Untamed Vs True Detective: Similarities explained as Eric Bana thriller tops Netflix charts

Untamed on Netflix is the latest obsession of crime show lovers. If you've watched the show and found yourself wondering if it gives True Detective vibes, you’re absolutely not alone.

This new limited series, set in the heart of Yosemite, is now in the spotlight. And it almost certainly has some similarities with HBO’s broody classic.

It makes sense if you think about it. Both shows get right into solving a murder mystery that's central to the main plot. In fact, Untamed opens with it. They give us lead characters who are emotionally wrecked but brilliant in their own way.

Untamed and True Detective also let their settings do half the storytelling.

Now, both these shows may live in the same dark neighborhood. But they aren’t, of course, carbon copies. They have similarities but are also distinct in their own ways.

In this article, we will delve into the similarities. Now let’s get right into it.

Disclaimer: This article may reflect the author's opinions. Reader discretion is advised.

Untamed vs True Detective: How similar are they?

To begin with, both shows check off the same boxes. Both are murder mysteries with a dark and almost haunting atmosphere. Both have brooding investigators with way too much emotional baggage. But one aspect that might set these shows apart is how they execute these very things.

Untamed follows Kyle Turner (Eric Bana). He is a federal agent with the National Parks Service who’s sent to Yosemite to look into the suspicious death of a woman found at the foot of El Capitan.

Just when we think we're tired of the brooding detective trope, we get Bana's Turner. Kyle is a lone wolf who still makes late-night drunk calls to his ex-wife.

He’s everything that defines the trope. He is divorced, emotionally bruised, and allergic to teamwork. He drinks more than he should and sleeps less than he needs. But there’s something about him that makes you admire him despite his utter lack of social skills.

True Detective, in its first season, introduced us to detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart. They were two different men working the same disturbing case in the muggy backroads of Louisiana. Rust, played by Matthew McConaughey, was all existential dread and dark philosophy. Marty (Woody Harrelson) was more of an all-American cop who was struggling with his morality.

True Detective is mostly about the psychological and sometimes the supernatural. Untamed is by no means a show simpler than that, even if its themes may not exactly be similar to the HBO hit.

However, one of the best overlaps is that both shows let the environment take center stage. In True Detective, Louisiana was practically another character, with its swamps, rusted churches, and endless highways.

Untamed manages to pull off the same trick in Yosemite. The park’s beauty is stunning, even if most of the series was shot in British Columbia. The cliffs, forests, and open skies all play into the mood. There’s a real sense that something dangerous could be hiding behind the trees or just around the bend of a trail.

Nature itself becomes part of the plot in shows like these. And when it comes to nature, a touch of the supernatural always seems to creep in. Both shows flirt with the supernatural but in totally different ways.

True Detective, in season 1, had local folklore elements and unsettling symbols that made viewers wonder if there was something otherworldly going on. Untamed has undertones of local legends and a few eerie details that could be chalked up to imagination. But it never smacks you over the head with it. It’s more of a mood.

So then, is Untamed a True Detective knockoff? Not at all.

Yes, they share a lot of the same bones. We get atmospheric crime, haunted investigators, and a good, slow-burning mystery. But Untamed is less about philosophical dread and more about real-world problems and the secrets nature sometimes wills us to find out.

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