American Primeval Series-Finale Recap: Closing Time

The perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre have spent much of American Primeval talking about tying up loose ends. Now it’s the series’ turn. American Primeval’s penultimate (and shortest) episode spent much of its time putting pieces in place for this finale. Will Isaac be able to rescue Sara? Will the Nauvoo Legion successfully cover up its crimes? Can wolves break through the flimsy walls of a hunting cabin? The answers await in the season finale.

The matter of Sara and Virgil comes first, and things don’t look good for Sara as the episode opens. Tied to the back of a horse, she wakes up and begins attempting to bargain with her captor. But Virgil doesn’t put a lot of stock in her promise that her husband (well, “husband”) in Crooks Springs will pay him handsomely if he brings her there instead of collecting the bounty. No deal. Her best hope is that Isaac can catch up with them. He can, thanks in part to his ability to get the drop on Tilly, one of Virgil’s men. But catching up and rescuing are two different things.

That’s one showdown toward which the series has seemingly been headed since the start. The conflict between Brigham Young and Jim Bridger has also been heating up to a boiling point that’s sure to end in violence. And then, suddenly, it doesn’t. It turns out that, whatever fondness he might have for Fort Bridger, Bridger can be bought for the right price. Young finds that price in the form of a big (as in really big) bag of cash. He also shares his plans for the place with its founder: he plans to burn it to the ground.

There’s a logic to this. Fort Bridger is more useful to the Mormons as a ruin than a standing structure. Of course, that might not matter if the truth behind the Mountain Meadows Massacre affair were to come to light. Where American Primeval has at least allowed a sliver of ambiguity when portraying whether or not Young was complicit in the massacre’s cover-up until now, there’s none of that here. Told by Wild Bill Hickman that the best course of action would be to make sure Abish, a living witness to the massacre, is killed in an attack on the Shoshones, he tells him to get it done and shut up about it.

In the process of attempting to get it done, Wild Bill picks up Jacob, who has turned into a full Aguirre the Wrath of God-level madman in the time since the two last saw each other. He rambles on about Brother Cook stealing a watch, but it makes little sense to Wild Bill, who, not seeing this as a confession of murder, brings him back to the Mormon camp. Despite Wolsey’s reluctance, Wild Bill recruits him for the fight against the Shoshone, assuming that he’ll die before finding Abish, even though they plan to take the Shoshone by surprise. In the end, none of this will work out, but it at least sounds like a solid plan.

Virgil’s confidence in his own plan seems better placed. Sitting by the fire, he can practically count the bounty money when a familiar-looking horse charges the camp with Tilly’s corpse in the saddle. It’s a distraction from the real threat: Isaac, who frees Sara, then slaughters everyone in the camp. Well, almost everyone: the kindhearted Lucas, who’s revealed to be Virgil’s brother, witnesses it all and appears transformed by what he’s seen. (Did we know they were brothers? I’ll confess to not catching any previous reference if we did.)

Things fall apart quickly as the hooded Nauvoo Legion rides into the Shoshone village only to find it empty. It’s a trap, and the ensuing melee quickly claims Wolsey as a victim. (What’s the opposite of R.I.P.?) But not before Wolsey delivers a seemingly fatal blow to Red Feather. (Red Feather doesn’t appear to be conscious after he embraces his son, so there’s a bit of ambiguity.) In short order Jacob, too, delivers a fatal blow, soon to realize he’s shot Abish, who now wears Shoshone garb and paint. He kisses her as she dies, then takes his own life, and the scene ends with a montage of bodies, including Winter Bird’s. In the end, neither the peaceful approach she favored nor the violence called for her by her son could prevent this slaughter. Hickman and Young, however, got what they wanted. With the misdeeds covered up, they can (briefly) claim Fort Bridger as their own.

But first, it’s party time! Bridger has decided to end Fort Bridger’s existence with a blowout, albeit one cut a bit short by the arrival of the torch-bearing mob. He takes a moment to mark the occasion by saying, “It’s closing time. For us all.” Which it is. Whatever bit of civilization he’s carved out in this place where Natives, settlers, and even the occasional Mormon can find common ground is about to go up in flames. But, hey, free booze! The somber moment doesn’t last long. Bridger takes a moment to retrieve his foot-injuring shovel, lay one last insult on Wild Bill, and then vanish into history as the Mormons’ sphere of influence expands.

Though Two Moons and Devin would seem to be relatively safe back at the cabin, the wolves come out at nightfall. They fend them off in a short, violent scene, and when Sara and Isaac return the next day, the party sets out on the last leg before Crooks Springs. It begins peacefully enough. Isaac shares his sad history in full, including the names of his wife and child. As he looks at Devin and Two Moons playing, he can’t stop himself from calling it “beautiful.”

Then Sara makes one last attempt to persuade him to stay with her. Is he really too broken by the past not to try starting over? She has feelings for him. Does he not have feelings for her? He does. But he can’t go with them. They kiss, then go their separate ways. Then, each makes a discovery: Sara finds that Isaac has left behind the money she had paid him. While Isaac’s is a bit more chilling: the doll from the French-Canadian camp. This, until recently, has been in the possession of Lucas, who, tenderhearted no more, attempts to claim the bounty on Sara’s head. They’re rescued, but Isaac is fatally wounded in the attack. After a sad, respectful funeral, the survivors set off for a point well beyond Crooks Springs: California.

Bullets and Arrowheads

• Endings are hard, and though American Primeval doesn’t end terribly, it doesn’t end entirely satisfactorily, either. After six episodes, the ending of the Abish/Red Feather/Winter Bird subplot and the Fort Bridger storyline feel abrupt. On the one hand, that’s simply the matter of each story reaching different sorts of abrupt endings — violence and fire — but the time we’ve spent with them feels like it ends too quickly.

• Ditto, the relationship between Sara and Isaac has been building slowly but ends quickly. In a previous recap, I suggested American Primeval wouldn’t end entirely unhappily, and it doesn’t. There’s more than a little hopefulness to Sara and the kids heading into the sunset. There was almost certainly no way it ended with four people in that party, but Isaac’s demise nonetheless feels a little rushed.

• Overall, however, American Primeval felt worthwhile if you had the stomach to get through the almost unrelenting grimness. However dark, its depiction of Utah Territory as a place where ideas and beliefs clashed violently felt true to history. Virgil’s belief that “Our current circumstances are a reflection of our past decisions” is one such idea, a kind of pitiless vision of American life in which everyone gets what they deserve due to their choices. The LDS church is another. And though Young and (especially) the perpetrators of the massacre are clearly the villains of the piece, their past history at least partly explains their choices. This is a place in which everyone is doing what they feel they have to do to survive. In the end, the title proves apt.