Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Untamed’ is a murder mystery series that takes the audience to a unique crime scene. The story unfolds inside the Yosemite National Park as National Park Service officer Kyle Turner leads an investigation into the death of a woman who seemingly fell off the top of El Capitan. It takes a while for Kyle and his team to figure out the woman’s identity, and she turns out to be a girl named Lucy Cook who went missing several years before her dead body was found. The setting of the crime in the wilderness gives a distinctive touch to the storyline, and Lucy remains at the centre of all the secrets that eventually come out. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Untamed’s Lucy Cook is a Fictional Murder Victim
‘Untamed’ is an entirely fictional story created by Mark L. Smith with his daughter, Elle Smith. While the setting of the Yosemite National Park remains a true element, all the characters, including Lucy, are completely fictional. The idea for the show originated in the duo’s mind after they came across stories about National Parks Service officers, whose federal office put them in a peculiar position, which the father-daughter duo saw as a cross between a park ranger and an FBI agent. The thought of setting a murder mystery in the wild fascinated them, and so, they set about spinning characters from their imagination who would go through many twists and turns before finding truth and resolution.
With Yosemite as the primary location for the story, the focus was entirely on presenting the good and the bad of the park. Instead of focusing on the touristy version of the place, the writers wanted to turn the attention towards the unexplored parts, which, sometimes, hide dark secrets that can unravel a person’s life. In this approach, the attention rested heavily on the characters and their journeys rather than being plot-heavy. The same things were kept in mind while writing Lucy Cook’s character, with her arc becoming a major vein that runs through the story, such that it touches different sides of the park, opening new and old wounds for the characters.
The series opens with a yet-unidentified Lucy falling from the top of El Capitan. Because it is a popular climbing site, there have been fatalities where climbers have fallen off the sheer drop of the granite wall. However, murder hasn’t been considered a major problem so far. The cases of people getting lost inside the park or going missing have been heard of, but so far, murders remain a rarity. So far, the 1999 Yosemite Murders, in which at least four women were killed by a man named Cary Stayner, have been the most infamous case of a string of murders in the national park.
However, the show does not borrow from the real case, and Lucy’s story follows a completely different route. With all this in mind, it is clear that while the creators of the show may have researched real-life cases of crimes in Yosemite, they did not rely on any particular case or a murder victim to concoct Lucy’s storyline. She remains an entirely fictional creation, whose story was created purely to serve the many twists and turns of the plot and to keep the audience on their toes about what really happened to her.
Read More: Untamed: Is Caleb Dead? Who Killed Kyle’s Son? Why?
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