American Primeval’s second episode wastes no time, picking up mere moments after the end of the premiere, which left a dazed Jacob looking for his wife in the middle of a field filled with dead bodies. The episode also immediately introduces a major character, Red Feather (Derek Hinkey), the leader of Wolf Clan, an offshoot group of Shoshone who arrives on the scene and takes pity on Jacob. Sort of. Though he doesn’t kill him, Red Feather doesn’t have much interest in helping him, either. He leaves Jacob alive as a warning to others and drives the point home with a boot to the face. Once again, the title of this series is no accident.
At least Jacob seems to have a better sense of the gravity of his situation than Sara. As the sun rises, she still insists on going west and not returning to Fort Bridger, where Isaac is determined to take them. To make clear the intensity of his determination, he nabs Devin and places him on his horse shortly before driving off the heretofore hidden Two Moons with a threat. Isaac may not be a bad guy, but when he means business, he means business. And if business means leaving Sara and Devin alone while he looks for a better place to cross a rushing river, he’ll do that, too.
Isaac’s absence creates an opportunity for Two Moons to return, which will end up working out well for Sara and Devin. But it also opens the door for Virgil and his band of bounty hunters. This, by contrast, creates problems. When Virgil calls Sara by her real name, she immediately flees with the kids into the caves of a nearby hill. In the standoff that follows, Two Moons proves invaluable in holding off Virgil’s men, who resort to attempting to smoke out their prey. (Their bounty pays dead or alive, though the “alive” rate is considerably higher.) Despite Virgil’s relentlessness, they escape and, later, get to know Two Moons’ name after struggling a bit to understand her sign language.
One of the lingering questions about the real-life Mountain Meadows massacre is how much Brigham Young, who was then serving as both president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and governor of Utah, knew about the incident and whether he endorsed the actions. American Primeval doesn’t supply an answer, but it doesn’t exactly portray Young as innocent, either. Told of what’s happened, Young (Kim Coates) asks only, “Do our hands show a drop of blood on this?” (a reply as rich in ambiguity as Henry II asking, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”) What transpired is of less concern than what narrative might form around it.
At Fort Bridger, another remember of the Nauvoo Legion, “Wild” Bill Hickman (Alex Breaux), quickly realizes he’ll need to play a role in shaping that narrative. As Bill complains to Jim about the presence of government troops at the fort, a group of soldiers led by Captain Dellinger (Lucas Neff) arrives with the injured Jacob, who describes the attack he survived as being perpetrated by “Injuns in hoods.” Obviously, Bill argues, this means it’s time to focus on the threat posed by Natives rather than the LDS. What other explanation could there be? Though Jim doesn’t seem optimistic about Jacob’s vow to form a posse, Bill enthusiastically signs on. (Not since O.J. Simpson’s has a search for the real killers seemed less plausible.)
Jacob’s not the only unlikely survivor of the massacre to find themselves in much-changed circumstances. Arriving on the massacre scene, Red Feather first chastises the Paiutes for working with the Mormons, then underscores his point by killing them as the terrified Mormon women look on. They have good reason to be scared, it turns out. Sensing no use for them, Red Feather’s warriors slit their throats — except for the throat of the one with the steely gaze and defiant words to match: Abish. This does not, however, mark an immediate improvement on Abish’s situation. She goes from being bound in one location to, upon arriving at Red Feather’s camp, being bound at another.)
With Jacob in tow, Bill arrives at Nauvoo Legion headquarters, where he administers a smack and a stern talking to Wolsey for allowing any survivors who might be able to identify the culprits to walk away from the battle. What’s more, maybe Jacob is right about Abish still being alive? (Bill wanted no loose ends, not an indeterminate number of loose ends!) Evidence at the camp the next day suggests Jacob is right. Abish is not among the dead and a Paiute survivor tells them that Wolf Clan left with a woman. The survivor might have said more, too, if Wolsey didn’t kill him first. What’s more, it seems like Jacob, too, might be a problem for Wolsey, a matter not helped by his behavior when they visit a Ute camp where the sight of a piece of Abish’s clothing drives him into a rage.
After Wolsey leaves, a group actually interested in getting to the bottom of the massacre arrives, led by Dellinger, who immediately notices that the attackers used shod horses and thus were almost certainly not Natives. This is less a matter of Dellnger being a great detective than him seeing what others do not want to see. An attack by Natives is easy to explain. An attack by Mormons, especially Mormons responsible for killing other Mormons, well, that’s a little messier.
Isaac reunites with Sara, Devin, and Two Moons and immediately starts looking for things that could get them killed. These include their campfire and Devin’s squeaking leg brace, which Isaac sets about violently removing. (This isn’t as cruel as it sounds. Isaac has recognized that Devin doesn’t really need it. Is this just something Sara’s made him wear as part of their cover story?) Still, even Isaac can’t steer them fully away from danger. In desperate need of horses, he brings them to a group of trappers who might have some horses to sell and insists he perform the transaction alone. Sara reluctantly gives him $100, then watches as he approaches a terrifying family and strikes a deal, only to watch it fall apart when Sara descends to intervene. It turns out the trappers have caught wind of a woman with a bounty on her head traveling with her son.
Long story short: Isaac has to kill everybody. (Turns out he’s very good at this sort of thing.) In the aftermath, Isaac understandably has some issues with his companion. It’s not just that she almost got him killed; it’s that her lies about her past almost got him killed. Though Sara doesn’t share her whole story, she shares enough for him to understand her desperation and to believe her when she says bringing Devin back to Bridger would mean his death. “I was protecting myself,” she says. “It is no different than what you did here.” It’s a line that gets at the heart of the series’ world. The need to survive tends to override more tender feelings. This, and a payment of $1,500, gets Isaac to stay.
It doesn’t, however, spare him the effects of being shot. Fortunately, Sara and the kids find the best help imaginable when they encounter a group of Shoshone who know Isaac. Quite well, as it turns out. Awakening in the Shoshone camp, Isaac seems to be on a first-name basis with Sleeping Deer (Harrison Lowe), whose medicine has brought him back from the brink of death, and other members of the tribe. Two days have passed, and for Sara, they’ve passed pleasantly. The Shoshone have treated them well, no doubt in part because they care about Isaac. “This was your home once? Yeah?” Sara asks. “It was,” Isaac replies and offers no further explanation.
We at least get a hint of one, however, when Winter Bird (Irene Bedard), the Shoshone leader, calls Isaac “my son.” There’s a hint of his past, too, when Winter Bird refers to his “new wife and son.” She’s mistaken about Sara and Devin’s identity, but the phrasing suggests a family in Isaac’s past. When Winter Bird suggests Devin reminds her of Isaac as a boy, shortly before they talk about Isaac’s pain and embrace it, it plays like the outlines of a story likely to be filled in later.
But that will have to wait. When Dellinger shows up to ask questions of the Shoshone, Isaac wastes no time confirming his suspicions. The killers were white, likely Mormon, and Isaac knows this because he witnessed it himself. The exchange offers some clarity about Red Feather, too. He’s Winter Bird’s son, but their relationship has grown distant over their different approaches to the current situation. (Kids and parents torn apart by conflicting political views. It’s an old story.) But while Winter Bird may be less confrontational and less eager to fight, she’s no less defiant. When Dellinger suggests they move to the lands provided for them, she digs in.
As for Isaac, he ends the episode as he began it: accompanying Sara, Devin, and Two Moons on what he fears will be a doomed journey. “I have no choice,” Sara tells him. Isaac does and chooses to accompany her anyway.
Bullets and Arrowheads
• The episode contains a few notable moments involving the exchange of items. A grateful Sara returns Two Moons’ knife to her (which was stolen but is more Two Moons’ than Sara’s). Later, Sara gives Isaac back the money she paid him and then retrieves after his injury. “I took it immediately when I thought you were dead on the trail,” she says with a smile. This may be what passes for flirtation in American Primeval.
• Dellinger is emerging as one of the show’s more complex characters. He does not seem to be on board with what the government is doing to the Shoshone but wearily goes about trying to enforce it in a way that keeps everyone safe (or at least prevents immediate violence, whatever long-term suffering it might cause).
• Hinkey immediately establishes himself as a magnetic presence with Red Feather’s first appearance. He’s a relative newcomer, though you might have seen him in Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1.