Peter Berg's American Primeval has been a dark, grim viewing experience. With dozens killed in the first eighty minutes of Netflix's limited series, this violent snapshot of life in the contested American West spares no feelings and pulls no punches. The narrative exposition reveals that the American military, the Mormon militia, the various indigenous populations, and the pioneer groups pushing west are literally at each other's throats (and scalps) in a race to claim their own small piece of North American real estate.
It's a dirty, gritty production, alternating between a sprawling, windswept landscape and a rugged, mountainous setting. Director of Photography Jacques Jouffret does a masterful job of capturing these environments. The shots feel washed out and hyper-realistic, not unlike the unfiltered realism inherenent in Alejandro Inarittu's masterpiece The Revenant (2015). Indeed, these works share a kinship in their violence, mise-en-scene, pacing, and quest for redemption.
Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) is a mother hell-bent on a mission to relocate her son from Philadelphia to a western outpost called Crooks Springs. An urbanite with a lot to learn, Rowell is carrying her own set of heavy personal baggage. She is an outlaw and a fugitive, and her pursuit spices the drama with some important narrative urgency. Somewhere between the third and fourth episodes (which become downright surreal when they stumble upon a camp of French maniacs), she undergoes a character transformation and stops making foolish, headstrong decisions in an effort to merely keep herself and her son still breathing. Honestly, it's a miracle they survived the Mountain Meadows Massacre to begin with, given their green attitudes about life on the frontier.
The series has sparked some controversy in its depiction of the much-analyzed Mountain Meadows Massacre. I was born in Utah, and my dad and sister were born in Salt Lake City. Utah's a wonderful place and I have a deep and abiding respect for those practicing the Mormon religion, although our family has always been solidly Presbyterian. The tensions depicted here--between Mormons and those practicing other versions of Christianity--remains very real in Utah. Heck, one need only look at the name of the frequent football clash between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University (the call it The Holy War) to get a sense of how these long-held prejudices still endure in the region.
Many years ago, I read Jon Krakauer's superb Under the Banner of Heaven. The book features a long, heavily detailed passage on the circumstances and residual influences of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Years ago, on a fly-fishing trip to Bend, Oregon, I had a spirited fireside discussion with a devout Mormon about both that book and the massacre, and while we enjoyed some excellent theological and historical discourse, the big takeaway for me was that those in the Mormon church still deny the presence and participation of the Mormon militia in that sordid affair. If you'd like to learn more about one of the primary historical threads fueling American Primeval, I suggest you read Krakauer's book. You won't regret the decision...
Isaac Reed (an excellent, understated turn by Taylor Kitsch) is a reluctant guide, thrust into the role of steward for Rowell and her son, Devin (Preston Mota). Joined by the mute character Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier), an exiled Native American seeking her own shot at safety and independence, they make for a strange party. The casting in this series is uniformly excellent, with a fine ensemble cast that capably depicts the savagery of the era with stoic acceptance.
And savage it is. The series is replete with murder, rape, mayhem, and a shocking early hanging. It's this casual indifference toward violence that is so shocking, as countless characters seemingly navigate life well into their middle age (well, except for all of the children and women murdered in that early massacre, of course) only to find an arrow or a bullet in their brains at the drop of a hat.
It's easy to suspend disbelief and chalk it up to the era and the circumstances of westward expansion, but one need only to look to places like Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, and Israel to understand that we're still fighting these same battles--with the same disdain for the sanctity of human life--in 2025.
American Primeval isn't perfect. It's a dramatization, after all, and very few Hollywood productions can truthfully stake a claim to absolute historical accuracy. But it's a fine, compelling series that compels the viewer into deeper contemplation when the screen goes blank.
And in this--the era of repetitive superhero schlock--that's a win for Berg and his capable cast and crew...
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