Exclusive: Apple TV+'s <em>The Last Frontier</em> Is a Thrilling Throwback to '90s Hollywood

A sleepy Alaskan suburb. An aircraft with a cargo of prisoners. A lone U.S. Marshal with everything to lose. This is The Last Frontier, a new fist-pumping action series from The Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp set to premiere October 10 on Apple TV+. If the show sounds like something you'd find on a VHS shelf at Blockbuster back in the day, that's by design.

"The show is Con Air meets The Fugitive," Bokenkamp tells me via Zoom. "It's grounded in '90s action thrillers. That's what we wanted to do. We're trying to give audiences something fun, and come together for a thrill ride. That was our inspiration."

In an Esquire exclusive, The Last Frontier executive producers Jon Bokenkamp, Sam Hargrave, and Jason Clarke (who just so happens to star in the series) lift the veil over your next autumn binge-watch, along with first-look stills that tease the mayhem ahead.

In The Last Frontier, a federal transport of convicts crashes two miles south of a peaceful small town in Alaska. The town's only and nearly retired U.S. Marshal, Frank Remnick (Clarke)—who Bokenkamp describes as modest and blue-collar, but as someone who feels obsolete—is thrust into tracking down all 50 runaways on foot. Meanwhile, the CIA races to get on the ground before a far bigger cover-up is exposed.

"The downed plane and convicts at large are Frank's responsibility," explains Jason Clarke over email. "We follow Frank, stumbling through the chaos that ensues. He becomes a useful pawn in a larger plot that is forced to confront a shameful, wrongful past as history appears to repeat itself."

Says Bokenkamp: "Family and community are important to Frank. He is somebody who sees the world changing around him, and changing faster than he's comfortable with. There are things in the world that he doesn't understand. This catastrophe forces him to confront those questions. There's a sensitivity and nuance [to him]. He's a bit of an open wound, and he's very good at hiding that."

Frank isn't alone in the crisis. The secondary protagonist of The Last Frontier is Sidney (Hayley Bennett), a disgraced CIA agent who must win back the favor of her superiors by finding the singularly dangerous prisoner known as "Havlock" (whose real identity is something of a surprise at the end of the first episode).

"She comes in to look for this specific character, Havlock," Hargrave adds. "He's bad news, trained in the art of chaos. They're trying to figure out how the plane went down, and what deeper plot lies beneath this seemingly random act."

The Last Frontier, the newest series from The Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp, arrives on Apple TV+ on October 10.

The Last Frontier is the brainchild of Bokenkamp, who cemented his TV credentials with the smash hit series The Blacklist on NBC. Originally, Bokenkamp and co-executive producer Richard D'Ovidio cooked up a story where a U.S. Marshal transport crashes in Manhattan, "and all these inmates are set loose in the city."

But being from Nebraska, Bokenkamp revised the show to feel a bit closer to home. "I lived in a very rural community. I understand that better than the city," he says. "The real impetus was wanting to tell a story that was fun, escapist, not steeped in politics. Just a rollercoaster of a ride." He also mined plenty of inspiration from '90s Hollywood. Think: Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Tony Scott movies.

"Those movies are sort of based on one concept: A train crashes, a fugitive escapes, a plane is hijacked," he says. "I think of movies like Point Break or Enemy of the State. Popcorn movies that an audience could come together and go on a ride... Oftentimes it's absurd, and goes to places where it might not be totally grounded in reality, but that's the fun of it."

Of course, Bokenkamp couldn't execute on his vision by himself. He turned to Hargrave, who worked as a stunt coordinator on the Hunger Games and Marvel franchises before directing Extraction for Netflix. For The Last Frontier, Hargrave applies his wealth of knowledge as both a stuntman and director, hence why the show's first episode kicks plenty of ass. "A direct correlation of skills from stunts to directing and producing is working with people," Hargrave says. "As a stunt performer, you're working with actors, teaching them fight moves or explaining a stunt in a language that is simple to understand. You repeat yourself often. That communication translates very well to directing."

In The Last Frontier, a federal aircraft with prisoners as passengers crashes in Alaska. With 50 or so felons on foot, a nearby small town falls under their mercy.

Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) stars in The Last Frontier as U.S. Marshal Frank Remnick. "We meet him as he is edging closer to retirement," explains Clarke.

Also starring in The Last Frontier are Alfre Woodard (left) and Haley Bennett (right), whose characters work for the CIA.

While The Last Frontier is overrun with characters–many of them criminals whose shady pasts led to lockup–its creators are quick to point out Alaska as a standout character of its own. "The wilderness of Alaska represented an aspect of danger that these prisoners had to battle against, as well as the local people who hunt and live on the land," Hargrave says. "In a way, it's man versus nature, and how man, when integrated with nature, can use it to their advantage."

"We wanted a dangerous place, yet it's a warm place," Bokenkamp says. "The nature of the landscape, how rugged it is, forces people to kind of go back in time a little bit, to depend on each other in ways that maybe we would have a long time ago. You can run into trouble in ways you can't buy your way out of. You have to depend on the community, and that may mean depending on somebody that you don't like."

Clarke tells me that in contrast to sets built on stages, shooting The Last Frontier in "wild, untamed locations" with "beautiful, crazy weather" was invaluable. "After any incredibly demanding production, you always learn what you are capable of," he says.

"It’s a throwback to the action-adventure movies of the ’90s," says The Last Frontier director Sam Hargrave. "That was how we tried to approach it."

The Last Frontier isn't a show that is trying to make you think—it's trying to make you feel. Much like Bokenkamp's last television endeavor The Blacklist, The Last Frontier strives for white-knuckle excitement with aggressive storytelling. "Our show has a frenetic energy–an urgency and momentum that I don't see a lot of in streaming," boasts Bokenkamp. "I think TV now takes its time and wanders. But this is meant to be something where you buckle up, put your chin strap on, and go on a really fun ride."

Below are several more exclusive photos of The Last Frontier, courtesy of Apple TV+.