system creates its own monster. And, as the title suggests, when the last frontier isn’t geographic, but moral.