From the director of “Friday Night Lights,” “Deepwater Horizon,” and “Patriots Day” and the screenwriter of “The Revenant,” comes a revisionist western miniseries titled “American Primeval” (2025) that seeks to unearth another brutal and bloody annal of the American West. Through a gritty and visceral approach, the film shows brutality with unflinching candor.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 1 Recap:
Who is Sara Rosell?
Sara Rosell (Betty Gilpin) and her son Devin (Preston Mota) are the first of the protagonists the viewer is familiarized with as the world of American Primeval comes into focus—1857 when the Utah Territory was caught in a faction war all on its own between Native Americans, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), the US Government, and the wanderers and settlers of the Wild West. Rosell seems to be one of those characters who had come from Philadelphia and is now ready to set out on a journey with her disabled son to Crooked Springs, searching for her estranged husband. However, their journey begins on a rough note due to the late arrival of John Fyre, their guide supposed to take them to Fort Bridger, where another guide, Mr. Beckworth, had been contracted to Fort Springs.
As it seems, nothing goes according to plan. Fort Bridger is far from the utopia promised; Beckworth has left the fort due to the late arrival of his client, and Fyre gets shot by a French outlaw due to a major misunderstanding. As Bridger notes, there is a difference between civilization and the civilized.
The difference gets doubled down when Bridger presents alternatives to Rosell as guides for her trip, even if he doesn’t shy away from warning her about the reality of her situation—the weather is rough, the trip to Crooked Springs would be a hard one, and Utah itself is dicey territory. It would be better to stave the journey, but Rosell refuses to entertain that option. Thus enters Isaac Reed, a loner, subversive to “civilized” in how nonchalantly exhibitive he can’t be and remotely uninterested in embarking on the trip.
How do the Pratts and Sara Rosell get involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre?
Mormon pilgrims Jacob Pratt (Dane DeHaan) and his newly wedded wife Abish (revealed later to be a sororate marriage that Jacob believes is an act of God, Abish less so) have begun to embark on the journey to join with the followers of their faith. Finding them to be far more agreeable than the rest of the Fort Bridger residents, Sara persuades and succeeds in convincing Pratt to accompany them at least part of the way.
Unbeknownst to Sara, but later discovered by Devin, they would be accompanied by a stowaway in their cart—a Lakota girl named Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier), having stabbed her guardian for attacking her and being berated for that action by her mother. At Fort Bridger, Virgil Cutter (Jai Courtney) watches as a bounty hunter comes in search of his bounty—a woman and her crippled son wanted for murder, who looks a lot like Sara Roswell.
At the Fancher camp, where the Rosells and the Pratts take temporary rest for the night and mingle, the peace threatens to fall apart when a group of armed Mormons, led by Wosley (Joe Tipett), and a Paiute tribe member, orders them to leave the land controlled by Young. Dissatisfied at guests not learning their place, even those who would depart by daybreak, Wosley leads a team of Mormons, disguised under masks, and Paiutes to massacre and attack the entire Fancher party.
The only immediate survivors from this harrowing ordeal are Sara and Devin, who would be hidden in the bushes by Issac (previously ordered by Berger to follow them) and later slowly ridden away by Abish. Abish, within the group of women, would be discovered later by the Wolf Clan. Meanwhile, Jacob believed to be killed by scalping, finds himself still alive, though left worse for wear.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 2 Recap:
Does Red Feather leave the Pratts alive?
Poor Jacob is stuck in limbo and realizes he is in a nether place, about to die but left to live clearly because Red Feather takes pity on him, rather than helping him for any reason. However, Red Feather has his own reasons for being angry at the massacre for having taken place. Knowing the Paiutes were responsible for the massacre and intent on transplanting the blame on the Shoshone/The Wolf Clan, Red Feather would resort to killing the Paiutes, as well as their “conquests,” except Abish, whose courage in the face of the blade perilously close to slashing her neck interests Red Feather enough for him to take her to the camp and keep her as a prisoner.
Who is investigating the massacre?
Post the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and spurned by Governor Brigham Young to ensure that their hands remain far away from the bloody deed, another key player of the Nauvoo Legion—Wild Bill Hickman—finds himself centerstage of this situation when, at Fort Bridger, he finds Colonel Dillinger of the US Army having rescued Jacob from the massacre site, and while his scars are being treated, he emphatically states that the ones responsible for the massacre were “injuns with hoods” and wants to form a posse.
Bill is enthusiastic about this plan and agrees to take Jacob to the Mormon camp, where he, in private, berates Wosley for not taking care of loose ends. Bill’s nightmare about loose ends is about to come true, as the next day, the guys would find the massacre site, and no Abish. A Paiute survivor (barely) reveals that the Wolf Clan might have taken Abish, and he is forbidden from revealing more by lead being shot in his gut from the rifle fired by Wosley. The actual investigation, though, is done by Dillinger, who soon realizes by the hoofprints that the horses were shod, not ones belonging to the natives. The inference, though, is more troubling—maybe the Mormons were responsible for the massacre.
What does Issac learn about Sara?
Meanwhile, the primary contention between Sara and Issac is their choice of destination. For Issac, it’s in keeping this woman and her son safe, and the only way he could execute it is by taking her back to Fort Bridger, while Sara is determined to travel to Fort Spring. Issac even threatens Two Moons, who had followed Sara and Devin secretly, to go away.
Two Moons, however, doesn’t listen to him and instead joins Sara and Devin, who are waiting at the banks of the spring, while Issac is searching for a bank to cross the stream. There would be a parallel track of attacks on both ends of this group, with Issac having to take care of another Native American following him, while Virgil and his group recognize Sara’s posse and begin chasing them. Two Moons take them to a cave network, where she guides them through the network to help them escape while ensuring fire and smoke slow Virgil down as the three of them escape.
After Isaac reunites with Sara, Devin, and Two Moons, he begins to further ensure they are not followed by not letting the fire burn on for so long or by heating rocks to ensure that they don’t freeze to death. He also destroys Devin’s knee brace because that would remove the “dinner bell.” As they near a camp, Issac plans to buy horses and asks for money from Sara that she would have to part with reluctantly. However, Issac’s manipulation to bargain for horses begins to be derailed when Sara joins him in the village, and he learns about the bounty of a woman wanted for murder and last seen with her crippled son. As the villagers realize that they might have the bounty on their hands, Isaac manages to kill all of them, though he doesn’t exactly escape from being shot either.
Led by anger and resignation at having to protect a woman whose secrets could have killed him and her son, who he is beginning to grow fond of, he falls off his horse while trudging through the forest back to Bridger. The group would be found by a Shoshone scout and accompanied by the Shoshone tribe. Isaac would wake up after two days, healed at his “home,” where he had been raised by Winter Bird (Irene Bedard), the leader of the Shoshone tribe. Sara, Devin, and Two Moons would be treated very well these two days, and Sara would be surprised by the treatment she experienced from these “savages” and ask Issac why he would leave this place.
Isaac wouldn’t be able to answer them, as Dillinger arrives at the Shoshone tribe to question them about their involvement—or Winter Bird’s other son, Red Feather’s, involvement—in the massacre. Instead, Issac confirms Dillinger’s suspicions of the Mormons being responsible for the massacre. But Winter Bird is also not interested in moving her tribe to the assigned lands by the government, even if that means the Shoshone would be targeted by both the government and the Mormons. Meanwhile, Issac drops his plan to force them to Berger and instead chooses to accompany the trio to Crooked Springs.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 3 Recap:
How is Abish treated by Red Feather and the Wolf clan?
While Abish is intrigued by Red Feather and the culture of the Wolf Clan, she does try to escape and is dragged back by the clan’s people, and for punishment, Red Feather snatches her locket away. But Red Feather is also interesting in that he does not attempt to assault or even romance her; rather, she is allowed to ingratiate herself in the life of the Wolf Clan. The Clan would finally have to move downhill to the main Shoshone camp to hide from Dillinger and his troops (who would be forced to send scouts to investigate Red Feather after his conversation with Wosley about the massacre and disbelieving his bravado-filled denial), where she would be treated as an honored guest at Winter Bird’s camp, even as Winter Bird’s relationship with her son is still strained.
What does Jacob learn about the Massacre?
Jacob’s flipping out at the Ute camp at finding one of his wife’s scarves shook Wosley enough that he started to doubt Jacob’s sanity. However, his doubts would be overridden more upon learning of Virgil and his team’s searches for Sara and his son and the woman accompanying them. For all intents and purposes, Jacob would request to accompany the journey of searching for this “woman” he believes to be his wife, and Wosley would appoint his right-hand man Cook to accompany Jacob and this team.
This motley group is a match made in hell; however, while Virgil’s brother is a kind soul and open to Jacob’s faith, the rest of the team, including Virgil’s teammate Tilly, are much less so. He is more inclined to push Jacob’s buttons by making sexually risqué jokes about the woman they are looking for. However, Jacob finally learns about the details of the massacre when he recognizes the pince-nez watch as one belonging to one of the members of the Fancher camp, realizing that Cook had been one of the “hooded figures” responsible for the massacre.
What does the conversation between Jim Bridger and Brigham Young lead to?
One of the bigger instances of the moment where history is stretched by fiction is when real-life figures Jim Bridger and Brigham Young meet. Young, essentially while sharing whiskey and accepting all the barbs about his numerous wives by Bridger, reveals his plan to buy the Bridger fort. Bridger, meanwhile, in not-so-uncertain terms, reveals his rough and turbulent past and how this location had been a “safe spot” for the majority of his lifetime and refuses to sell unless Young can match a price that even Bridger isn’t aware of. While Young would walk away for the day, Bridger knows that this negotiation tactic is nowhere near over.
What happens at the French Canadian camp?
The most horrific moments of the show occur in the subplot of Sara and Issac’s journey to Crooked Springs. While Sara would be dissatisfied with Isaac’s brusqueness and his lack of answers, Sara’s stubbornness lands her and the entire camp in trouble when she lets compassion drive her upon coming across a small kid with a doll. Intending to take the kid back to her camp, despite oft-repeated warnings from Jacob, she gets into a trap. Only Two Moons manage to escape while Devin and Issac are knocked out and tied up.
Meanwhile that night, Sara would be taken by the ringleader of the group and raped. When she finally came out, her steely visage had hardened even more. This moment of hardship also brings Devin and Issac closer, with Issac even acknowledging the bravery of her mother and promising to teach him to fish. Later, when Sara would be on the verge of being sexually assaulted again, Two Moons would emerge from the forest and attack her assaulter. Once freed, Sara manages to take a gun and kill everyone in the village.
Later, as the group recuperates, she breaks down, realizing that her current actions made her forget what she had been actually protecting—her son—an echo of the long shot of her plan—that of taking her son to meet his father at the gold claim of Crooked Springs so that he could be protected. It is slowly becoming clear that she is becoming more hardened due to the trauma of the primeval nature of the American West.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 4 Recap:
Young, seemingly as a counter to Bridger’s refusal of his offer, instructs Hickman to buy out Bridger’s pigs. Bridger, realizing this is a dirty game, causes the forceful negotiation to implode by essentially stabbing Hickman’s foot with a sharp shovel and sending him on his merry way.
How does Abish aid in the negotiations with Red Feather and Dillinger?
Meanwhile, Winter Bird and Abish’s conversation, in part addressing Abish’s own dilemma about belonging to her own people, is further complicated by their discussion about both their people and who is ultimately in the right, or why the Mormons hate the Native Americans. It couldn’t only be fear, as that would be too simplistic and would take away from both the point of Manifest Destiny as well as the expansion-centered mindset of Young and his Mormons.
But from the perspective of Native Americans like Red Feather, who would learn from his spy embedded in Dillinger’s camp about Dillinger’s next steps, this is a war they are stuck in, and the time for negotiation has passed long ago. Shoshone, like Red Feather, is open enough to battle for his people, even choosing to bleed for them while delivering an impassioned speech. Contrast that to Red Feather’s own mostly silent treatment of the angry response towards Abish’s accusations. She questions, having come a long way such that her courage allows her to talk to his face without flinching, about the cyclical nature of violence and when is this killing ever going to stop. What would happen if Red Feather’s son Young Elk got caught in the crossfire of this senseless war?
Even as Red Feather gets angry, he does ponder Abish’s statement that everyone deserves to live and concocts his strategy to essentially negotiate with the US Army by taking a war party with Abish in tow. Using Abish as his messenger and Grey Fox as the translator, the Wolf Clan tries to plead for their innocence, with Abish calling out the Mormons as being responsible for the massacre. She would also learn that her husband Jacob is alive, though that would leave her no less conflicted. After all, Dillinger essentially squashes her hope of peace being any way a possible option, and that he is, after all, a government husband, whose hands are tied.
That wouldn’t stop Dillinger from essentially hatching a trap, taking Abish with a war party to the Mormon camp, and essentially pushing Wild Bill and Wosley to the back foot. The Mormons would reassure Abish that her husband had been with them and would come back very soon, but internally they realize that time is running out. More importantly, Abish recognizes Wolsey as well, and her muted reaction at seeing Wosley confirms his suspicion, though he doesn’t immediately attack them as they would be outnumbered.
But even as the truth is revealed, Abish, realizing that she had been used, forces her to get on a horse and ride back to the Shoshone, while Dillinger orders his right-hand man to ride over to Fort Bridger and ask for reinforcements. Unfortunately, his right-hand man is a member of the Mormon cause and reveals Dillinger’s plans to Wild Bill.
How is Devin injured?
Walking through the snowy forested regions in the Rockies is hardships multiplied by 1000, even as Issac and Sara’s coldness has melted to the extent that they could converse about Issac’s life within the Shoshone that he would be forced to leave, or that Issac acquiesces to stay beside Sara in the night. For Devin, Isaac becomes the father figure, reassuring him that being forced circumstantially to kill “bad men” isn’t a sin.
Unfortunately, Devin wouldn’t be injured by bad men but by the harsh and unfeeling American primeval. The rough terrain had already been doing a number on Devin’s horse, with the hoof bleeding, worrying both Issac and Two Moon about the horse’s health. It reaches a fever pitch, when, in the deep forest in the middle of a snowstorm, the horse panics and throws Devin off the horse, who is then kicked by its hind legs and hit hard on a tree trunk, with his femur broken. Issac would carry Devin to a log cabin, where he would have to make a splint out of firewood and finally snap the femur back in place. After all, as Isaac says, “It is just pain.”.
What drastic steps does Jacob finally take?
Meanwhile, Virgil’s search for Sara is still ongoing, but that journey isn’t moving as satisfactorily for Jacob as he would have liked. He is becoming exhausted by Tilly’s taunts, to the extent that he pulls Tilly down from his horse and threatens to choke him out. He isn’t as receptive to Lucas’ kindness, which is anyway a rarity in the Wild West, because he is too burnt by betrayal from a brother of the faith. Thus he finally takes a drastic step, and while Cook is trying to calm Jacob down from losing his composure, Jacob attacks Cook, hitting him with a rock on his head, and then pushes his head down the stream and chokes him to death.
While Virgil is sympathetic to Jacob managing to take the law into his own hands, he takes the express decision to leave him and continue their journey, as he couldn’t risk Jacob losing his mind and targeting Virgil next, which is quite understandable. But by that point, Jacob is slowly beginning to lose his sanity, and Virgil, perhaps out of pity, leaves him with a horse and clean clothes.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 5 Recap:
Does Young and Bridger’s negotiation reach a stalemate?
Bridger’s aggressive reply to Bill Hickman pushes Young to try again, assuage and put all the misunderstanding to bed, and pay Bridger a substantial amount of money. Bridger still refuses, but as Young walks away, he knows that the stalemate is reaching a fever pitch. Bridger wasn’t wrong, as Young would return, now with a warrant for Bridger’s arrest for having sold weapons to Native Americans.
Unfortunately, because this is the Wild West, laws have different iterations in different regions, and Fort Bridger is a safe haven for Native Americans and travelers and prospectors of the Wild West. None of them are open to the Fort or Bridger being taken away, and they voice their opinion by pointing their guns at Governor Young, essentially outnumbering his troops and forcing him to back off, though Bridger doesn’t lose his polite countenance. It’s an extraordinarily fun moment of mental battle and fortitude between these two characters.
How does Issac manage to save Devin’s leg?
After the events of the previous episode, Issac tries to broach to Sara the possibility of having to amputate Devin’s leg, as gangrene is setting in and his health is only getting worse. While Sara still maintains her stubbornness, we have seen her countenance slowly melting in Issac’s presence, to the extent that she could even broach the possibility of taking her son and Two Moons to California, with Issac and the viewers realizing that her trust towards Devin’s father is being extended only because of the possibility of protection that could be afforded to Devin more than anything else.
And now Sara is wobbly about that decision because Issac, in essence, has taken the place of the father in Devin’s life, even managing to save Devin’s leg by forcefully cauterizing it using a knife heated by the fireplace, and Devin, forged by the crucible of this journey, taking to pain with as much normalcy as one possibly could to survive in the American Primeval.
Who kidnaps Sara?
The log cabin, though, is under threat of being attacked by wolves, and as Issac reiterates, they have been here for way too long, and the people chasing them would be upon them soon enough. Unfortunately, Issac’s premonition proves to be correct when Sara is kidnapped while plucking the herbs by Virgil. Issac would barely manage to get out of the way and save Two Moons and Devin from being shot apart by the hail of gunfire before managing to kill them with unflinching brutality, saving the kids from being held hostage. But he soon learns that Sara is taken by Issac and Lucas and prepares himself to hunt them down.
Who attacks Dellinger’s troops in the dead of the night?
One of the grisliest moments of this episode stems from the Mormons racing to plug every hole in their barely conceived plan. While Dillinger’s lieutenant manages to reveal his plan of ordering more troops to Wild Bill, he realizes that the entire onus of the plan—to remove Abish Pratt from the equation—is null and void, as Abish would ride over to the Shoshone Tribe to essentially “not be found.” However, it’s more of a domino effect at this point.
Thus before Dillinger can attack the Mormons, with the aid of the extra troops that would never arrive, his troops would be attacked by the Mormons, led by Wild Bill and Wosley, aided in entry by Dillinger’s double-crossing lieutenant. The death is grislier because of the eloquent classicism of Dillinger’s voiceover in sharp contrast to the visceral nature of his death. And the deed itself doesn’t ultimately result in any form of absolution for the lieutenant. He would be granted the promise of more money but would also be shot by Wild Bill to take care of loose ends.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Episode 6 Recap:
Does Issac manage to rescue Sara?
Sara realizes that she is truly in dire straits when she regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a horse, led by Virgil and his group. The bounty hunter plans to earn that money, half or full, depending on Sara’s state of arrival. Sara tries to dissuade his plan by convincing him to take her to her husband so that he could pay for their troubles, but Virgil refuses that plan down flat. She also tries to convince Lucas to let her go, but Lucas too is unwilling to go against his brother because of loyalty.
Fortunately for Sara and unfortunately for Lucas, Issac manages to catch up to them. He sneaks up on Tilly, kills him, ties his body on a horse, and sends it as a battering ram towards their camp. As Virgil and Lucas confusedly begin to shoot at the horse and its rider, Isaac manages to free Sara and then attacks Virgil. Virgil, unlike the majority of Isaac’s antagonists in this series, is strong enough to go toe to toe until Sara attacks him from behind. It allows Issac to finally choke Virgil, while Sara stabs him, killing him. Unfortunately, Lucas would witness the gruesome murder of his brother.
Meanwhile, back at the log cabin, that same night, Devin and Two Moons are surrounded by wolves, with one of the wolves managing to break into the cabin and attack Two Moons in a similar fashion to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character being attacked by a bear in “The Revenant,” until Devin finally takes the gun from Two Moons’ hand and shoots the wolf.
Who wins the war between the Shoshone and the Mormons?
The war to snuff out Abish Pratt and take care of loose ends is contrasted by the Shoshone tribe essentially accepting Abish into the tribe for good and painting her face with war paint and preparing for war. After all, Red Feather knows about the plans of Wild Bill’s Navoo Legion to attack the Shoshone tribe. Wild Bill had also managed to rescue Jacob Pratt, who is so far removed from sanity that he agrees to join the war party and attack the Shoshone Tribe for having killed his wife, having forgotten that one of these Mormons had been responsible for the massacre that had incited the incident in the first place.
But as the Navoo Legion rides into the empty Shoshone camp, they walk into a trap and manage to be completely overwhelmed by Red Feather’s wolf clan and the Shoshone tribes. As the body count ratchets up on both sides, Wosley manages to get into a one-on-one battle with Red Feather, with Wosely successfully shooting Red Feather in his stomach, while Wosely is killed by Red Feather’s axe embedded in his forehead, and dying in seconds. Red Feather dies, and his son runs to him and presumably dies as well.
As the camp burns down with the carnage occurring, Abish continues shooting at her perpetrators until one of them finally manages to shoot her squarely in the chest. The tragedy of the entire scenario is Jacob finally shooting Abish doesn’t seem lost on him, as he kisses the dying Abish and continues laughing before shooting himself by placing his gun at the temple and blowing his head off.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Ending Explained:
Was Brigham Young successful in buying the fort from Jim Bridger?
The final moment of stalemate would occur in the most undignified manner, with Young forcing his way into Bridger’s quarters while Bridger is taking a massage. Young finally gifts Bridger money stashed in two massive bags, with Bridger finally realizing that Young had met the match, as from a business standpoint it would be foolhardy to refuse this much money.
But as he accepts the money, he soon learns that he is sentencing the fort to destruction, as Young plans to burn the fort down, essentially removing any hint of the law of the west from the Utah plains. “American Primeval” also doubles down on the ambiguity of his responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, with him instructing Wild Bill Hickman to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the rule of the Latter Day Saints should not be challenged anymore.
The end of the era occurs with a blowout—a party with Bridger finally opening the bar for the citizens of Fort Bridger to guzzle down for free, coinciding with the Mormon mob, led by Wild Bill, setting fire to the fort. As Bridger walks away from the burning vestiges of the safe space he had held dear for so long, he enters his burning office, takes his shovel, insults Bill for one last time, and walks away, as civilization burns down, with its inhabitants in drunken revelry as the flames lick at their heels.
Do Issac and Sara get their happy ending?
Sara and Issac finally arrive that night at the log cabin and find Devin and Two Moons alive after the attack by wolves. They take that as enough of a heavy hint to resume their journey, but as they near Crooked Springs, both Issac and Sara realize they do not want this journey to end. For Issac, the dilemma is more of loyalty and asceticism. After the death of his wife and son, from mobs and racists, he had clearly removed himself from civilization and the love of his adopted family. And Sara realizes that she too can’t have a life with Isaac, even though they would admit by the end that they have feelings for each other by sharing an intense kiss. However, Issac agrees to Sara’s plan to enter Crooked Springs alone without Issac, so as not to be asked more questions.
However, as Issac begins the return journey to Fort Bridger, he comes across the doll belonging to the little girl at the French Canadian Camp that Virgil’s brother Lucas would discover on the trail to search for Sara. Realizing that someone has followed them, Isaac immediately doubles back. His suspicions were confirmed because Lucas had followed them and would be threatening Sara when Issac would be directly riding the horse at Lucas. The riders would collide with Isaac throwing down and finally killing Lucas.
However, Issac and Sara’s happy ending won’t come to fruition, as Issac’s luck has finally run out. He is shot by Lucas before he can attack him, and as Issac dies, he walks away to sit at the rock face and waits slowly for death to take him, with Sara clasping his hands and reassuring him that she will be by his side in his final moments. It feels poetic that Isaac would be buried by the family he would gain in this journey. After Isaac, AKA Spotted Hawk, is interred, Sara, with Devin and Two Moons, resumes their journey, with their sights set westward towards California.
American Primeval (2025) Season 1 Review:
Marketing this miniseries as being one helmed by the director of “Friday Night Lights,” “Lone Survivor,” “Deepwater Horizon,” and “Patriots Day” could induce an expectation of a man used to helming survival thrillers. Even as his recent ventures like “Spenser Confidential” or “Mile 22” had been major misfires, “American Primeval” still feels like a decidedly different beast.
In an era where the Western genre in television is almost under the chokehold of realism-garb classicism helmed by Taylor Sheridan, this desaturated, bleak, and grisly western is a refreshing change of pace. In Sheridan’s most acclaimed work, like “1883,” or his recent outputs like “1923,” he tries to showcase the romanticism of the West contrasted sharply with the unflinching violence such that criticism can be labeled Sheridan of glorifying rather than highlighting the truth. Berg’s “American Primeval,” created by the scribe of the Oscar-winning survival drama “The Revenant,” Mark L. Smith, is decidedly different in that it pulls no punches.
The filmmaking style itself is filled with Dutch angles, high-contrast imagery, desaturated coloring, and long takes of following one character in the thick of the action as the viewer finds themselves in the heart of the Mountain Meadows Massacre or within the snowy wilderness of the Rockies, battling through the weather as well as the outlaws of the west. “American Primeval” could never be classified as a “modern classic” by any measure, but in its attempt to encapsulate the bloody past of America, it manages it rather effectively.
Interestingly, while the first story—the journey of Mrs. Roswell and her crippled son to Crooked Springs under the guidance of the taciturn Issac (Taylor Kitsch)—starts out strong, it soon devolves into luxuriation, evident within a survival thriller as penned by Mark L. Smith. Indeed, the similarities with “Revenant” are the most striking in this segment, down to a bloody battle between a human being and a wild animal. But there is also Smith and Berg’s visualization of the cruelty of Manifest Destiny, especially in the sequence where Halloway and Issac find themselves captured by French bandits. The sequence of events following that capture could be rightly classified as exploitative, but there is such a striking visual characteristic even within the desaturation in the frames that it is hard to look away. There isn’t any classism or romanticization accompanied by exoticization here. The Wild West is brutal, almost dystopian.
The second, and perhaps the primary story, is the story of expansion and manifest destiny reckoned directly. On the one hand, the attempts of the Mormons to proliferate under Governor Brigham Young (Kim Coates, virtually unrecognizable), and under his instructions, how his followers essentially incited the Mountain Meadows Massacre with the aid of the Paiute tribe, and how the blame is being shifted to the Wolf Clan of the Shoshone Tribe and their leader Red Feather. The political tension between the US Army, the Mormons, and the Shoshone Tribe forms the bulk of the tale, with a clear division. Young has more of an interaction with Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham), and those interactions are positively delightful in the intellectual banter between two men with incredibly strong constitutions and belief in their faith.
On the other hand, the clash between the Mormons, the US Army, and the Shoshone Indians gets complicated by the capture of Abish Pratt (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) by Red Feather. This entire storyline of a Caucasian individual slowly becoming accustomed to the Native American lifestyle could have been very poorly executed had it not been handled with grace and with an ample amount of research as well. One of the key factors that make “American Primeval” stand out is the show’s pointed commentary on the conflation of different tribes into a singular word—Indians—and referring to them as one monolith of an enemy. The reality being far more complicated is handled with nuance in this show, even as the show does devolve into cliched endings.
The final subplot that rankles me is the search for Abish by her husband Jacob Pratt (Dane DeHaan). Having survived being scalped at the Mountain Meadows Massacre, he essentially becomes a relay ball, being passed from one subplot to the next. While DeHaan’s makeup produces a suitably grisly and intimidating figure, with the inherent ending of the figure working as a tragic fallout of the American West on paper, it is easily the weakest and most lackluster plot that would be executed.
While “American Primeval” does resort to utilizing some of the classical tropes of the Western (voiceover with philosophical undertones with portentous music underscoring the actions on the screen), the show is most guilty of overusing it towards the end. Peter Berg and Mark L. Smith’s revisionist Western is a harrowing and dark look at a violent event in American history, foregoing the widescreen look for a much more visceral, grittier approach. The result is a bleak and violent work that is paced well and quite engaging as a limited series.
