We’re having trouble breathing after Untamed’s rollercoaster — or, should we say, its turbulent horseback ride — of a finale. Netflix’s newest national park-based crime drama throws viewers for a loop time and time again across its six episodes. If you’re not paying attention, all the twists of that last episode might leave you lost in the woods. Never fear — we at Decider will be your compass.

First, a little recap: after the body of an unidentified woman plunges off the cliff of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, it’s up to jaded investigative agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) and rookie park ranger Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago) to solve the case while haunted by their own mistakes and traumas. 

The penultimate episode threw viewers for a loop: Turner’s ex-wife Jill’s (Rosemarie Dewitt) attempted suicide drives Turner to assault rogue wildlife management officer Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel). Turner is then taken off the Lucy Cooke murder case. The case becomes clearer: the authorities bust a literal underground drug ring and deduce that Lucy must have been involved. But one non-authorized look through Lucy’s phone leads Turner to discover that Maguire might be behind it all. 

Turner goes to investigate Maguire’s campsite and crumples to the ground after being shot in the leg. While Turner tries to keep the blood from gushing out of his thigh, a hallucination of his dead son Caleb whispers in his ear: “He’s coming.” Read on to have all your burning questions about the finale answered.

Untamed Ending Explained: Does Agent Turner Survive?

The final episode begins with a tense chase and shootout in the woods between Agent Turner and Maguire. Turner tries everything to keep himself alive: he runs down the river doubled over in pain, attempts to stop the bleeding using mud, and even flings himself to the trees like Tarzan to escape being caught.

The scene transitions from day to night with the opening titles, and Maguire feels Turner’s still-warm blood on the ground — he’s slowing down. Turner lays almost passed out against a tree, and Maguire corners him: it didn’t have to be this way, Maguire says. All Turner had to do was hold up his end of the bargain. Before the audience can even begin to wonder what that means, Maguire aims his gun at Turner for one final shot, then…BOOM! Ranger Vasquez appears miraculously out of the dark and shoots Maguire in the back. As she calls for reinforcements, Turner’s vision fades to black.

Turner wakes up in the hospital with chief ranger Paul Souter (Sam Neill) by his bedside welcoming him back from the dead, and letting him know that Maguire wasn’t so lucky. Vasquez checks up on him too, and after she gets her well-deserved “thank you for saving my ass,” the two speculate about the case: Maguire is probably the one that got Lucy into drug dealing, and she must’ve gotten sloppy making her own deals and suffered the consequences. The two also share a nice moment bonding over the joys of working in the park as former LAPD officer Vasquez admits that the woods are growing on her. 

What Happened Between Turner And Maguire?

So what’s Turner’s beef with Maguire anyway? Besides the whole running a secret drug cartel thing. Jill, of all people, finally gives us our answer. After calling Souter to check on Turner, Jill sits her husband down to reveal a chilling truth about her past that she worries might make him leave her, as it made Turner leave her years before. She knows who killed Caleb: Shawn Sanderson, the missing person that Turner failed to find 15 years ago.

Turner only learned who killed his son after seeing Maguire’s migration camera footage of the incident. Turner wanted to arrest him, but Jill couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in a courtroom with her son’s killer hoping for a conviction that might not happen. Instead, she paid Maguire to blackmail and kill Sanderson. When Sanderson was reported missing, Turner put the pieces together and left Jill for betraying him.

After this heart-dropping confession, Jill visits Turner in the hospital. In this intimate scene, Jill promises Turner that she will be okay, and asks him to promise her the same. Turner finally opens up about his hallucinations of Caleb, and how he knows he sounds crazy but he doesn’t care, because he feels his son with him. The two hold hands, and Turner makes his promise.

The Truth About Lucy Cooke’s Past:

Alright, let’s dry our eyes and get back to the good stuff. After we see Vasquez getting some pats on the back at work, and after Turner promises to cooperate with Sanderson’s investigation lawyer, Turner still wants to fill in the blanks of Lucy’s past and do right by her after failing to find her when she went missing years ago. Following the trail of a photo given to him by a boy who knew Lucy Cooke — or rather, Grace McCray — Turner drives up to an abandoned church in Nevada. He investigates the broken-down building and the home next to it, occupied only by an old Mrs. Gibbs who suffers from dementia. 

Searching the house further, Turner inspects the basement and finds a suspicious number of beds. He asks Mrs. Gibbs if children stayed with her and her husband. She nods, and Turner sees some Native American markings on the wall — the same markings Lucy made on the abandoned shed from the first episode that denote danger.

Cut to Turner entering a casino to meet up with Mrs. Gibbs’ daughter, Faith. Faith confirms that Grace McCray is in fact Lucy Cooke, and that she was one of the children her father locked up in the basement and tortured as part of his “side hustle” to get government funding for his apparent foster care organization. She doesn’t know who brought her there — all she knows is that Lucy used to hope that her dad would pick her up, and that she ran off after a few years. 

She gives Turner her number, and just as he’s about to leave, Faith remembers that Lucy always used to say her dad was a cop, and that he was going to arrest Mr. Gibbs. Remember, a DNA test earlier on in the series showed that Rory Cooke was not Lucy’s real dad. So who was Lucy’s policeman father? And who could’ve dropped her off at the Gibbs’ doorstep? Strap in, Untamed fans — you’re in for a wild ride.

Who Killed Lucy Cooke?

Turner meets up with Souter in the woods by the river. Turner mentions that he had to resend Lucy’s DNA test since Souter took his daughter Kate off the list. Then he asks Souter if his wife “knows.” You can probably tell where this is headed. In a damning confession, Souter admits that he is Lucy Cooke’s real father. Her mother told Lucy before she died of cancer, but Souter couldn’t take her in without destroying his existing family. Instead, he brought her to the Gibbs because he thought they were good people — and because they could keep a secret. Utterly shocked, Turner takes a second to digest the news right along with the audience. He tells Souter that they’re going to have to run ballistics on his guns, forcing Souter to drop another bombshell even worse than his first.

Turns out, Souter knew Lucy was in the park since she first came to him for money last year. Over time, she kept coming for more money and giving him more threats to make him feel the same pain he put her through. One night, Souter walked into Kate’s room to find her missing with a note on her bed from Lucy saying that she was going to take her to Mr. Gibbs. Once he found Kate and brought her home, Souter went after Lucy. Accompanied by haunting flashbacks of Lucy being shot and bleeding from her leg, Souter explains that he only wanted to stop Lucy and talk to her. She thought he was trying to kill her and ran. We see shots of Lucy crawling up to the peak of El Capitan. She stands on the edge, embraces warm memories of her mother, and throws herself off the cliff. 

We cut back to Souter still trying to justify his actions to Turner, saying that he had to protect his family. Shaken, Turner tells him that Lucy was his family, and that he has to make it right. Souter trembles as he points his gun at Turner. He tries bargaining, saying that he’ll help Turner stay at the park, but Turner won’t be swayed. As he walks off, the sound of a gunshot stops him in his tracks — Souter shoots himself into the river, and Turner watches as his body floats downstream.

Does Turner Leave The Park?

Just like they did for her mother before her, the indigenous tribe of Yosemite scatter Lucy’s ashes in a ritual to ensure that she makes it to the afterlife, which they call El-o’-win. At night, Turner is walking through the woods and hears his son call after him. We see Turner’s son by his side in the reflection of the lake he was murdered in. Turner holds Caleb’s hand and apologizes, telling him that he is not ready to join him on the other side. Through tears, he kneels down and tells Caleb that he’ll always be with him wherever he goes, and the two share one last hug.

In the morning, Vasquez knocks on the door to Turner’s cabin. She opens the door, but the only thing she sees is a small box on the floor. A note on the box reads, “I left the horse for you. Don’t forget to feed it!” Vasquez laughs and opens the box to find a collection of small toy cars, passed on from one parent to another. We’re not crying, you’re crying!

The last tear-jerking sequence of the show gives viewers a glimpse into the near future for both Vasquez and Turner. We see Vasquez riding through the forest on Turner’s famous horse, wearing the same sunglasses and stoic expression he once did. She comes across a clearing home to a group of deer and admires the sight before her. She has fully taken the reins, embracing the park as her new home. 

All the while, Turner drives off onto the winding country roads, leaving Yosemite behind for good. The moment is bittersweet, but ultimately triumphant. Leaving the park is the only way that Turner can break the cycle of pain he and Jill have been trapped in for 15 years. Will we get to see what happens next with agent Turner? Who knows. Whether a second season comes or not, the finale of Untamed shows us that after all the heartbreak, Turner is finally ready to begin his life anew.

Watch Untamed now on Netflix.