Untamed ending explained: Who was the victim and why was she killed?

Alongside Jurassic Park legend Sam Neill, And Just Like That star Rosemarie DeWitt and relative newcomer Lily Santiago, Turner investigates the suspicious death of a young woman named Lucy Cook.

The central trio encounter twist after twist in the case until it all comes to a head in the final episode.

So, who is Lucy Cook, exactly? What really happened to her out in the wilds of Yosemite Park? And how do these intrepid park rangers fit into all this?

Read on to find out, but be warned that there are discussions of suicide which some may find upsetting.

Untamed ending explained: What really happened to Lucy Cook?

As the finale's title suggests, all trails do indeed lead here. But Kyle's life is in chaos after an altercation between him and Shane Maguire led to his suspension as a ranger.

At the end of the previous episode, Kyle travelled into the park to find answers, when he was suddenly shot by, yep, you guessed it, Shane, who wants to take Turner out of the picture completely.

With his horse also down for the count, Kyle uses some mud to tend to his bullet wound while on the run from Shane and his big rifle.

The pair carry on until nightfall, when Kyle, exhausted and on the verge of death, tries to kill Shane with his last bullet. Except, the gun's empty, and that click of the barrel alerts Shane to Kyle's whereabouts.

"There’s nothing left for you in this park," says Shane as he aims his gun to finish Kyle off. "Go see your boy."

Yep, he's referring to Kyle's dead son, Caleb, which is pretty savage when you think about it. A gun does go off then, but it's not Shane's. Naya has arrived just in time, shooting Shane once to save Kyle and then a few times more when he tries to kill her for interfering.

Kyle wakes up in hospital, and of course, he's going to be just fine. Vasquez, his so-called "lucky charm", informs Kyle that a stash of drugs and cash and guns has been found at Maguire's place, further incriminating him in death.

The pair share a sweet moment then about the allure of park ranger life and the tranquility of the wilderness. It seems Kyle has fulfilled his duties as a mentor to Naya, who's come to embrace her new calling after working for years as a city cop.

Kyle's ex, Jill Bodwin (Rosemarie DeWitt), shares a different kind of bonding moment with her new boyfriend, revealing to him the truth about the death of her son. It turns out Caleb was killed by a man named Sean Sanderson, and Maguire was the one who first found that out.

Despite what Sean took from them, Kyle had faith that the law would handle this, especially with the video evidence that came into their possession. But Jill did not, so she paid Maguire to blackmail her child's killer and then kill him in return.

We never get to hear what her forgettable boyfriend thinks of all this because the show then cuts to Jill visiting Kyle in hospital.

"You don’t have to worry about me," she promises, despite chugging a bottle of pills in the episode prior.

When Jill asks Kyle for that same promise in return, he talks about Caleb, how he still sees him everywhere, before giving her the promise she's asked for. That's the last we see of them on screen together, which is a shame because their fraught chemistry is the heart of this show, in many ways.

But there's still some sleuthing to take care of, so after a few chats tie up more loose ends, Kyle decides to pursue the last lead he had on Lucy's life, driving up to Nevada to visit a church she attended as a kid.

This leads Kyle to Mrs Gibbs, an old lady suffering from dementia who used to look after Lucy, once upon a time. Except, back then, Lucy was known as Grace. The trail then takes Kyle to Faith Gibbs, the woman's now grown-up daughter, who works as a waitress at a bar.

Faith reveals that her father used to run a "big foster home racket" where he'd essentially starve the kids in his care and lock them up in the basement most days. Grace stood out to Faith because she cried a lot, "more than most", and often talked about how her father would save her. He never did though. No one did, so eventually Grace ran away.

Faith has no idea where her own father might be these days, but she hopes he's "f***ing dead" and that "it f***ing hurt".

As Kyle goes to leave, Faith recalls how Grace used to mention that her father was a cop. This gets Kyle thinking, so he calls an unknown person and asks for a favour, off the book.

It doesn't take long for us to find out what's on Kyle's mind as he then meets up with his former boss and friend in the park to confront him with some new knowledge about the case.

Paul's surprised to discover that Kyle re-sent Lucy's DNA results to the lab because he didn't trust the findings that Paul reported earlier. He was right to do so, because it turns out that Paul didn't tell Kyle the whole truth. Not by a long shot.

Yep, this is why Sam Neill was cast. Not just to play Kyle's boss who pops up with occasional words of support, but because of the secret that Paul is hiding.

Kyle knows the truth now, that Paul is actually Lucy's father. He produces a photo of Lucy as a kid and watches Paul try to squirm his way out of the truth. But it's no use.

Paul reveals that his wife Maggie knew nothing about this, explaining that the news would have ended their marriage.

Kyle presses him on leaving Lucy with the Gibbs church as a child and how he refused to help her when she returned to the Yosemite area as an adult. Paul keeps on admitting little truths as Kyle digs deeper, but he still holds back until Kyle demands to run ballistics on his hunting rifles.

"I just told you the biggest secret of my life and you jump to I killed my own child?"

More excuses come then, that he lent out his guns and doesn't know how they were used… But then Paul admits Lucy came to his house for money around a year ago. And not just once either. With each visit, she demanded more money and threatened to ruin his life. Paul supposedly tried to say sorry, but Lucy wanted him to feel the same pain he put her through.

Paul unravels, to the point where it becomes obvious that he's the one who is actually responsible for her death. He didn't land the killing blow, but he scared Lucy to the point where she just wanted to end it all, choosing to throw herself off the cliff face where Kyle finds her at the start of the very first episode.

Kyle tells Paul that he has to make this right somehow, because Lucy was family and he didn't protect her like he should have. Paul freaks out, realising that the jig is up, so he promises Kyle his job back so that he can stay in the park with Caleb (or, at least, the memory of Caleb).

The stoic park ranger is having none of it, though, so he walks away to begin righting this wrong, even as Paul aims his rifle at him. A gunshot fires, but just like earlier with Maguire, the bullet in question doesn't hit Kyle. Instead, Paul has shot himself in the head, and then we see his body fall into the river below.

With justice of a sort finally claimed, Lucy's body is laid to rest and cremated through traditional local customs. Kyle watches her ashes scatter in the breeze and then ventures off on his own, where he has a heart to heart with the memory of his dead son, Caleb.

"Come on," says Kyle's child, tempting him to join Caleb in the afterlife. But Kyle isn't ready to go.

"No matter where I am or where I go, you’ll always be with me," says Kyle, hugging his lost child in a touching moment of catharsis. Because Kyle wants to live now, to start anew, and to do so, he must leave the park behind to try and move on.

Before he goes, Kyle leaves a note behind for Vasquez, gifting her his horse and also the box of Caleb's toys that her own son wanted to play with earlier.

As he drives away for good, Vasquez takes Kyle's horse out into the park, surrounded by a pack of deer and a gorgeous mountain scenery. There's danger out here in the vast expanse of nature, but there's also beauty too.

Perhaps Kyle can find some calm in that elsewhere, now that he's moved onto pastures new.

Untamed is available to stream now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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