American Primeval is steeped in blood and misery (and devoid of subtlety)

“Kill them all.” So instructs a hardened officer in the first episode of American Primeval, a very bloody and pretty expensive-looking Western miniseries written by The Revenant co-scribe Mark L. Smith and directed by Friday Night Lights’ Peter Berg. Indeed, just about all of them, save the few who will propel this story for another five episodes, are rubbed out in the ambush—it left “over 70 dead,” we’re told later on—as arrows impale foreheads, screaming men are scalped, innocents get butchered by hatchets, fleers are shot up, and one particularly angry bull plows through and demolishes a wagon for some reason. That much of the melee is constructed to look as if it unfolds over one continuous take, bobbing in and out of chaotic combat, is impressive, as is a lot of how this show looks: There are shots of tranquil mist hovering over mountain ranges, riders on horseback barreling through dusty planes, muddy forts teeming with—to quote Tony Soprano—strong, silent types (the kind who can casually sip whiskey while getting a bullet removed and don’t think twice about seeing a fresh corpse strung up and swaying in the snowy wind), a family of fucked-up French grifters with equally fucked-up faces, and a whole lot of other arresting images. But the rest of it? Not so much.

American Primeval is not only the sort of show in which a character would utter “Kill them all,” as if that wasn’t in the well-choreographed attack plan and needed to be said, it’s also one that would open with the following leadup to its title card—“Utah Territory. 1857. Wild and untamed. The United States Army, Mormon Militia, Native Americans, and Pioneers 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.”—when a simple location and year would do. We will see, soon enough, just how wild and untamed this area is—and hear plenty of people talk about as much—as well as how bloody and brutal these battles, scrapes, and encounters are. And, it’s worth underlining, they are gory: Young Mormon wives’ throats are swiftly cut in a row, fingers are blown off, shin bones break the skin, women are raped, and whenever there is even a beat of something slightly resembling peace, a surprise attack will undoubtedly suck you back into another level of hell that’s soundtracked by Explosions In The Sky (who memorably and brilliantly scored FNL).

Speaking of FNL, Taylor Kitsch is arguably the main character here (or at least he’s being billed as such), with his Isaac being the strongest and most silent type on-screen, a wounded man (literally, with scars on his face and everything) who grunts and squints cynically as he takes a mother, Sarah (GLOW’s Betty Gilpin), and her leg-braced son, Devin (​​Preston Mota)—who helps hide the abused runaway Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier)—on a treacherous trek to reunite with Sarah’s husband. (Maybe it’s Kitsch’s vocal baritone, but him saying “shut up” or dropping a sarcastic “nice coat” offers legitimate laughs—something this show sorely lacks.) Meanwhile, a devout Mormon (Dane DeHaan) and his bride (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) are on the path to a new life together, only to be separated, with the latter eventually feeling more at home with the Native American tribe who captured her than those of her faith. U.S. Captain Dellinger (Lucas Neff) has a similar realization about the people his country is slaughtering and is immediately suspicious of Governor and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young (Kim Coates, almost unrecognizable thanks to his tenor), who’s set on taking over the whole territory he oversees, including the fort founded by a grizzled Jim Bridger (the always fantastic Shea Whigham, who, if this show had any traces of Deadwood, would be its Al Swearengen).  

There’s more, too, including a bounty hunter, Virgil Cutter (Jai Courtney), chasing a purported murderer and members of the Mormon Militia (the standout, acting-wise, is a second-in-command played by Mare Of Easttown‘s Joe Tippett) hatching various schemes and backstabbings for the supposed greater good. But to be honest, the violence in American Primeval is so constant that it becomes numbing and almost predictable, making any of these storylines—and the fates of many of these characters, as we honestly don’t get to know many of them outside the direst of circumstances—feel like an afterthought to the main event, triple underlining the brutality of a bloody chapter in American history.

It’s a frustrating watch, especially when the show feels the need to vocalize its point as if the tragedy on-screen wasn’t enough. About halfway through the miniseries, Dellinger starts journaling, with his narration set against more scenes of bloodshed. “So very few in these lands possess compassion,” he writes. “Basic tenderness has hardened and is now, I fear forever, greatly diminished. I am overcome at this time by deep pain from a tremendous and always-present lack of love. So few left in these lands know of grace. There’s only brutality here.”  

There’s mostly only brutality on this show, too, for as much as it throws in a last-minute romance and final-act glimpse of humanity. And when that brutality is this heavyhanded (illustrated by scoring scenes of death and destruction to, say, an elegiac cover of “This Land Is Your Land,” complete with a shot of a frayed American flag), you can’t help but wish as much thought and energy was put into fleshing out these people as the pain they endured.

American Primeval premieres January 9 on Netflix