As we reach the half-way point in American Primeval we start to learn more about characters' motivations in this Netflix historical epic, however lots of them are on collision courses that'll likely turn violent.
This six-part historical epic is about various people and factions in Utah and Wyoming in 1857, as the Utah War looms and violence abounds in the wintery landscape.
If you've got this far through American Primeval, you'll have seen all kinds of violence and danger, and that doesn't change in this newest episode. But there are also some character revelations and learning lessons that people discover the hard way.
So here's our American Primeval episode 3 recap, so you know what happened. The series jumps between characters and I've reordered it slightly for your ease of reading.
War on the frontier
We begin the episode by seeing Abish (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) who's being put to work in her captivity at the Wolf Clan camp. She helps the women clean and is being taught the language, though at one point she makes another escape attempt and Red Feather (Derek Hinkey) takes her locket.
The Nauvoo legion are stuck on their search for Abish, which Abish's husband Jacob Pratt (Dane DeHaan) isn't happy about. They're visited by bounty hunter Virgil (Jai Courney) who's looking for Sara. Nauvoo leader Wolsey (James Tippett) recognizes Sara from the wanted poster but pretends he hasn't seen her. However Virgil recognizes Pratt from Fort Bridger and knows that Sara left the fort with him. Pratt thinks Sara is dead but Virgil said he had a run-in with her since the massacre, and that there was another woman with them.
Pratt thinks this extra woman was Abish so Wolsey sends him with another soldier to accompany Virgil to Crook Springs, as Pratt knows that that's where Sara was headed.
Brigham Young (Kim Coates) visits Fort Bridger alongside Wild Bill Hickman (Alex Breaux) to speak to Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham). Young wants to buy the fort for the Mormons and wants to know a price, but Bridger doesn't seem like he wants to sell. Once Young has left, Bridger implies to his second-in-command that their days might be numbered.
Wolsey meets the captain of the army who asks him about the meadows attack. Wolsey insists the Wolf Clan are to blame and even tells the captain where they're based. The captain says he knows that the Mormons did it and wants to speak to Pratt, but Wolsey says he's already left to search for Abish.
To be safe the captain sends some scouts to Red Feather's location, and all but one of them are killed in an ambush. The last one escapes and tells the rest what he saw: the Wolf Clan are abandoning camp and heading to the Shoshone camp.
When Red Feathers gets to the camp his mother, who's also the chief, doesn't want him there because he thinks it'll just bring them danger.
All this time, Pratt has been travelling with Virgil and his hunters. One night, he's singing a prayer song for Abish, and so some of the men taunt him that his wife won't survive long with the Wolf Clan. The next day as they stop for a break, Pratt sees that the other Mormon soldier has a locket that one of the dead settlers had before the massacre.
Meeting the locals
During a cold night Sara (Betty Gilpin) and Devin (Preston Mora) are cold so they beg Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch) to make the fire bigger. He shows them and Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier) a technique to keep warm by putting rocks on the fire, then burying them and lying on them. While this happens Sara admits to Isaac that her husband doesn't know that they're on their way; he has a gold claim in Crook Springs and she hopes he'll accept his family.
The next day they see a young girl all alone, who says she's lost her family. Despite Isaac's protests Sara insists they take her to their family. However it's a trap, and men with guns surround the four; this is an encampment of sketchy-looking French settlers. Reed gives a sign to Two Moons, who runs away, but the captors knock the others out.
The French people examine Isaac, Sara and Devin, and the boy wonders aloud what they're planning to do. Later the man in charge unties Sara and leads her into a shack.
That night, a different man tries to do the same to Sara, and Isaac tries to distract Devin by talking to him about fishing. However Two Moons shows up and hits the man with a flaming branch, and so Sara takes his gun and shoots all of the other captors there.
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