American Primeval review — Old West saga is a darker alternative to Yellowstone

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There was a time way back when America was a divided place, riven by tribalism and driven to extremes by dogmatists. American Primeval, Netflix’s latest historical saga penned by Mark L Smith (co-writer of The Revenant), takes us back to the 1850s and the fringes of the Utah Territory. There, frontiersmen, Mormons, federal troops and Native American tribes vie for land and power in a strategically significant slice of the ever-expanding West. A bloody conflict rages across sweeping plains, craggy cliffs, pristine snowy forests and squalid makeshift towns that could be settled but remain removed from civilised.

Caught in the midst of that is itinerant mother Sara (Betty Gilpin) and her son, on the run from traumas back within the east with the grudging help of tracker Isaac (Taylor Kitsch). They’re pursued by reward-seeking mercenaries in search of to capture the wanted woman and child alive, in addition to Mormon militiamen whom they witness carrying out a massacre and who want them very much dead. Among the many survivors of the barbaric attack are migrating Mormon newly-weds Jacob and Abish (Dane DeHaan and Saura Lightfoot-Leon). They too discover that their very own so-called brothers are behind the indiscriminate slaughter, killing in an effort to claim what they consider is their god-given land.

The fates of those five characters — and people of the people they encounter along the way in which — unfold over six gruelling and sprawling episodes. The most recent offering in TV’s recent Western renaissance, it feels darker and grittier than Taylor Sheridan’s soapy “horse opera” Yellowstone and a world away from the romanticised West of the genre’s heyday. 

But while there are flashes of compassion and tenderness that pierce through the darkness, the series largely struggles to balance its punishingly violent set pieces with rewarding character drama. There’s more to each Sara and Isaac than they let on, however the show allows too little time for them to develop. The West could also be vast, but there’s apparently not enough room for well-rounded characters.

★★★☆☆

On Netflix from January 9