Is 'American Primeval' the First Great Taylor Sheridan Competitor?
If American Primeval is anything to go by, Utah circa 1857 is the most awful time and place to live in American history. The new Netflix miniseries, directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) and written by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), is ruthless and unforgiving in its portrayal of the Old West. As an Army captain (Lucas Neff) notes in a voiceover during the first episode: “There is only brutality here.” (True, but there’s also a TV series to make of it!)
Ever since the overwhelming popularity of Yellowstone and its spin-offs, 1883 and 1923, it feels like every streaming service attempted to produce at least one competitor to the Western drama. Some were underappreciated but short-lived (Prime Video’s Outer Range), while others just felt directionless (Hulu’s Monarch). American Primeval is the first of the lot figure out how to rival Yellowstone without just copying it—and it accomplishes that goal with the kind of violence that would make Rip grin.
“It's the American West, and how it was violently taken over,” American Primeval star Taylor Kitsch told Esquire US of the series in the summer of 2022. He plays Primeval’s reluctant hero, Isaac—a grisly outdoorsman he describes as “The Last of the Mohicans meets The Revenant.” His character is like a version of Clint Eastwood who was left out in the wilderness for too long. He’s raggedy and mysterious, yet hardened and solid under pressure.
Kitsch previously connected with Berg on Friday Night Lights, but American Primeval is a different beast entirely. As the show’s official logline reads: “Pain is everywhere,” while “innocence and tranquility are losing the battle to hatred and fear." (Berg also has a leg up on the genre since he helped produce two of Taylor Sheridan’s films, Hell or High Water and Wind River.) “We love pushing each other,” Kitsch said of his relationship with the director. “We're both a little tweaked out.”
The story begins with Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her young son Devin (Preston Mota) as they arrive at Fort Bridger in Utah. It’s a home base for travelers out West run by Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham), who outlines all the various factions seeking to claim Utah’s land. We meet the U.S. Army, the native Shoshone, and a smattering of Manifest Destiny-driven pioneers. There’s also the mountain man Issac (Kitsch), as well as an emerging group of Mormons led by the fanatical Brigham Young (Kim Coates, acting as animated as a Disney villain made flesh). This world, which is full of every kind of character out West, feels a bit video game-y, but not necessarily in a bad way. There’s a lot of world-building for Berg to do up front–which is useful knowledge to have once the series starts folding real history into the plot.
Under all the action and drama, American Primeval is about Utah’s Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. The brutal (and historical!) attack is one of the limited series’ earliest and most-shocking gut-punches, as a caravan of roughly 120 settlers is murdered by a posse of Mormon militia and the local Paiute warriors. It’s an eye-opening experience for those who manage to survive, leading the characters down a vicious and revenge-fueled path that stacks even more bodies in their wake.
Watching American Primeval is like experiencing a nightmare. I certainly wouldn’t recommend that you binge all six episodes in one sitting. But the limited series moves at a fantastic pace compared to other televised Westerns. There's zero family barbecues or Lainey Wilson cameos here. Berg brilliantly captures the thrilling action among a flurry of arrows and blood-curdling screams—complete with detailed sets and lifelike mountain passes. Shooting Primeval on location couldn’t have been easy for anyone involved, but there’s a reason why Leonardo DiCaprio’s night sleeping in a bear carcass finally won him the Oscar.
Native American associations (and certainly Mormons) will surely pick apart most of what they see in American Primeval. Critics of modern Westerns have long called for the end of Native American stories only told through trauma and violence. That’s the name of the game with American Primeval, even if the show’s death toll is shared equally among all the parties involved. Berg and co. hired an Indigenous cultural consultant, according to The New York Times, who briefed the creative team on proper naming conventions and specific customs relative to the individual tribes. Still, it’s tough to show any version of the West as anything but a massacre.
Unless you’re certain you can’t stomach it, I wouldn’t let the brutality stop anyone from watching American Primeval. Without a doubt, the series is one of best Westerns on TV since 1883. The series follows how quickly one abandons their ideals once survival comes into play—as well as the bloody and ugly battles that forged this nation. The story feels solely designed for audiences who never cared about the Dutton family and just wanted to bear witness to the violence in the American frontier. In American Primeval, it wouldn’t be accurate to show anything else.
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