The Last Frontier Just Fell Victim to TV’s ‘World Police’ Trope

The new series, presented as a drama about a good-hearted U.S. Marshal, deliberately avoids the complex characters that made a previous FX show successful. In the third episode, titled “Country as F*ck,” the Marshal demonstrates to a visiting agent that the people in his town are more valuable than criminals or outsiders. He only agrees to help her after she reveals her pursuit of a prisoner named Havlock is driven by personal reasons. As they track Havlock and uncover his motives, other escaped convicts cause trouble while attempting to flee the harsh wilderness. These events, combined with previous storylines, reinforce a common and often troubling television trope: that law enforcement deserve to survive, while criminals should not.







