Diksha Sundriyal
In Apple TV+’s ‘The Last Frontier,’ trouble comes to Fairbanks, Alaska, in the form of a downed plane carrying dangerous convicts. One of them is a man known as Havlock, revealed to be a former CIA asset who turned rogue. While Frank Remnick and the local authorities focus on finding the other convicts, the CIA sends Agent Sidney Scofiled to chase down Havlock. Over the course of the season, it turns out that things are more complicated than they initially seemed. By the final episode, a somewhat fractured picture emerges, making Frank reconsider his priorities. At one point in the finale, he is told that Havlock’s dead body has been found in the woods. However, he knows that the former spy is not so easy to kill. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Havlock Finds a Way to Cheat the Authorities Through Death
In the finale, Sidney and Havlock work together to hold Jacqueline Bradford accountable for her actions. However, in the process, Sidney is fatally wounded. At first, Havlock’s instinct is to stay by her side and ensure she receives the help she needs to survive. However, she tells him to run away instead. There isn’t any time to argue about it, so he has to accept the reality that his staying back will not help either of them. So, while Frank and the others are busy getting Sidney into the back of a car, Havlock tries to slip away. Of course, Frank notices this and chases after him. He almost catches the man, but Havlock tells him to choose between arresting him and helping Sidney, who is on the brink of death. Frank chooses the latter, leading Havlock to escape.
Over the next few hours, Frank is wholly occupied with the thought of saving Sidney, and the next day, he is told that a dead body has been found in the woods. Apparently, Havlock found a car and was trying to escape, but the car fell down a ditch, where it caught fire. The body is so badly burnt that it cannot be tested for DNA. However, there is one marker that suggests that it is Havlock. When he was in the prison transport plane, which fell and kick-started the events of the show, he broke his tooth and hid a wire in it to break his lock later. The dead body has the same broken tooth, which is a good way to confirm that it is Havlock’s body. While the other officers readily accept this explanation, Frank knows there is more to it than meets the eye.
So far, Havlock has proved himself to be a master of deception and manipulation. This isn’t a surprise, as he is a highly trained spy who has navigated some very tough situations. So, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to fake his death. He also notes how convenient the whole thing is right after Bradford dies, Sidney is on her deathbed, and the drive is in the hands of the people who will expose it. The inability to get a DNA test from the body and get the exact confirmation they need to confirm its identity without anything else to prove is a bit too obvious. Still, Frank decides not to press the matter. As long as Havlock is out of Fairbanks, Frank is not concerned. He decides to let it be and moves on with his life. That is, until Havlock chooses to return.
The Dead Body’s Mystery Solves Frank’s Missing Convict’s Case
While Havlock may not have died, the cops still found a dead body, which means someone did die for Havlock to use them as a cover for his own death. When the plane fell, Frank and his people had to account for 52 convicts. They were able to do it for 51, and the only one they didn’t find was Julian Steel. He was serving a life sentence for murder, though he claimed he was innocent. He was reported to have stolen a truck, and it was believed that he used it to escape Fairbanks. To make matters easier for the authorities in Alaska, it was reported that there was a possible sighting of Steel in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since he was outside their jurisdiction, Frank decided that Steel was no longer their problem.
So, days later, when the charred dead body is found, and Frank knows it’s not Havlock, he is turned towards the only possible explanation. The dead body was Julian Steel’s. This is later confirmed when Havlock calls Frank and confesses that he found Steel’s body earlier when he joined the group of locals searching for other convicts in the woods. He’d found Steel then, but he decided to hide his body in case it came in handy later. When the time came to fake his death, he returned to Steel’s body and staged the whole thing to make it look like it was his own. As to how Steel died, Frank already has the answer. Havlock or anyone else didn’t need to kill him.
The harsh Alaskan wilderness got him. He thought he could survive it when he ran into the snow-laden forests. But he turned out to be utterly wrong. The cold got him, and he basically froze to death. The reported sightings of him, be it in Fairbanks or Tulsa, were not really confirmed, so it makes sense that Steel died before he could leave Fairbanks and never made it to Oklahoma. So, when Havlock found his frozen, dead body in the woods, he saw an opportunity. Steel was already dead, so it wouldn’t have made a difference if his body had been turned over to the authorities. However, he could still be of use to Havlock, and eventually that’s the purpose his death serves.
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