The Last Frontier Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Change of Time

Critic’s Rating: 4.25 / 5.0

4.25

We finally learned how Frank lost his daughter, and holy hell, it’s brutal. 

The Last Frontier Season 1 Episode 7 opened four years ago in Chicago, with Frank taking Ruby Grace and Luke out for ice cream. You know, just a dad trying to be normal for five minutes. 

Ruby was sweet, precocious, and full of those kid-like declarations that stick to your ribs later. When she asked if he ever got scared on the job, his answer felt almost like a premonition: when he’s afraid, he thinks of the people he loves. That memory of her face is what keeps him going.

Moments later, that memory became the wound he’ll never escape. A drive-by shooting left Ruby dying in his arms while Luke watched in horror. 

It’s the kind of loss that explains everything about who Frank is — the guilt, the tunnel vision, the impossible need to make sense of chaos.

Back in the present, the past is never far behind. Frank stared at Ruby’s wish jar and reached for the hollowed-out book that hides the gun we’ve seen him fixate on all season. 

That gun turns out to be the smoking piece in the puzzle — proof that a very bad man didn’t commit one specific crime, even though he’d done plenty of others. 

Frank hid it to keep the system from letting another monster walk free, and that decision set off the chain reaction that killed his little girl. One choice, one cover-up, one family destroyed.

It’s the kind of confession that knocks Sarah sideways and forces Luke to face the possibility that his dad isn’t a hero but a man who broke the rules and paid the price. 

The entire scene was raw and required no accompaniment. Just the sound of a family falling apart was more than enough.

While Frank’s house collapsed under the weight of the truth, Sidney’s world was crumbling too, though you’d never know it from her poker face. 

She was pushing hard to interrogate Thiago, baiting him with talk of agency “liabilities” and double crosses. It’s the most obvious not-so-obvious conversation imaginable, laced with code and implication. 

Somewhere, Havlock was listening — maybe because he’s still part of the plan, or maybe because he’s been left out of it.

Then came a reveal that changed everything. 

In a museum — because apparently the CIA can’t resist a setting with marble floors — Bradford met with John Slattery’s character (and no, he’s not in a crossover from The Rainmaker, but I could see it), who revealed Thiago was an “old friend” of the agency and, more importantly, Sidney’s father’s protégé. 

The conversation dropped a bomb: Did Sidney know who he was to her father? Did she know what they did to him? The implication seemed clear — her father was burned by his own people.

And that must be why Sidney’s been playing this long game. She’s rewriting history, holding the CIA accountable for what it buried. 

Whether she’s avenging her father or trying to outdo him, it’s all tied to that legacy of loyalty that turned to poison.

Meanwhile, Havlock was unraveling in real time. When he trashed his tower, it was like watching someone realize he’s been living in someone else’s story. 

He thought they were in this mess together, but it turns out Sidney’s been steering the ship the whole time.

Their reunion later, when Frank dive-bombed his truck and Sidney pulled him from the fiery wreckage, was layered with turmoil and heartbreak.

She wasn’t crying because the mission had gone sideways; she was breaking because the man she still loved finally saw what she had become. 

Their history sits between them like a live wire — years of devotion warped by her obsession to finish what her father started.

Frank was happy for Sidney and that she got a chance to right her wrongs. But when he got home, his instincts as a father flipped a switch for him.

He finally connected the dots between the photos, the code words, and the pieces Sidney kept “forgetting” to explain. Thiago wasn’t a rogue asset; he was hers. She orchestrated the plane crash, the cover-ups, the whole damn thing.

And yet, the reveal wasn’t triumphant — it was eerie. Frank’s earlier line about the ice breaking suddenly landed with prophetic weight. 

There’s a sense that all of this — his confession, her exposure, their tenuous alliance — is just the beginning of a larger collapse. The flood’s coming, and they both know it.

On the Tundra: Odds and Ends

Because even in an episode this heavy, The Last Frontier knows when to toss in a few curveballs.

Let’s start with the inmate who wandered into frame like a fever dream — a mountain of a man high on bath salts, wearing nothing but tighty-whities, grooving to “Dancing in the Moonlight.” 

He picked up a generator as a weapon (because of course he did) and nearly flattened Frank before electrocuting himself. Frank’s deadpan line, “Well, the power’s back on,” was the dark laugh we didn’t know we needed.

Then there’s Luke, still carrying the weight of Ruby’s death. His admission that he’d spent years wondering why it wasn’t him was absolutely devastating. 

But he’s getting the space to be angry, to blame, and to see his dad not as a superhero but as a man who made a terrible call and has been trying to outrun it ever since.

On a lighter note, we got horseback riding lessons for Sidney — because nothing says “undercover agent” like fumbling around with reins while pretending you’re not terrified. Frank’s comment about horses sensing what’s around them wasn’t just folksy wisdom, though. 

It was metaphorical — the animals react to danger before it’s visible, and even the camera picked up on it. They’re kind of like Frank himself, whose instincts have been screaming that something’s off long before the rest of us could piece it together.

It was a beautiful use of the unusual setting we have on The Last Frontier. Stepping out into the wilderness on horseback offered a visual feast.

And let’s not forget the smaller threads weaving through all this: Bradford’s panic when the deadman switch goes offline, Freeman’s jittery hacking subplot, and the eerie way the show keeps using music — “Air That I Breathe” and “Change of Time” — as emotional punctuation rather than background noise. 

Every track feels chosen to underline how much time’s running out for everyone involved.

By the time Josh Ritter’s “Change of Time” rolled, it was less of a soundtrack and more of a eulogy. Frank sat with Ruby’s final wish — I wish I was as brave as dad — and realized bravery isn’t always the same as doing the right thing. 

Sidney, staring into Levi’s face in the back of a transport van, probably still thinks she’s fighting for justice. But what’s the difference between vengeance and salvation when the cost is everyone you love?

“Change of Time” doesn’t hand over answers, but it dares you to sit in the discomfort of everything you missed along the way. 

It’s complicated, heavy, and sometimes maddening, but that’s the point. The show’s peeling back layers of identity, grief, and consequence one confession at a time, and this hour made sure we felt every bit of it.

It also opened the floodgates for the final three episodes. Everything we thought was happening has been turned upside down. If you have theories about where The Last Frontier will go next, please drop them in the comments below!