This Neo-Western Is Your Next Must-Watch

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Everyone’s talking about American Primeval

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A new six-part western has landed on Netflix – and it’s brimming with conflict, culture clashes and sweeping natural scenery. Intrigued? Here’s what you need to know about American Primeval before you tune in.

American Primeval: Plot, Cast, Season 2 & More

Wolf Clan Warrior and Derek Hinkey as Red Feather Episode 101 of American Primeval

What Is American Primeval About?

It’s 1857 in America – so nothing is as we know it today. Centred on the small town of Fort Bridger, American Primeval examines the violent clash of culture, religion and community as people from varied backgrounds fight and die to possess and control this slice of the future US – and make their way to Utah. At this point in time, the Territory of Utah was a new frontier, created by Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young seeking refuge from religious persecution in the eastern United States. The region was taken from Mexico by the US at the end of the Mexican-American war in 1850, but as we see in American Primeval, that was far from the end of conflict in the region.

So why are Mormons, the military and Native Americans fighting in American Primeval? ‘Brigham Young and the Mormons feel as though the military is about to attack them at any point in time, so they’ve started their own army called the Nauvoo Legion,’ series creator, director and executive producer Pete Berg explains. ‘The American Army is concerned with getting the Mormons out of Utah territory, so they’re nervous that they’re going to die fighting the Mormons.’

Meanwhile: ‘The Shoshone and the Paiute tribes are being squeezed from their lands by both sides, so they feel like they’re getting ready to die,’ Berg says. ‘The miners and the trappers at Fort Bridger are all seeing their lives extinguished by larger trapper companies who are coming in and squeezing them out. Everybody is anxious from the get-go and everyone is truly fighting to stay alive.’

Will There Be American Primeval Season 2?

There’s no news just yet on whether Netflix will renew American Primeval for season 2 – but we know the series creator and director Pete Berg is ‘up for discussing it’. Originally intended as a limited series, the foundations have not yet been dug for a reprisal, and the director has a few conditions on his mind. ‘You know, after we wrapped and I looked at all the actors – the ones that were still alive – I felt such affection for them,’ Berg recently told Decider. ‘And I do think there are many ways that we could go [with a second season].

‘I’ve still got to thaw out from my time spent up on those mountains in the winter, but maybe if they got to lower ground, that wasn’t quite as cold, we could,’ the director quipped. ‘We could go back.’

And: ‘If [Indigenous Consultant] Julie [O’Keefe] will come back, I’d be up for discussing it,’ Berg teased.

Joe Tippett as James Wolsey, Lucas Neff as Dellinger and Kip Weeks as Pepper in Episode 103 of American Primeval

Is American Primeval Based On A True Story?

American Primeval draws on a lot of American history, but it is not entirely based on true stories. Inspiration for the series first sparked when series creator Berg came across a story from the Utah War. ‘I read an article on something called the Mountain Meadows Massacre,’ Berg told Netflix. ‘[It] was something that interested me, and I started doing a lot of research on it.’ But the seeds were sown long before this. When Berg reached out to writer Mark L. Smith for help fleshing out his gritty American frontier drama, Smith has coincidentally already been toying with a similar idea. Having previously worked on The Revenant (2015), Smith was captivated by pioneer Jim Bridger (who features as a young boy in Leonardo DiCaprio’s box office hit), penning a TV pilot delving into the historical figure. ‘I learned a lot about his character,’ Smith told Netflix. ‘I knew I wanted to explore it more, and this gave me the opportunity.’ American Primeval is set 50 years after the events of The Revenant.

The series orbits around Fort Bridger, a real reading post for people travelling West in the 1850s. ‘It was used by all the pioneers [and] the Mormons,’ says Smith. ‘It was the stopping ground. When President Buchanan decided he wanted to get control of Brigham Young and what was growing in Utah, he stationed his military there. Fort Bridger was the gathering point for everyone.’

Plenty of experts were brought in to ensure American Primeval was as authentic as possible. ‘We had military consultants, we had Mormon consultants, we had trapper consultants, and they were all on set,’ Berg explains. ‘I went with Dudley Gardner, the curator of the Bridger museum, to Fort Bridger in Wyoming for five days to get a deeper education into what life was like on that fort.’

‘Everything was entirely geared towards authenticity,’ Newman adds. ‘Every department did a tremendous amount of research. We had to make all these things you see on-screen. All of these elements had to be built. It’s incredibly time-consuming, but essential, because if someone shows up with some article of clothing or a weapon that didn’t exist in 1857, you’ve already lost.’

Meanwhile, representatives from the Shoshone Tribe and the Paiute Tribe offered their insights, managed by Indigenous cultural consultant and project advisor Julie O’Keefe. ‘Artisans, traditional language speakers from each Tribe, and cultural experts were engaged to create and advise every department,’ O’Keefe explains. ‘I also researched and used my network to create authentic camps for the Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Ute with [production designer] Renée Read for set design, and I worked with [costume designer] Virginia Johnson to help produce period-specific traditional clothing for principal characters and background characters.’ Materials including ‘buffalo hide, elk skin, buckskin, beads, broadcloth and blankets’ were all sourced for the production.

(L to R) Dane DeHaan as Jacob Pratt, Joe Tippett as James Wolsey, Dominic Bogart as Cook and the Mormon Militia in Episode 102 of American Primeval

The Mountain Meadows Massacre

The first episode plummets us right in the middle of the region’s notorious conflict with the Mountain Meadows Massacre – also based on a true story. ‘We chose that because there was this intersection between a few different Native nations, the US government, the Mormons, and the American citizens who felt they had the right to move through this area,’ executive producer Eric Newman explains. ‘The Mountain Meadows Massacre did happen, and it became, for our narrative purposes, an inciting incident of conflict for our cast of characters.’

Filming was incredibly complex, taking four months to plan and featuring around 280 actors as thousands of arrows fly through the air and bodies collapse to the ground as Mormon soldiers dressed as Native Americans attack a group of pioneers. ‘It’s very violent, it’s very chaotic,’ Berg notes. ‘We designed one large shot that goes on for about six or seven minutes. We play the attack in real time, and we stay with Sara and Devin, just trying to survive. That was the strategy: let’s visually present this event through the eyes of this woman. There was a lot of work blocking it, choreographing the action, then figuring out how and where the camera moves within a series of five or six shots that had to be stitched together.’

Writer Smith was aiming at a balanced glance at the real events. ‘It was driven by the Nauvoo Legion, but we have to understand that they perceived it as a threat,’ he explains. ‘They were coming in to defend their world. It is just another step – a very violent step – in the lengths that they went to.’

Mosiah Crowfoot as Young Elk and Derek Hinkey as Red Feather in Episode 104 of American Primeval.

American Primeval Cast

The full cast of American Primeval includes:

Taylor Kitsch as Isaac, a traumatised man struggling to overcome his demons
Kim Coates as Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon Church
Jai Courtney as Virgil Cutter, a trapper and bounty hunter
Kyle Bradley Davis as Tilly, one of Cutter’s nasty trappers
Dane DeHaan as Jacob Pratt, a Mormon crossing the frontier with his family to join other settlers in Utah
Saura Lightfoot-Leon as Abish, Jacob’s wife
Betty Gilpin as Sara Rowell, a composed woman seeking a guide across the frontier for her and her son, Devin
Preston Mota as Devin Rowell, Sara’s son
Shea Whigham as Jim Bridger, a realist in charge of his namesake fort, a popular stopping point for settlers and trappers
Nick Hargrove as Cottrell, Jim Bridger’s right hand man
Derek Hinkey as Red Feather, leader of the renegade group of Crow warriors known as the Wolf Clan
Irene Bedard as Winter Bird, leader of the Shoshone Tribe and Red Feather’s mother
Shawnee Pourier as Two Moons
Joe Tippett as James Wolsey, a Mormon man with skewed morals and leader of the Nauvoo Legion
Alex Breaux as Wild Bill Hickman, a senior officer in the Nauvoo Legion
Lucas Neff as Captain Dellinger, a disillusioned captain in the United States Army

Characters Based On Real People

A handful of these characters are based on historical figures, including:

Jim Bridger, a real life pioneer and founder of Fort Bridger
Brigham Young, the real second leader of the Mormon church; a lot of actor Kim Coates’ dialogue was taken from real sermons Young gave in his life
Wild Bill Hickman, a real member of the Nauvoo Legion
Winter Bird, who is based on a real chief who ‘was purported to be a lesbian and had multiple wives,’ according to Berg
James Wolsey, a character inspired by a real man who was executed for his role in the Meadows Massacre

While this is only five characters, the rest of American Primeval’s retain an air of authenticity, says Newman. ‘There’s no one in the show that feels like a construct that would not have been a part of the real story,’ he says.