Savagery abides in American Primeval’s blood-soaked history lesson

American Primeval ★★★½
Netflix

This gory revisionist western has a distinct geographic philosophy: where the frontier stops, the killing starts. Set in then Utah Territory in 1857, American Primeval is a blood-soaked history lesson, centred on a simmering conflict between the US government, Mormon militias, Native American tribes, and sundry bandits and killers. It’s six episodes of all you can freak at the Cormac McCarthy buffet – the first consumptive cough is heard within five minutes, the first senseless murder within eight. The body count is a hefty three figures.

Dane DeHaan, Joe Tippett, Dominic Bogart and the Mormon Militia. Credit: Matt Kennedy/NETFLIX

Based on textbook events (there was a Utah War in 1857), this limited series narrows the narratives down to a handful of survival tales. First and foremost is the prim and proper Sarah Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her son, Devin (Preston Motta), who are forced to radically adapt as they travel westwards. The landscape is vast and the horrors intimate as they survive a memorably staged massacre and dodge bounty hunters trailing them. The taciturn guide who takes pity on them, Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch), must kill to keep them alive.

American Primeval was written by Mark L. Smith, who previously introduced Leonardo DiCaprio’s hirsute frontiersman to the marauding bear in The Revenant. The 2015 Academy Award-winning film is a notable influence here, as is The Last of the Mohicans – an orphaned Isaac was raised by the Shoshone tribe, leaving him balanced between two warring worlds. Add Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 to the mix, plus Hugo Blick’s The English. “That savage murdered your people,” another massacre survivor is told, but that’s the default setting. Savagery abides.

Director Peter Berg, the Hollywood filmmaker who previously delivered the eclectic Netflix opioid drama Painkiller, soaks up the carnage. Lens flare and Ansel Adams landscapes segue into menacing close-ups. Mormon leader Brigham Young (Kim Coates) stands over the camera as he preaches holy secession from the United States. As his followers try to cover up their crimes, other stories take shape. The nihilistic calm of Mormon wife Abish Pratt (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) keeps her alive until she finds freedom amid the Shoshone.

Preston Mota and Betty Gilpin in American Primeval.Credit: Justin Lubin/Netflix

It’s those unexpected strands, including the nuance and debate given to Shoshone beliefs, that balance out the atrocities that punctuate American Primeval. The show is intent on being overwhelming – it can be as crude a weapon as the shovel wielded by settlement founder Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham). But its depiction of how fundamentalism and capitalism fuel each other can’t help but resonate. This is how America was built, Smith and Berg are telling us, and this is also how America could fall apart.

The gang from MDR visit the Optics and Design department, and find it’s much larger than they’d been led to believe.Credit: Apple TV+

Severance (season 2) ★★★★★
Apple TV+

Relax: it’s still special. Three years after its first season delivered an electrifying vision of existential cubicle culture, the second season of Severance delivers a new instalment that balances the show’s many yet somehow cohesive conceits. Anyone who approaches Dan Erickson’s creation solely like a puzzle box that requires solving won’t get everything they want, but as a sustained work of episodic art it’s fully formed and capable of recasting every genre it touches.

Having breached the borders chipped into their brains at the end of season one, the workers who exist only when they clock on for a basement shift at the rather cult-like Lumon Industries are trying to make sense of their brief rebellion. The “Innies”, led by Mark (Adam Scott), remain sequestered under LED lights and management’s oblique strategies, as if David Foster Wallace rewrote The Office. Their “Outies”, off work but alerted to the tortuous transaction, have their own adjustments to make.

This HR-controlled Jekyll and Hyde existence continues to offer all kinds of intrigue and inducement. Severance is the driest of absurd comedies, suggestive science-fiction, and a bittersweet meditation on discovery and experience. Erickson and returning lead director Ben Stiller adeptly add new pieces, even if there are numerous existing ones, and the season two casting offers welcome new additions such as Merritt Wever. There are 10 weekly episodes. Savour them.

Alexandra Daddario as Dr Rowan Fielding and Harry Hamlin as Cortland Mayfair in Mayfair Witches.Credit: Alfonso Bresciani/AMC

Mayfair Witches (season 2)
AMC+

AMC+ has gone all-in on Anne Rice’s best-selling horror novels, creating what it calls the Immortal Universe. Somehow that realm now encompasses a masterful ongoing adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, and the supernatural mess that is Mayfair Witches. Headlined by Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus), who plays a neurosurgeon who learns that she belongs to a family of witches that comes with a malevolent entity, the show’s first season lacked for storytelling gravity. The new season doubles down – crazy twists occur at an ever-growing clip, seemingly outside the narrative’s internal logic.

Jharrel Jerome as Anthony Robles and Jennifer Lopez as his mother in Unstoppable.Credit:

Unstoppable
Amazon Prime

This is, for better and worse, an old-fashioned biographical sports drama. Based on the life of champion American college wrestler Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome, I’m a Virgo), it’s a straight down the line tale of overcoming adversity. Robles was born without a right leg, which made coaches and opponents alike doubt him, and was raised by a single mother (Jennifer Lopez, in a solid performance) and later an abusive stepfather (Bobby Cannavale). Nonetheless, he persevered and overcame each obstacle. The movie is keyed in to struggle and triumph, and on those narrow terms it’s a success.

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
DocPlay

With lifelong admirer Martin Scorsese as both an on-camera guide and producer, David Hinton’s documentary about the British filmmaking duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is a richly personal journey through cinematic history. Scorsese mixes in clips from his own work alongside the duo’s distinctive classics, such as 1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and 1948’s The Red Shoes, to delineate their influence. The documentary works as both a detailed primer on the duo’s partnership and a celebration of Scorsese’s love for the cinema.

Billy Bob Thornton in Landman.Credit: Paramount+

Landman
Paramount+

Taylor Sheridan’s television empire has enjoyed a busy if chaotic six months. Both the concluding Yellowstone and Lioness had seasons that went off the rails, with the bonus of Sheridan, a former actor, casting himself as a badass truth-teller in both shows. Landman, which concluded its first season this week, had its own issues, though it’s amazing what Billy Bob Thornton, as oil industry fixer Tommy Norris, can do with a Sheridan monologue. As fan service for cranky conservatives, the show is rigged for satisfaction, but the barely suppressed misogyny is something else.

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