'American Primeval' is a bloody western meditating on survival in a brutal world

“American Primeval,” a new limited series premiering Thursday on Netflix, lays its (title) cards right on the table:“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.” If it upsets you to see “primeval” used as a noun, there are more upsetting things ahead, believe me.Written by Mark L.Smith (“The Revenant”) and directed by Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”), the series plays out against the background of the so-called Utah War, which set Brigham Young and his Mormon flock against troops of the U.S.

government and specifically the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which a wagon train of some 120 emigrants passing through southern Utah was attacked and killed by a Mormon militia aided by Paiute warriors.(Accounting for most of the war’s casualties.)Many characters are drawn from life, but the story focuses on the independent travails of two fictional women.Betty Gilpin plays Sara Rowell, whom we meet with her son, Devin, at the place where the railroad runs out, “somewhere in Missouri.” (It’s St.

Joseph, according to the sign on the station.) “Sure doesn’t look like Philadelphia,” says Devin.“Well, that’s a good thing,” says Sara.Dressed in black, with a Jo March bonnet and a formal, somewhat uptight way about her, Sara is upset that the guide she’s hired to get her across to the far side of Wyoming is late, but it only takes a simple cut to bring them all to the gate of Ft.

Bridger, a busy mud-mired stockade, named for the man who built and runs it, real-life person Jim Bridger (a very entertaining Shea Whigham).Nevertheless, she’s missed the connection slated to take her farther west, over the mountains to a place called Crooks Springs, where her husband is supposedly living, but possibly not waiting.

Sara’s desi...