American Primeval - Limited Series Review

and still enjoy that party of him that will bring you to the top of the top.

Welcome everyone to the concession stand here on the KB Radio Network.

I am your host Kevin Reed and this is the review of the Netflix limited series

American Primeval which is a western TV miniseries created by Mark L.

Smith and all episodes are six episodes are directed by Peter Bird.

This show stars Taylor Kitsch,

Betty Gilpin,

Kim Colts,

Jai Courtney,

Shea

Willingham.

And this show examines the fight to gain control of the American West and sometimes violent clash between religion and culture.

This.

was a show that I was highly anticipating being as though

I was raised on westerns my dad was a big western guy

I mean that's all we watched at least not we but that's all he watched in the house hence we had to watch it from time to time you know gun smoke and uh have gun will travel all that good stuff and guess

it caught on you

Because

I actually was anticipating this Western,

even to the point now where

I would watch

Yellowstone. And I just got on to Yellowstone.

My wife started watching it,

I would say,

over the Christmas holidays.

You know,

because there was nothing else on,

and she picked that to watch.

I caught a few episodes,

and I was like,

okay,

this is interesting.

It's more of a modern Western,

of course.

It drew my interest.

I was hooked in it.

It was such a good show.

I just love westerns.

And so this show had my attention.

And then you had Peter Bird,

who I didn't even know was a part of this show until I started watching it.

Peter Bird,

who directed

Hancock, who directed

Friday Night Lights,

Battleship,

for better or worse,

Lone Survivor,

Deepwater Horizon.

I actually enjoy his films.

He was an actor before he turned to directing,

and

I actually liked him as an actor as well,

but I enjoy his work as a director.

So my interest was especially piqued when I found out he directed all of these episodes,

and not just one or two,

the pilot or whatever.

No,

he directed all six episodes,

which dropped on Netflix on

January the 9th.

i watched this in one sitting that's how good this show was one sitting one day six hours straight it was it was that good of a show um what intrigued me about this western is

it showed the brutal nature of i guess you can see how this country came to be and how uh violent everything was it wasn't

So bubblegum,

happy-go-lucky,

as is depicted in,

I guess you could say,

some history books or even movies that show these times.

Yes,

you see cowboys and Indians and blah,

blah,

and old John Wayne movies and all this other good stuff.

But it wasn't so black and white.

You know,

it wasn't so the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats type thing.

You know,

you knew who the bad guys were in this show.

It shows that it's deeper than that is more political.

In some instances,

it's religious,

you know,

religion that drives people into this battle for power.

And it is so frightening.

This was a frightening show.

Now,

is it 100 percent accurate?

I can't tell you that.

I don't know.

I wasn't there.

I wasn't alive during these times,

but it fits the bill.

I can say that much.

It passes the smell test of how brutal the West was.

You know,

it wasn't,

okay,

there's some land here.

I'll just take some of this land that's just free and clear and build something here.

No,

it was much more than that.

And the inclusion of.

the indigenous people of this country,

how they were pushed out and their anger and,

you know,

how they feel towards the white man and all this other good stuff.

It's all depicted in this show.

The actors in this show,

nothing,

or should I say no one who you would say are big stars,

you know,

but they are actors and actresses that you know,

that you've seen in big projects in the past.

Taylor Kitsch,

who at one point Hollywood was trying to make Taylor Kitsch a thing,

you know,

for just a.

portion of time like in the early

2000s i would say you know with john carter and battleship and x-men origins wolverine where he played gambit in that you know he was just popping up in so much stuff and hollywood was just trying to shove him down our throat it wasn't and he fell from grace and it wasn't him he

wasn't the problem i think it was just the uh the forceful nature of his

meteoric rise to faint um a lot of people are put off by that you know you can't make a star a star makes itself you know it it shines the light on within itself you don't have to shine all the light on him and that i think that ruined

him in a sense even though taylor kitch he was constantly working he always i always saw him pop up and stuff but never to the level where he was

early on in the

2000s where he was given these big blockbuster vehicles to spearhead and all of them pretty much crashed and burned and it really wasn't his fault take for example battleship which coincidentally was directed by peter bird that

wasn't his fault that movie just wasn't good you know it had nothing to do with him john carter it it wasn't his fault he was good in it

I actually like John.

I'm one of the few people who actually enjoyed John Carter.

It just,

you know,

it wasn't this big property that

Star Wars was allegedly based upon,

you know,

or drew inspiration from.

Here,

this is probably the best Taylor Kitsch I've seen in a long,

long time.

This was a very good role for him here.

Him as the lead in this show his character had so much depth.

It was so much to him

Um without getting into spoilers I think the journey that he goes on is such an well a well-earned journey

For this character and I I was there for it,

you know,

I was deeply upset when the show ended I wanted more,

you know

I wanted more,

and I know this is a limited show,

and we probably won't get a season two,

but it is such a good role for him.

Betty Gilpin,

who,

man,

God bless her.

She needs to be in more big projects.

I love her in so many different things.

Here,

it took a while for me to warm up to her character.

Her character was so aggravating,

you know,

to start off the show.

You know,

she's searching for help and she's getting this help from people and the people she gets help from are telling her to do one thing and she does a complete different thing.

And you sit there and wondering,

well,

what did you,

why did you enlist help from these people if you're not going to listen to these people?

You know,

you constantly getting them in trouble throughout this series and you just wanted to strangle her.

at least her character it was so frustrating but as we got closer to the wrap-up of this season um you did enjoy her character i enjoyed her performance i just didn't care for her character per se but my favorite character in

this series or should i say that my favorite performer in this show was shy winningham and i think i'm saying his name right or

is it Wig and Ham?

We all know who he is.

He's been in a lot of projects as well.

Most recently,

he was in

Mission Impossible,

Dead Reckoning.

He did the voice of,

I think,

Captain Stacy in Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse.

And he has that distinctive voice,

you know,

when he talks.

I love his drawl.

He's perfect for a Western.

And so he was perfect casting here,

but I loved his character.

His character was,

in any other situation,

I could see him being the lead character in another show or film.

But this was a different story that was being told here.

But he did a marvelous job here on this show.

As I was saying earlier about how it depicted the

West back in

18, whenever this was set,

this was a brutal,

brutal,

violent show.

They held absolutely nothing back.

Absolutely nothing.

was held back on this show you saw everything in all of his glory you saw the arrows piercing people you saw the bullets uh uh tearing people apart you saw a man get partially scalped in

this show it was just brutal what um the violent nature of it and i it was all on purpose it wasn't just for gore sake

It was truly to show how violent it was back then.

And I deeply appreciated it for that.

I'm like,

man,

if we're going to do it,

let's do it.

You know,

if you're going to go in,

let's go all in.

And it definitely went all in on this show.

My flaws with the show,

like I said,

the

Betty Gilpin character was not a real written character.

her character was not all that well written um her son and the actor who plays her son very good i i liked him everybody else was good i think every other character was great it

was just her she was so annoying and it wasn't her fault it was the way that character was written and you know it's a good thing that we were bouncing to different stories

And we weren't just centered on that story for the entire run of these six episodes because it would have got old real quick.

You know,

because for a couple of episodes in the beginning,

it really got old and we were still bouncing back and forth between storylines.

But man,

her character was really driving me nuts.

I'm like,

oh boy,

Taylor Kitsch character is telling her,

look,

stay on the horse.

Let me handle this.

and the next thing you know she pops up ruins the thing now he has to fight for their lives he had to kill people and do all this and do it it's like my god it is all her fault and this happened throughout the show it didn't just happen once and she learned from her mistakes this happened about three or four different times throughout the show and

it's and she never learned until the very end when it was too late but aside from that i really did enjoy this show

There were some storylines that

I'm going off of the assumption that this is it.

It's listed as a limited series.

This is it.

You know,

there'll be no continuations as far as I know.

And so,

with that being said,

going off of that premise,

there are a lot of storylines that didn't get wrapped up in this show.

There are a few that did.

You know,

the main storylines,

I guess...

the b storyline kind of did but there was a couple of others that i was very interested in um to see what will be the outcome of the actions of these individuals in this particular storyline and it did and

it was only like two different uh instances that happened now if you know history if you're a history buff like me you know you know but if you want to uh see it play out

Netflix in this show,

you're not going to get it.

But

I was hoping to see a kind of a climactic end to a couple of the storylines,

and we didn't get it.

But it's fine.

It's fine.

Overall,

everything is not supposed to be wrapped up in a nice shiny boat.

That's life.

You know,

life doesn't have happy endings.

The only happy ending is when you die,

because that's truly the end.

And so...

you know life keeps going on and in this show life kept going on you know there's still a journey to be had here uh but um you know selfishly i wanted to see uh a certain character get a get his come come up ends and it didn't happen but there's neither here nor there overall i did enjoy american primeval i think it's a very good show to start off to kick off

2025 i

I had a good time with it.

Like I said,

I was mad when it ended.

And when you get that reaction,

you know you watched a good.

Show

American prime evil which is currently on Netflix all six episodes for your viewing pleasure gets a letter greed of a B-plus yes very good show

Well worth to watch I'm telling you can get through it in one day

I mean easy

I did and I was doing stuff in between I had to stop

Like between episode three and four something go do something about an hour or two I came back watch the end,

you know started it back up and went right through it

you know blinked and you missed it and these are hour-long episodes so yeah man it's that good of a show i highly recommend it i would love to know have you checked out american primeval are you planning to check it out let me know what you thought and what you think going in email the show kbradiopodcast at gmail.com you can also search for this show on all social media platforms just search for the kb radio network

you

Everybody,

don't forget about YouTube.

Subscribe to the YouTube channel and like this video if you don't mind.

Don't forget about the five stars,

the reviews,

and sharing this show.

If you're listening on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify,

iHeartRadio,

wherever,

you are currently listening to The Concession Stand here on the KB

Radio

Network. Everybody,

thank you for bearing with me.

If you can't tell by the sound of my voice,

I'm still trying to get.

over this virus that I had over the holidays for some strange reason.

It will not leave me alone.

The whole house was sick.

I kid you not.

Everybody in my house got sick.

It lasted two days and everybody else is fine.

But when it came my turn,

this been going on for two weeks and I'm still congested,

stuffed up,

still have a cough.

What is going on?

Why me?

Why did it pick me out of everybody in the house?

But

I'm still doing good.

I just got to get this congestion thing under control.

But thank you for bearing with me through this review.

I had to talk to you regardless.

It's the first review of the year.

I feel I went too long without talking to my peoples.

And I'm glad that I did.

Happy New Year,

everybody.

I want you all to know that I love you.

Continue to love.

everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed

American Primeval - Limited Series Review

About this episode