American Primeval Ending Explained: Pete Berg Interview

It is true. The series – helmed by Berg, writer and executive producer Mark L. Smith and executive producer Eric Newman – is a brutal tale of survival, no matter the cost. And for most of the characters, the price is their lives, or at least their lifestyle as they once knew it. Berg and his team actually went into production not knowing for sure who would live or die at the end of the show. “We had multiple options — from no one died, to them all dying, to Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier) being the only survivor,” Berg says.

Instead, like the 19th century frontiersmen who ventured across the land, the creators observed how the characters coexisted in an unforgiving world before deciding their fates. “Walking 20 feet into the woods to go to the bathroom could be a deadly experience,” says Berg. “Falling off a horse, an infected toe, a snake bite — anything could kill you. There was certainly no 911 and no paramedics to come and save you.”

Well, who lives then? Who dies? Who will gain control of the lawless lands of 1857, Utah and Wyoming? Read on to find out:

So we know that Bridger is a real person and didn’t die at the end of American Primeval. Why does he sell his fort to Brigham Young? And where does he go on his horse?

Newman would describe Bridger as world-weary. “And who wouldn’t be?” he says. “And not just because of the physical wear and tear.” As portrayed by Whigham, Jim Bridger is a man who has lived a well-trodden life and has seen plenty of people like Sara and her son Devin (Preston Mota) come and go through his trading post. “Shea Whigham just did an amazing job and it was a role that grew and grew and became a really critical part of Primeval saltsays Berg.

Exploring this real-life figure in the series actually goes back to Mark L. Smith’s 2015 script The Revenant (also a survival tale on the American frontier), which shows Bridger as a young boy. Smith thoroughly researched Bridger’s past and was eager to tell more of his story. “So I put (American Primeval) at Fort Bridger with Jim Bridger 50 years later The Revenant events,” Smith said.

Newman sees Bridger as a good example of a major theme in the history of the American frontier, which is that “the guys who settled it weren’t necessarily the guys who wanted to continue it,” he says. “This is a guy who sees that it’s over (and realizes) that this thing we built is going the wrong way, and I’m getting out while I can.”

The way this chapter of his life ends in the series is true to reality – Bridger really did sell his fort, which he built from scratch, to Brigham Young. “Fort Bridger was perceived as this incredible asset by the U.S. military and the Mormon Church in terms of their ability to defend each other,” Berg explains. “Bridger knew that and he hung on as long as he could. He took the best deal he could and drove off to maybe one last chapter of his life.”

So why does Brigham Young burn Fort Bridger to the ground after he buys it up American Primeval?

Since Fort Bridger would have been the logical staging ground for a battle between the U.S. Army and the Mormons, Young decided that the destruction of the trading post would eliminate that possibility entirely. “Without (Fort) Bridger, (the Army) would have trouble attacking them, so he bought it and immediately burned it to the ground,” Berg says.

And in case you were wondering, production did indeed burn down half of the massive Fort Bridger set, which was largely built by hand with axes and shovels. “That’s one of the big things I love about that set is that there were very, very few power tools used in (its) construction,” Berg said. “I’d say from designing it to building it, (there) should have been at least eight months.”

But there is still another battle on the horizon between the Mormons and the Shoshone. What happens in the finale?

So for a quick refresher, Young’s Nauvoo Legion of Mormon militia is on a season-long hunt to find Abish (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), a fellow Mormon who witnessed their mass murder of settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Her husband, Jacob Pratt (Dane DeHaan), whom she recently married after his original fiancé, her sister(!), died, is also looking for her. But he’s driven mad after he’s nearly scalped in the massacre.

Meanwhile, Shoshone warrior Red Feather (Derek Hinkey) and other members of the tribe have Abish captive. “We wanted to explore the idea of ​​this young Mormon woman who is forced into a life and a marriage she didn’t ask for and who, through fate, ends up in a very different world and never quite assimilates,” says Berg.

Lightfoot-Leon immediately connected with Abish’s “fervent discontent and unapologetic quest for freedom,” which helps create a mutual respect with her captors. “She always struck me as a woman who belonged in a more forward-thinking century,” Lightfoot-Leon said. “She is one of the few women we follow who makes choices based on her gut rather than her brain. She fights for what she believes in.”

And that includes fighting on the side of the Shoshone tribe when Young allows his Nauvoo Legion to beat them out in their pursuit of Abish. Both Abish and Red Feather die in the arms of people who love them: Red Feather in her son’s embrace and Abish in Jacob’s. Yes, you read that right. Jacob is marching with the Nauvoo Legion and unknowingly shoots his bride, a realization that causes him to then shoot himself. “(Abish) and her husband Jacob meeting, as they eventually do, felt like a fitting, beautiful, tragic reunion,” Berg says. “And that’s what we were looking for.”

Enter Isaac American Primeval? And why?

Unfortunately he does. “Isak is an irreparably broken man from the beginning,” says Berg. “It is rare that you meet people whose problems and situations in life are so tragic that you actually think that a noble death might be the best possible outcome. Isaac is in that strike zone.”

Over the course of the six episodes, Isaac forms a found family bond with Sara, Devin and runaway Two Moons and tries to learn to love again, something he desperately needs after the deaths of his own son and wife. “Isaac is a man of sorrows,” Kitsch said. “Sara shows Isaac that there is still light in the darkness. She represents hope to him as much as he fights it.” So when he comes back to save her from the last trapper trying to claim the bounty on her head, Sara is overjoyed to see her love returned back But only too late do they realize that he has been fatally shot and he is ready to finally die the “right” way through a noble death.

Berg and Kitsch formed a brotherhood over the years, reaching all the way back to Texas football fields Friday night light. So Deciding to kill off Kitsch’s character was a difficult decision, especially when you take the acting element off the table and recognize that it’s your friend lying there. “It’s sad,” says Berg. “It’s an underreported aspect of filmmaking. I had no problem with Isaac dying, but watching Taylor die and realizing that he’s my friend and my friend is going to die one day, it’s just something you never… It has gotten me a few times in my career, to direct.”

Most of the actors did not know their character’s fate until well into the production. But halfway through filming, it was decided that Kitsch’s character would die, and it was Berg’s job to tell his longtime friend. “He took it well, but I think probably by the time we finished that day he believed we could change his mind – and possibly still believes it’s not too late to go back and do a quick reshoot ,” jokes Berg.

Sara reunites with Devin’s father in Crook Springs at the end of American Primeval?

As the story begins with Sara and her son fleeing Philadelphia after she murdered an abusive husband, Newman sees Sara’s journey as a crucible in which “she finds out what she’s literally made of.” “(Sara) at the end of this story would not have needed the protection of the man she had to kill at the beginning of the story,” he adds. “That, to me, is the heart of this show.”

By the end of the series, Sara really is a survivor—and a good one at that. “Her survival skills are being tested in ways that a big city wouldn’t test,” says Berg. In 1857, big cities like New York and Philadelphia were relatively modern. “In New York you could buy a Coke,” jokes Berg. Gilpin, whose father, Jack Gilpin, plays a butler on the HBO series The Gilded Ageis aware that the world of East Coast opulence runs parallel to the American frontier of the time. Regardless, Sara was definitely not raised in a feminist culture. “If we’re going to tell the story of misogyny, we have to be honest about what it was really like,” Gilpin said. “She was someone who perhaps believed the lie that her highest purpose was to sit in a living room and wait for the right man because that was the opportunity she was given.”

In her old life, she was a woman who had to use her beauty and intellect to find security with Devin’s father, who provided her with a son and a lifestyle that promised well for a while. But in the backstory they created for the character, Berg says “he was basically an asshole.” Then, when she took Devin back east, the new man in Philadelphia helped ease her suffering as a single mother. But once he proved dangerous, especially to Devin, that’s when she killed him. “And that’s where Isaac comes in,” says Berg. “She’s not able to manipulate, coerce or have her way with Isaac like she might have with others in the past. That’s the kind of thing Betty and I talked about.”

Isaac helps Sara access the most original side of herself that she had had to stifle in these high society environments. “It’s almost like he’s a physical embodiment of something that Sara has felt inside her whole life,” Gilpin said. “She’s just never been allowed to embody that. I thought about mapping out the inner Isaac that was coming out.”

So even though Sara loses Isaac, he helps give her the strength to realize that she can stand on her own two feet and go to California. (Whether she finds Devin’s father, however, remains unanswered.) “Sara always knew she was strong, but now she’s got an extra ability for her strength,” says Berg. “I can survive. I will be responsible for my son and for this young girl. And we have to figure this shit out.’ “

Stream all six episodes American Primeval now only on Netflix.

Additional reporting by Keely Flaherty.

The production of American Primeval