Jason Momoa’s Overlooked Netflix Western Is a Gritty Gem You Shouldn’t Miss

If you missed Frontier when it slid onto Netflix, here’s the quick pitch: it’s a lean, mean 18-episode frontier saga about power, profit, and blood on the snow. Not the Old West, but it walks, talks, and bleeds like a Western. And it deserved a bigger audience than it got.

The setup: empire vs. everyone else

We’re in the 1600s, when a British royal charter hands the Hudson’s Bay Company control over trade across Rupert’s Land — a region that eventually becomes a major chunk of modern-day Canada. That monopoly doesn’t stay tidy for long. Smugglers, rivals, and opportunists chip away at the money machine, and the Company sends in a fixer to snap the world back into line.

Enter Lord Benton, played by Alun Armstrong with icy, aristocratic contempt. He sails from Europe to America to put the fear of God — or at least the Company — into anyone messing with the fur business. His prime target: Declan Harp (Jason Momoa), a half-Irish, half-Cree outlaw dead set on smashing the monopoly on his own turf. Harp is an antihero who solves problems with knives, bullets, and zero patience, so Benton sets out to put him down. Good luck with that. Characters played by Momoa are rarely easy outs.

How brutal? Pretty brutal

Frontier wastes no time. The opening raid on a trading post ends with soldiers on their knees, two throats cut, and a third man stabbed. That’s the temperature. If you came here after that big underwater superhero hit and went hunting for more Momoa, brace yourself — this one’s for grown-ups with sturdy stomachs.

Created by Rob Blackie and Peter Blackie, the show cycles through almost every flavor of frontier violence: shootouts, stabbings, prolonged torture, and ugly acts against people with the least power to fight back. But it’s not just a splatter reel. The performances land, the production feels lived-in and cold to the bone, and when the show locks into its rhythm, it hums.

It’s not just The Jason Momoa Show

Momoa anchors it, sure, but Frontier broadens the canvas and gets better for it. It moves through trading posts, taverns, and boardrooms, crossing paths with soldiers and pencil-pushers in Montreal and London who profit from violence without getting their hands dirty. A few of the key players:

• Lord Benton (Alun Armstrong) — the Company’s ruthless hammer, all venom and velvet.
• Declan Harp (Jason Momoa) — half-Irish, half-Cree outlaw waging a one-man war on the fur monopoly.
• Sokanon — a skilled Indigenous fighter with her own lines she won’t let anyone cross.
• Michael Smyth — an Irish survivor looking to scramble up any ladder he can find.
• Grace Emberly — a sharp tavern owner who understands that information pays better than ale.

Why it still plays

Frontier has that immediacy you want from a revisionist Western: tense, unpredictable, and always a little dangerous. It’s not set in the classic cowboy sandbox, but thematically and visually it fits — hard men and harder choices, a world built on extraction where compassion is a luxury no one can afford. If your taste leans closer to Deadwood and Unforgiven than Ford and Leone, this hits the mark.

Short version: it’s a sharp, vicious, well-acted frontier tale that knows exactly what it is. If that sounds like your lane, you’re in for a good time — and a rough ride.