[This story contains mild spoilers from Netflix’s American Primeval.]

In a television landscape where Taylor Sheridan has largely cornered the market on stories about western expansion with Yellowstone and its spinoffs 1883 and 1923, American Primeval has stood out for its exploration of the Utah Territory and the role settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Lds) played in halting migration to the area. The efforts of which culminated in the gruesome 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, depicted in the Netflix miniseries, that left some 120 travelers dead.

The six-episode Western drama written and created by Mark L. Smith and directed by Peter Berg, follows the journey of Sara (Betty Gilpin), a woman on the run, who seeks out a guide at Fort Bridger in Wyoming to assist her in transporting her young son Devin (Preston Mota) to his father in Missouri. It’s at the fort founded by Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham) that she encounters Isaac Reed...