Also, what was up with the French hillbilly baddies? Did they have leprosy or something or were we supposed to infer a bunch of inbreeding? The old lady looked like she was wearing someone else's face and a couple of the other guys were very strange looking as well, not just ugly and dirty.

I assumed they were cannibals and were wearing the skin of people they had eaten.

Kinda weird seeing Tig as Brigham Young.

Just keep watching......your questions will be answered.

zgolfz85 said:

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I don't know if Isaac has a heart at the end or not

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Anti-taxxer said:

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Who were the people Isaac and Sara encountered in ep 3?

Gypsies? French? They were creepy AF.

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French trapper cannibals best I could tell. Maybe the old Hag was leprous

Thunder18 said:

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Anti-taxxer said:

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Who were the people Isaac and Sara encountered in ep 3?

Gypsies? French? They were creepy AF.

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French trapper cannibals best I could tell. Maybe the old Hag was leprous

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Very "Hills Have Eyes" vibes….

El Gallo Blanco said:

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DTP02 said:

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AggieLumberjack said:

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I enjoyed it but one thing that I got tired of was the jumping around. I know this is nitpicky but one day they are in WY and the next they are in Southern Utah and vice versa. This supposedly takes place in a matter of weeks and I doubt you could travel that fast back then.

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I was curious about the geography as well. Salt Lake to Bridger isn't actually that far, so not as big of a deal when it came to Young and the Mormons going to Bridger. But the Meadows massacre was way at the SW side of the state so lots of stretching credulity when it came to anything involving thaf.

The bigger nitpick I had was the lack of solitude. They're in a very sparsely populated area in difficult terrain and everyone was always running into other people and groups. I felt like they could have captured the solitude and difficulty of the terrain better instead of just relying on the humans to impart the danger and harshness.

They also leaned into the noble savage stereotype a little too much. Not quite as much as you might expect from Hollywood standards, but still a borderline eye rolling amount.

All that said, it was still pretty good, and very good by NetFlix standards.

I'm curious how based in reality the Bridger stuff is. I thought he was the best character in the show, along with the cavalry captain.

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To be fair, if they were to ever make an accurate movie, it would be extremely slow, boring and unwatchable. The world's first accurate movie would be sure to tank. I hope they never even try to make one.

Agreed on the "noble savage" part, but that was kind of balanced by the "noble Army commander" role. Even had a "noble blood thirsty bandit" role.

I don't think America is ready for a truly accurate depiction of Native Americans either. "Hostiles" kind of portrayed this a little more than American Primeval. Would be hard to watch a movie where a bunch of maniacal indians gang rape a settler's wife and child in front of him and then burning them alive, while laughing and making him watch, before torturing him to death. Or tying an infant to the back of a horse and dragging it back and forth through thorny brush as the captive mother watched in terror.

All that said, I do believe that by the mid to late 1850's there were somewhat peaceful tribes that weren't out to kill everyone who was not part of their group.

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Wait til Empire if the Summer Moon comes out. Will be interesting to see how "accurate" he portrays the Comanche.

The massacre was not accurate at all. In real life, it was way worse. The Mormons (who were dressed like Indians) plus real indians attacked the settlers for a couple days. Then, under a white flag, the Mormons (not dressed like indians) offered safe passage and protection from the Indians. The Mormons convinced the settlers to give up their guns (stupid.. Never give up your guns), and separated the men from the women and children. They marched them in a line with one armed Mormon walking alongside one unarmed male settler. Then on a signal (somebody yelling, "Mormons, do your duty" or something), the Mormons turned and shot the unarmed man next to them. The women and children were about a mile ahead, heard the commotion, freaked out, and ran. They were hunted down and killed. Some were hacked to death. The children who they thought were too young to remember or to be taken seriously as a witness in court were spared. The Mormon women proudly wore the dresses of the slain women in front of their own kids. Only one guy was prosecuted for the massacre decades later and Brigham Young got off completely. Of course, if the producers stuck to the truth, then neither the husband and wife would have lived, and that whole story would not exist.

While watching this show, I didn't put two and two together that the massacre was the Mountain Meadows massacre until later. I figured it was just some other made up massacre or one I hadn't heard about. I may watch again later, but didn't something say it was the 1840s rather than the 1850s? I was browsing my phone on occasion and may have missed something.

The noble savage thing was eye roll inducing. Especially the "why are white people so violent?" part. Who are they kidding? It looked like they weren't going to do that in the first episodes, but maybe they felt guilty about showing them too accurately savage, and then decided to make up for it in later episodes. And I read that the producers claim that the female chief was made up but loosely based off some real life lesbian chief, but they didn't say who, and my Google searches can't find anything at all.

Also why would Abish so suddenly side with the Indians after watching them slaughter her party and trying to escape? That made no sense. I can see giving up on escaping, but to suddenly praise them, wear their garb, and flee the US military to rejoin them? Ridiculous. I figure they are trying to tell a Cynthia Ann Parker like story, but she was taken as a small kid, not as an adult. The whole Abish story was also eye roll inducing.

Also, I don't think the Mormons ever directly attacked US soldiers in battle, as they would have gotten their asses kicked. Some viewers may feel robbed that the Mormons didn't get their just desserts for that. But in real life, none of that happened anyway. The captain didn't exist, his camp didn't get destroyed, or any of that. instead the Mormons did Fabian strategies where they disrupted the travel of US troops while also burning their homes and forts to flee. Then the Civil war happened, and the Mormons got a free pass for a while.

I thought the last part was a bit too predictable. I figured he would die somehow, and when they left that one bounty hunter alive, I knew there would be a final duel and that both would end up dead.

This is worth the watch, but I think the most interesting part was the part with Isaac, Sara, and Devin. They should have scrapped the Abish/Jacob part of the story and make the Isaac, Sara, and Devin witness the massacre (and make it more accurate). When the women/children are running away, have Isaac kill a pursuer, and then make the Mormons pursue them for the rest of the show rather than bounty hunters. Make the indians yet another antagonist that they need to escape from just like the weird French freaks (maybe scrap them too... that seemed too out of place).

aTmAg said:

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The massacre was not accurate at all. In real life, it was way worse. The Mormons (who were dressed like Indians) plus real indians attacked the settlers for a couple days. Then, under a white flag, the Mormons (not dressed like indians) offered safe passage and protection from the Indians. The Mormons convinced the settlers to give up their guns (stupid.. Never give up your guns), and separated the men from the women and children. They marched them in a line. They marched them in a line with one armed Mormon walking alongside one unarmed male settler. Then on a signal (somebody yelling, "Mormons, do your duty" or something), the Mormons turned and shot the unarmed man next to them. The women and children were about a mile ahead, heard the commotion, freaked out, and ran. They were hunted down and killed. Some were hacked to death. The children who they thought were too young to remember or to be taken seriously as a witness in court were spared. The Mormon women proudly wore the dresses of the slain women in front of their own kids.
. . .

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They also tied an onion to their belt, which was the style at the time.

Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.

GoAgs92 said:

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MW03 said:

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Episode 1 question below:

Why did Isaac end up following the woman and boy after turning down the money to guide them? I don't understand why he was there when the indian attack happened.

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at the time I watched it, I figured he was going to scavenge up some free stuff after the attack that he assumed was coming

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After watching the entire series and then going back to Ep1

I got really fascinated about this so I went back and watched with the captions on. Isaac talks to Bridger about how it's "careless" for her to link up with Mormons and "drag a boy through this," and then he mentions to Bridger that there will be more for him to "trade to Walter Higgins." Bridger says, "I'm afraid you're likely right, but do me a favor. Don't tell me about it. I've reached my fill on such things." We don't meet Walter, but we hear Bridger yell at an off-screen "Walter" to move his "half-dead mules," suggesting he runs the livery or something.

So I think you are correct. Isaac was pacing them, assuming there would be an attack, with the intent on grabbing up any livestock he could to sell to Walter Higgins after the fact. Then, when it happened, he couldn't "turn his back on the world" anymore because he saw his own child and wife he couldn't save in Sara and Devin.

You know it's good when people start extensively analyzing the series.

It's a great escape and an eye opener for several reasons even if not totally historically accurate (and what can be, we can't even agree on what happened yesterday politically)

Just to throw out there, we had people protesting our Sully statue but Brigham Young University is still a thing?