Underscoring The Action In The Last Frontier

Must admit: I’ve been hooked on Apple TV’s limited-run series The Last Frontier right from the start. Even before the start, actually, since Apple provided me with all ten episodes of the show to preview before the first episode dropped last month.

Did I binge? How could I resist?

For the benefit of those who tuned in late, here’s the official Apple synopsis: “The Last Frontier follows Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), the lone U.S. marshal in charge of the quiet, rugged barrens of Alaska. Remnick’s jurisdiction is turned upside down when a prison transport plane crashes in the remote wilderness, setting free dozens of violent inmates. Tasked with protecting the town he’s vowed to keep safe, he begins to suspect the crash wasn’t an accident, but the first step of a well-crafted plan with far-reaching and devastating implications.”

Of course, there’s more to the series than that. There is an inquisitive CIA operative (Haley Bennett, pictured above with Clarke) who’s very, very interested in one of the possible survivors of the crash. And there’s a deputy (Dallas Goldtooth) who always has Frank’s back, even when his own life is at risk. And arguably most important, there is Frank’s wife, Sarah (Simone Kessell), a nurse who would prefer that her husband get into a different and far less dangerous line of work — and knows all too well that his investigations can cause collateral damage.

The performances are first-rate across the board, the plot is rivetingly twisty, the scenery is spectacular — Quebec and Alberta, Canada, double for Fairbanks, but not so you’d notice — and the use of pop and country tunes on the soundtrack is positively inspired. (Check out the playlist.)

We recently had a chance to talk about the musical elements of The Last Frontier with Jon Bokenkamp (The Blacklist), the series’ co-creator, co-executive producer, and showrunner. Here are some highlights from our conversation, edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Cowboys & Indians: There’s something cheeky about some of your music selections for The Last Frontier. Starting out with the opening credits. You use Mason Williams’ festive and uplifting “Classical Gas” for a show that is — well, not always festive and uplifting.

Jon Bokenkamp: Well, I think this show is a lot of fun. And it doesn’t take itself too seriously. As far as title sequences go, it’s a little bit of a throwback. So many title sequences on streamers and cable shows, they’re sort of artsy-fartsy. They hint at something mysterious, but it feels sleepy to me. And I was like, “What happened to those old shows like Magnum P.I. or The Dukes of Hazzard or The Incredible Hulk — any of those where you saw little pieces of what you might see later in the show, or moments of the show. I just thought that was a fun throwback idea.

I’m more familiar with Glen Campbell’s version of “Classical Gas” than Mason Williams’ version, actually. But our composer Ariel Mark said, “Well, why don't we do our spin on it? This is Alaska.” So she went in, and she had, like, singers in there who are Indigenous singers doing throat singing. There’s a lot of elements that she’s using like natural elements. Ariel sort of said, “We’ll do our original version that feels specific to this show.”

C&I: But if you have watched The Last Frontier from the beginning and paid attention to the music, you may spot from the get-go that “Classical Gas” is conspicuous by its absence from Episode 7, which drops Friday, November 14.

Bokenkamp: Yes, look, that episode is very emotional. And it is kind of hard to watch during the opening scene. So we felt like that would be disrespectful if we didn’t just go right into the story and skip the titles. People probably skip those as they’re watching anyway, once they’ve seen them a time or two. But it did feel tonally wrong that we would be yanking the audience out of this really sort of thoughtful, introspective, very difficult moment — and then slapping ’em in the face with a fun song. It felt like too much of a gear shift, I think.

C&I: Not to give too much away, but that opening scene is pretty much of a gut punch, even though we’ve had a bit of foreshadowing for it.

Bokenkamp: I hope all the episodes punch you in the gut in some way. Some are more emotional than others, some are more fun than others. But that episode is — well, we sort of are building toward it the whole time. We’re unpacking Frank and Sarah’s backstory, and it’s a really emotional moment. So yeah, we just felt like, “Let’s take a pass, let’s take a knee on this episode.” But there’s a lot of other great music in that episode. I know it’s an important one.

 C&I: There are clever uses of pop and country tunes throughout the entire series, actually. I was especially pleased when one of my all-time-favorite songs from the ’70s, The Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” was an out-of-the-blue needle drop in Episode 6.

Bokencamp: I feel like Chris Brookshire, our editor, chose that. I know that was not scripted. That felt like that's all about the opening of that song. Because that song opens with that guitar riff and just keeps building. It’s like this sort of muscular thing. And it’s so great because Frank in that scene is in a place where he’s really revving up. He's like, “OK, we’re going to war. Here’s what we're going to do.” And it really set the tone as the characters were all coming together, and the community’s coming together. And the guy on the radio is saying, “Hey everyone, get out of bed — come out and help us out. We have this crazy thing we’re going to try to pull off.” It just felt right. It felt like a fun sort of thing, almost like a party.

C&I: And in Episode 7, you use another Hollies hit — “The Air That I Breathe” — to great effect.

Bokenkamp: Again, that was not scripted. I don't think that was scripted. That was Amy Fleming, another editor, who dropped that into that scene. When I saw that, I was like, “OK, we’re done. We’re not looking for anything else. We're not changing anything.” She did such a beautiful job.

It is weirdly emotional, that song, as it starts off. And what’s fun here is that you’re in this action scene — airplanes, cars, highway, concrete, snow, all this stuff’s going on. And then there’s a big car flip, and when it happens again, the opening of that song kind of slows things down. It kind of pulls you into the song, and that's where all the sound drops out, the music rises, and you just sort of sit in this mood. I really like doing this, where you have this introspective song cut against a very physical scene. I mean, I think the car flips 15 times. It’s crazy. It’s a very, very visceral sort of muscular scene. But I often like playing the music against the picture.

Here is our exclusive clip from “Change of Time,” Episode 7 of The Last Frontier, which will be available starting Friday, November 14 on Apple TV.