Untamed Episode 4 Recap: Who Killed Teddy?

Untamed showed a lot of its cards in episode three, going into Lucy Cook’s past and hinting towards a drug cartel operation hidden in the heart of the forest. It painted our major characters with overtones of crime, guilt, and past chapters they are struggling to escape. What it did not do in episode three is tie the themes together—while each strand developed on its own, we could not quite place how the cave system, the drug cartel, the tattoo on Lucy, and the murders feed into one another, are blending into  a bigger narrative. In episode four of Untamed, titled “Gold Rush,” we finally see the puzzle pieces being placed in the right places, revealing the larger picture hidden in the depths of Yosemite National Park.

Spoilers Ahead

Untamed 4 begins with a sequence of Lucy in her mother’s dress, wistfully standing on the El Capitan cliff as Mr. Begay spots her. She swiftly runs away to her camp and changes into regular clothes. Kyle and Naya go back to the cave system and realize that it is the residual of an old gold mine. While they are exploring the areas around it, they find the remnants of Abuelo’s body being picked on by vultures. Abuelo was shot dead by a long-range rifle and buried shallow in the ground. Kyle thinks the murder is committed by the same murderer, and he goes back to the squatter’s camp and takes everyone in at the station to question. Abuelo’s former partner, Glory, is relieved that he is dead, and she does not want any involvement in the process. She says she was a cancer patient, refused insurance, and joined a free life—the medicines that she bought from Abuelo only kept her alive, at any cost.

A young guy called Matt Sturridge drops by at the station claiming to know Lucy Cook from ten years ago. He claims her real name is Grace McRae, and she used to be a pastor’s daughter before she moved to her “real” family. Meanwhile, Naya finds Summer—the squatter girl with blue eyes, who tells her that she used to camp together since they were sixteen. She reveals that Lucy was indeed involved in the drug deals, and Abuelo used her as a ‘mule.’ She would drop the drugs at a gulch and pick up the money—that is how the trade operated. Summer mentions that Lucy started drifting apart when she met her boyfriend, a man she called ‘Terces,’ which is ‘secret read backwards. Summer mentions that Lucy had many secrets. She also mentions a guy called Pakuna, who used to deal drugs with Abuelo at times. 

Kyle starts questioning Shane Maguire, the Forest Control guy, about Abuelo’s disappearance and the source of the drugs. Shane sticks to his position of not knowing about the sources and having sometimes used the drugs. In a sour way, he calls out to Kyle, suggesting that Jill and Shane had some sort of connection, which sets Kyle off. As always, Souter is worried about Kyle and suggests that he take a break from all the guilt by leaving the forest for a change of scenery. 

In the previous episode, we heard that Naya had to move from LA since the father of her child, also a police officer, got involved in a case with drugs and money. She has been ignoring his texts, but he pops out of her bedroom asking the two to go back to LA with him to testify that he is innocent. Naya escapes with Gael from the window and arrives at Kyle’s cottage. The next morning, Jill comes in to babysit Gael and looks more than happy to do so. Kyle and Naya take a helicopter to fly over the park, and Kyle instructs to free Pakuna—a guy who dealt with Abuelo—without food or supplies. Like a deer, Pakuna runs to his pack within the cave, revealing a functioning drug lab and a man with the black patch on his hand who killed Teddy Redwine. Untamed episode 4 ends with Kyle and Naya ambushing Pakuna at the cave door, asking him to take them back in. 

In this episode, we are able to trace an outline around the drug deals that take place at the heart of the forest. From what we know, the abandoned gold mine became a laboratory as well as a trading place for the drugs, and the mules would be marked with an ‘X’ on their wrist with gold flakes. Summer reveals a lot of information about the trades and Lucy’s involvement in them. It seems like Lucy was getting a good, comfortable living out of the trades, and Abuelo was involved in it. However, with everything going well, it is strange that both Lucy and Abuelo had to die. It is definitely not Abuelo that Lucy was running away from, since he suffered the same fate. This points fingers to the drug bosses that we find underground—and we spot the disfigured mask within the cave, as well as the black patch on a man’s hand. Our guesses were not incorrect—the people related to the drug trade were the ones to end Teddy Redwine. The source of the drugs is a formidable topic among the townsfolk, and Teddy was digging close to the source. Teddy’s death may have been just an attempt for the drug bosses to cover their trails. When Pakuna goes to the bosses, he mentions that the rangers found Abuelo, but Pakuna did not rat the cartel out; he claims to not be like Abuelo, who would scheme and plot against the bosses. While this confirms the cartel’s potential involvement with Abuelo’s murder, Pakuna mentions nothing about Lucy—leaving us to wonder if her murder was not committed by the same hands.

Shane Maguire’s character is going in a darker direction with each passing episode. In his terse exchange with Kyle at the bar, it definitely seems like he knows more than he lets on. He is familiar with the wilderness’ ecosystem and admits to being a customer of the drugs, although he never facilitates the deals. While he may be telling the truth after all, he may have had other kinds of involvement with the people who died that did not involve drug trading. His oblique comment towards Jill leaves room to be inspected, since it sets Kyle off in a way that seems to go deeper than the surface. 

Naya is a doting mother to her child Gael. She briefly went over her reason for moving to the park, leaving a life in LA. Gael’s father, Naya’s former partner, was a police officer who got involved in a drug deal regarding cash, and Naya decided to make a fresh start. We see her ignoring Gael’s father’s attempt to get in touch with them until he physically presents himself at her house. Naya is clever and adept enough to escape with her child and take shelter at Kyle’s. This seems like a subplot that establishes Naya as a character; however, with the nature of the crime that Gael’s father was involved in and the kind of abusive man that he is, it vaguely echoes Lucy Cook’s own life. Foreshadowing events have been a major trope in this series, and we would not be surprised to spot parallels in the two fathers—Gael’s and Lucy’s—which may have affected the trajectory of the characters. While Lucy was someone who had to fall prey to the circumstances, Gael has people who protect him fiercely. Naya could be an image of what Maggie could have been for Lucy, only if she had not died. At the same time, Jill and Kyle seem to see their son Caleb in Gael, turning into his invisible protectors. While one generation of children suffered terrible fates, Gael may be the sweet spot of redemption for the characters—through whom they can finally settle with their guilt and liberate themselves from its burden.

The episode does not tie, or even touch upon, one loose end, which can end up becoming crucial in the turn of events. Although Matt Sturridge came in motivated by the reward, there could be some truths in Lucy Cook actually living a part of her childhood as an adoptive child, Grace McRae, before she came to the forest. It is not impossible that it was someone from her Grace McRae era that she ran away with on the night she disappeared. With no light on this, we are left to navigate through the underlying tunnels of the plot, seeking the truth with each episode.