TV-MA | 6 episodes | Drama, Western, History | 2025
For over a dozen years, streaming behemoth Netflix has been quietly releasing a number of original Western movies and TV series. Titles include but are not limited to “Paradox,” “Thar,” “Frontier,” “Longmire,” “The Harder They Fall,” “Godless,” the Coen brothers’ anthology “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” and the Adam Sandler spoof “The Ridiculous Six.”
Last week, Netflix released the six-part limited series “American Primeval,” which received 10.4 million worldwide views in less than four days; it’s already the seventh-most watched Netflix series ever. Receiving mixed critical reviews (67 percent) and mostly positive audience comments (88 percent) on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s by far Netflix’s most ambitious Western production to date.
Westward Ho!
In September of that year, assorted groups of Southern and Midwestern pioneers traveling to California made a multiday pit stop, starting on Sept. 7, in southwest Utah. A group of local Mormon elders sternly tell the group’s leader, Alexander Fancher (Berg in an extended cameo), that the wagon trains are parked on private land and they will need to leave immediately. The request is scoffed at and ignored.
The next day on Sept. 11, indigenous marauders and men wearing pillowcase head coverings attack the group and kill all but eight of between 120 and 140 travelers and their guides. Among the few survivors were newlyweds Jacob (Dane DeHaan) and Abish Pratt (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), and Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her school-age son Devin (Preston Mota). This ambush was later named the “Mountain Meadows Massacre.”
Sara, Devin, and the mute preteen Native American female stowaway Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier) make their way back to an outpost owned by Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham), seeking a replacement guide. He and Sara eventually convince the stoic and reticent Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch) to take the job.
One-On-One Character Dynamics
Left for dead by the attackers, the Mormon Jacob joins the same elders in their search for Abish, who was “rescued” against her will by Red Feather (Derek Hinkey), the principal defender of the Shoshone, a tribe that is wrongfully being accused of the massacre. The dynamic between Abish and Red Feather is slow to develop and takes more than a few twists and turns along the way before the series ends. This interaction comes in a close second on a narrative level to that of the dissimilar relationship between Sara and Isaac.
Like “Schindler’s List,” this series reflects the times in which the film’s characters existed. Even in the darkest of times, there are always beams of hopeful light that eventually conquer evil.
Blemishes and Sore Spots
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the Mormons) have been around only for a little over two centuries, but the church has at least two events that have drawn the ire of non-Mormons. One of them (polygamy) is now officially frowned upon. The other was the events leading up to, during, and immediately after the Mountain Meadows Massacre, something the church didn’t accept or condemn until 2007.
Although initially fuzzy and oblique, Brigham Young (Kim Coates), the man who succeeded founder Joseph Smith as the head of the Mormon Church, possibly had knowledge of the Massacre from its inception and went to great lengths to try to cover up the crime after the fact.
It’s Not a Documentary
Like Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” “American Primeval” isn’t a documentary and shouldn’t be taken to task for the film’s historic authenticity. It doesn’t present itself as the absolute truth. Sara, Isaac, Jacob, Abish, and Red Feather are all fictional characters. Fancher, Young, and Bridger are not. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was real, and Berg’s depiction of it (or at least what is known of it) is largely accurate.
Mixing fact with fiction is always tricky. Two of Quentin Tarantino’s films (“Inglourious Basterds” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) are two great examples of Revisionist History cinema. Those movies changed facts. In “American Primeval,” Berg and Smith augment facts with fiction—a big difference.
Berg and Smith deliver an eminently engaging and gripping series that paints a realistic view of western expansionism as it really happened. It’s an amazing work of art. The writing, direction, acting, character and story development, set design, and cinematography are all top-notch.
Without giving too much away, Berg and Smith wait until the last 30 minutes to deliver the biggest emotional and spiritual wallop. After two false endings, they leave viewers with an unmistakable feeling of hope. Isaac is successful in seeing that Sara and the children make it safely out of harm’s way so they can complete their journey without fear. They finally escape the darkness and enter the light.
