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In Netflix's gritty, brutal western series American Primeval, Betty Gilpin plays a woman determined to get herself and her son across the frontier. But along the way, they find themselves caught up in a brewing war between the federal government and a violent Mormon militia.
A gruff guide, played by Taylor Kitsch, might be of some help, but the land is rife with violent factions with competing claims to the blood-soaked soil. I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about American Primeval on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
Joining me today is Sam Yellowhorse Kessler, a producer for NPR's Planet Money. Hey, Sam. Hi, Glenn. Thanks for having me. I'm sure this simple interaction between us will end peacefully and with no sudden and brutal violence. I wouldn't put money on that. Also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hud...
Howdy. Hey, Roxanna. Hello. Let's get to it. In American Primeval, Betty Gilpin plays Sarah, a woman who hopes to reunite herself and her son with her husband, who set himself up in a town on the other side of the Utah Territory in 1857.
But the frontier is a lawless and violent place. She's got some allies in the form of a sympathetic settler who's established a way station for those headed west. He's played by the great Shea Wiggum. Taylor Kitsch plays a gruff loner with a dark past who reluctantly, annoyingly reluctantly... I am aware that our delayed arrival has helped create this situation. Now, all that matters is whether you are willing to take on the position of our guide or not. I ain't got business in crooks.
No, he doesn't. It won't be easy. Utah Governor Brigham Young, played by Kim Coates, is pulling the strings of a violent Mormon militia determined to keep the federal government out of the territory. Sarah and Co. are caught in the crossfire alongside a group of unfortunate... I'll see you next time.
wraps up. American Primeval was written by Mark L. Smith, who co-wrote the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Revenant, and you can tell. It is streaming on Netflix now. Roxanna, you reviewed this for Vulture. What'd you think? I have mixed thoughts on this. Like, on the one hand...
I am always very drawn to America bad story. That's like very much, you know, like my catnip. I'm like, you know what? That's that's correct. And something that I really liked about this is that it is not a Taylor Sheridan project. It is a neo-Western that does not overlap with Yellowstone or 1923 or Landman or any of the other sort of shows that he has created within his own universe. It is doing something very...
different from that. I talked about in my review that this is really like three Westerns in one series, and I think that certain subplots are more effective than others. I think all of the Mormon stuff is really fascinating. It has been covered by John Krakauer in his nonfiction book Under the Banner of Heaven. So I think if you've read that or if you'd watched the FX...
adaptation of that. Some of this is sort of familiar, but I appreciated the we're really going to tell you how bad things were because of this religious faction. I think Shea Wiggum, great. Kim Coates, great. The other subplots, I think, are varying in a narrative singularity. Let's put it that way. But the Mormon stuff, the Shea Wiggum stuff, I'm very pro.
Yeah. I mean, the way this is structured, it is truly an ensemble piece. You're going to be drawn to certain things more than others. Sam, where'd you come down? Yeah, pretty similarly. I was a little bit mixed on this whole thing, but I think I came out feeling like this wasn't particularly my thing. This wasn't really.
for me. And yeah, there was different scenes, different plot lines that my ears picked up a little bit more for, like when Shea Wiggum's on screen, or like when Dane DeHaan's on screen. And that kind of was like... I generally did not have a lot of positive feelings for this show, but I felt like the redeeming quality behind it was that this was going to contribute to the reels of a lot of actors that I really like. You know, when I'm starting this out, I'm like...
Like that actor looks familiar. Who's that? And then I realized, oh my God, that's Dane DeHaan. I haven't seen Dane DeHaan in anything forever. And so I really was just like glad to see him in this. And same with Shea Wiggum and same with Betty Gilpin. And I did love just how much like the show. was.
110% of everything. It never for a moment lets up. I just really thought that that was a major redeeming quality in this show that otherwise wasn't exactly my thing. Right. You mentioned Dane DeHaan. He plays Jacob Pratt. He is one of those very... fortunate Mormon settlers in the Mormon settler storyline. You know, I kind of echo some of what you guys said. I found this engrossing. I found this involving. I found this compelling. It's hard for me to say like.
when something is as dark and as unrelentingly bleak and violent as this is. But I got sucked into the storytelling here, partially, mostly, again, mostly because of that Mormon storyline, because... The Mormon militia disguises itself as indigenous people and massacres a bunch of settlers, including the caravan that Dane DeHaan is in. And then when one of those settlers survives, the militia takes him along as they hunt down. The Native Americans...
that he thinks were responsible. That, in terms of storytelling, that is just layered. That is layers of evil. That's a turducken, a flaky croissant of evil. And it's a question of how they will get found out, when they will get found out. That is suspenseful. Do I think that narrative trap was sprung with the same kind of care that it was set up? No, but still episodes and episodes went by.
where I was just really like in that tension. Shea Wiggin, we've mentioned, I'm a sucker for, and he's got a part here that seems to be written for him. I've grown mighty partial to this location. And I've also grown way too old and beat down to find another this late in the day. So I'd imagine the price that would make me comfortable is one that would put a real painful burn up your ass, Governor. So good. I mean, it's the closest thing the show gets to humor, right? Yes. Betty Gilpin.
I'm a sucker for Betty Guppin. Did I get tired of the way she was? Always wrong. Always for the same reason, which is that her soft-hearted, big city ways aren't made for the cruelty and treachery of the frontier. I get it, right? I'm not. I'm not complaining about it. But I think that was a lesson that she would have learned a lot faster than she does here. Like first episode, get out of the way. Yeah. Exactly.
And there's so much stuff that brought her to this place before, right? That storyline, I mean, I love Taylor Kitsch. I'm going to defend John Carter every day of my life. Okay, you're the one. Good for you. You know, that is the... sort of most straightforward we got two hot people and they're just gonna fight for six episodes until an abrupt resolution i wish that storyline had felt more carefully considered or to your point, Glenn, like at least more interestingly set up.
I guess. I don't know how we could have fixed that one. But it's like I really like watching these two people on screen. I like watching them be sarcastic with each other. I just needed more from it, I think. This is not where we need to go. What? What does that mean? It means whatever you find down there, it's not gonna be good for anyone. What about her? What about her?
She just said her family was down there. If her family was down there, they'd be screaming through the trees. Isaac, we have to at least see for ourselves. Leave her. I'm going to say the reason that that plot line didn't work as well as the others is the Taylor Kitsch of it all. I mean, like, I found that character. Yeah, the character. One note. I, you know, I love to hate the Jai Courtney bounty hunter character. I loved the creepy fur trappers who seemed.
be wearing human skin I think but the Taylor Kitsch character was just he starts and ends on the same place which is gruff but you know reluctantly sad man dead wife yeah exactly all the character tropes you expect yeah exactly beat for beat right that's the thing
to kind of kick me out of that. Now, since we have decided to cover this show, the reviews have come out and many of them, not all, but many of them don't seem to be on board with this show's very blunt depictions of violence, which there is. To be warned. A hell of a lot of. Yeah. Or its very dark view of humanity. I don't know. I found the violence to be.
periodically appropriate, shall we say. If I'm watching a show about this time of history, I should be seeing this kind of violence, just to be honest. As far as the show's sensibility about human beings, well, it kind of lines up with mine. I found myself just sort of nodding along going...
Yeah, that would happen. That's what that guy would do. People are bad. Did you guys get kicked out by any of that? Only a little bit in the sense that I was just like, aren't people supposed to be like forming societies out here? Aren't people like actually just like having normal jobs at times and like building things? But they just seem to be like, no, they're most.
killing each other like if you you know three people enter four people die like i don't know how that math is exactly mapping in terms of like the grand you know american project i don't know if that was exactly how things would have worked out back then and there was like a little bit of like know bullets aren't free like come on guys like you probably would not shoot that dead person five more times just to be sure that they're dead like
Let's conserve a little bit here. It worked for me because I think, you know, why I always go back to something like Deadwood is to your point, Sam, it is about like, what does it actually take to build a society? And what I think was really interesting for me here is...
is that like the Mormons have a society. Like Kim Coates as Brigham Young, I think is like very fascinating. And there's this one scene where in one moment he orders, you know, like the assassination of this woman and the massacre of the... Shoshone and then like 30 seconds later he sees a Mormon family with a bunch of young daughters and he's going over and like
kissing them on the forehead and being like, have more. That to me, like, that society exists already, right? And the show is saying, like, that's what America became, which I don't think is from my very cynical pessimistic perspective. i'm like oh yeah that checks out so so i do think there are like some very deliberate things here about like what kind of people ended up surviving in this place but again that's why i think like
Mormon storyline worked the most. It felt most connected to what the show was trying to say about what we ended up doing with this country. For not today. Brothers, not tomorrow. But someday in the future, our territory and this entire American continent will be Zion. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, Roxanna, because as you also noted in your Vulture review... The thing that sets us apart may be the only thing. The thing that sets us apart is the very explicit way it establishes.
That religion played a central role in the notion of manifest destiny, American exceptionalism. And that is what's responsible for all this bloodshed we're seeing. I mean, like that is to tackle that head on and, you know. Not subtly, but absolutely head on seems to me like, okay. And also there's this other thing that dramatically, when you establish a character who is so brutally evil.
This is something the Greeks knew. Seeing them get their comeuppance as violently as it inevitably happens on the show, that is just viscerally satisfying in every sense of the term. One thing that I really did like about this show was that I felt like there was a good deal of cross-pollination between all of these warring factions where there were backstabbers and double-crossers. There were natives who were working with them.
mormons of course the mormons like pretending to be native american themselves but also like forging these alliances so that way they could then like stab people in the back anyhow i also to that point i am very glad that then there wasn't
a romance within that cross-pollination because I was very worried that it was going to be like, this nice Mormon lady falls in love with this noble Native American warrior. I was very concerned about that. Yeah, they were setting that up. Yeah, there's sort of this like... recognition, I think. rather of like what do both of these groups face from like the white mormon threat but i did like that it didn't then plunge into and then they kiss i'm glad there was no kiss let me just put it that way
How many must die to avenge all you have lost? As many as God tells him to. Your God tells you to kill the wights? Whites believe their God tells them to kill you. It seemed to me like there was a lot of that.
Edging up to a cliche and then backing away from it, particularly in the depictions of indigenous people. There's something going on in the show with the depiction of indigenous people because there was an indigenous culture consultant, Julia Keefe, who also worked on Killers of the Flower Moon, which I know only because...
so very long ago that that would not have even been considered. But the character of Red Feather, the character played by Derek Hinckley, he's a Shoshone warrior who is always couched. as the renegade, right? He wants war, unlike Winter Bird, who's played by Irene Bedard. So she's not getting slotted into the warrior slot, but she is getting slotted into the wise, sympathetic elder role.
which is stereotypical in a different way. And I feel like the show is aching to include Native Americans, but it keeps pushing them to the sidelines, their plot points. I mean, if you want to go looking for the most egregious example... They bring an indigenous character into the main group of protagonists. This is Two Moons, played by Shawnee Pooier, but they make it so she can't speak. They literally do not give her a voice. I felt the good intentions.
But I also felt a little ham-fisted fumbling along the way. Yeah, it was particularly egregious. Yeah, just to like literally give her no voice. And then like she would kind of like recede into the background in scenes. And they use that to good effect at one point where like the main trio of Betty Gilpin, her son and Taylor Kitsch get kidnapped.
And I'm like, oh, my God, how are they going to get out of this one? And then, of course, the character that I completely forgot about. And I can't tell if that was intentional or not. The whole time I was supposed to be sitting there being like, oh, but I forgot about two moons. They forgot about two moons. Like the audience is going to forget about them because she literally doesn't have any.
character or anything and it i was kind of expecting oh yeah like you talked about like leaning into a cliche and then backing away from it like you might have expected her to be like the indigenous like guide to the region where like she knows like the lay of the land and knows like all of the ancient practices to get, you know, them safely to their place. Like one time she like has like input into like a healing thing that like does end up working out.
It's like she's never actually like depicted as like particularly knowledgeable about the region. And I'm just like always bewildered watching this. Like, why do they have her there? You know, I feel bad saying that, but like, why do they have her there? Like she's not contributing very much. And Taylor Kitsch is not the kind of character to have like dead.
wait I just couldn't find like any redeeming quality in her she was just like there and uh sometimes contributing to the plot but very very sparsely the show does leave you with that those recurring moments of ambiguity where you sort of have to decide. You're like, is it good that she's here? Because at least she's part of the group. And then she gets to help fight off the wolves who bash their way into the cabin.
most glymactic scenes like is it good that we didn't make her this like all-knowing sort of communicative force or should they have done more and i do i don't know i guess i sort of respect that the show has some of those pressure and tension points that like make you as an audience member decide maybe i'm doing too much forgiving of the show's tactics but i like that there are those messy parts that we sort of have to like you know give
quality to on our own terms yeah and this is like my soapbox for the episode is that like There is this like, yeah, kind of messy sensation throughout the thing of like, well, the indigenous people are being portrayed as like violent savages who are like conniving and backstabbing and slit throats and torture people.
And, you know, yeah, like have violent raids. But that's everyone. That's everyone on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was messy to kind of think about like, well, are they doing an injustice by portraying Native Americans the same way that, you know, a lot of Westerns do? Or.
Is it just like they're just treating them exactly the same as literally every other character on the show? Like, I almost was, like, curious to, like, know, like, what a Mormon person would think about, like, the depiction of Mormons as, like, violent polygamists. Yeah, who are, like...
trying to convert everyone. It was really, I don't know. While watching this, I was like needling through like, yeah, like the representation is fairly accurate in terms of like costume and, you know, the different tribes and how, you know, the different cultures. But then is that... responsible or not in this show that already has literally no redeemable characters. Right.
One thing that happens to a lot of those irredeemable characters is that they die off such that I feel like this limited series is limited. I think they cleared the call sheet. I don't think there's too many people. left, it would be a different series. But in 2025, it feels good to have a six-episode limited series that tells a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. Right?
I'm going to respect that structure. I mean, we could look. Shea Wiggum does just like walk off into the wilderness. Shea Wiggum spinoff. Yeah. I mean, I would see a Shea Wiggum spinoff. All of us would be like, let's watch Shea Wiggum's character build a new fort. I would watch that. Yep. Like Age of Empires. Just watch him. Yes.
Build a fort, build a fort, build a fort. Bridger's Place, that'd be, yeah. The sitcom TV show. Cheers, but hits a fort. I mean, there are Netflix people listening, so let's hope. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to recommend here.
There's a lot that we're scratching our head about, but we want to know what you think about American Primeval. Find us at Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Roxana Haddadi, Sam Yellow Horse Kessler, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much.
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour. visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Lennon Sherburn and edited by Mike Katzoff. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy and Hello Come In provides our theme music.
Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all tomorrow.