American Primeval opens in Utah Territory, 1857. “Wild and untamed,” says the caption, which is good to know. Furthermore, “the United States army, Mormon militia, Native Americans and pioneers are all locked in a brutal war for survival. Caught in the bloody crossfire are every man, woman and child who dare to enter this American primeval.”
And there, pretty much, you have it. The six-part series is clearly a prestige project – gorgeously photographed, ably directed (by Painkiller and Friday Night Lights’ Peter Berg), priding itself on the authenticity of the physical realities of exercising your manifest destiny, and strewn with fine actors giving fine performances. It is set a little earlier than we are used to seeing our westerns, at the tail end of the Indian Wars and before settlers apparently transformed into rootin’-tootin’ cowboys. Even so, it still somehow feels like we have seen it all before.
Among a sprawling cast – the men growling every word from so far down their throats that the volume button on the remote gets almost as much punishment as an outsider who looks funny at any pioneer with a shovel handy – our protagonists are a woman and her son trying to get from Philadelphia to the boy’s father in Crook Springs, Utah. Sara (Betty Gilpin, proving her dramatic chops after her comic turn in GLOW) and Devon (Preston Mota) arrive at a scanty trading post called Fort Bridger with a purseful of dollars and a great desire for haste, which is explained when a bounty hunter turns up looking for her.
Eventually they come under the guidance of the most grizzled, growling frontiersman of them all – Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch), who was raised by the Shoshone tribe and boy, is that going to come in handy as they attempt to get from point A to B without being killed by any of the tribes, Mormon militia, US army or assorted groups of violent sociopaths who litter their path so thickly you wonder if there is any unoccupied land left anywhere in America.
Meanwhile, a genuine historical incident is unfolding: the Mountain Meadows Massacre, near Salt Lake City, during which an estimated 150 white settlers, including Mormons, were killed in an attack thought to have been carried out at the behest of Brigham Young, the founder of the Church of Latter-day Saints who at the time was very much concerned with preserving his nascent religion’s land.
We follow the fates of newly married LDS couple Jacob and Abish Pratt (Dane DeHaan and Saura Lightfoot-Leon) who survive the massacre but become separated. She is taken by the Pauite tribe, he is left for dead and remembers nothing of who was responsible when he is taken in by his brothers in Christ.
Much plot unspools as characters are first driven further apart and then begin to draw together again as information about Sara’s whereabouts travels along the bounty-hunter grapevine, as Abish is taken from the Pauite by the leader of the Shoshone, Red Father (Derek Hinkey) (the tribe being blamed for the massacre and whose leaders are in disagreement about whether to engage with the invaders of their country on peaceful or violent terms). Everyone’s desire for land, freedom and retribution brings them into more conflict with each faction wanting their piece of the pie.
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For all its power to compel – and it is a gripping yarn – there isn’t quite the heft such a carefully attended drama should have, or even appears to think it has. The message seems to be the same as all modern westerns: pioneer life was nasty, brutish and short. Only the fittest, most ruthless and quick on the draw – even if it’s with shovels and bows and arrows at this point instead of Smith & Wessons – survive. It is no place for an unaccompanied woman and child. Being kindhearted will only lead you and your child into unspeakable horrors. Religion is not an overwhelmingly good thing and founders of new ones can be the most ruthless people of all. Winter in Utah is cold and the birth of America was no easy or pleasant thing. American Primeval wants to transcend the myths and find some additional, deeper truth to the country’s origin story. But it is still, at heart, in thrall to them and unable to escape the lure of essentially repeating them, albeit with added dirt and Mormons.
