The Canadian-born actor plays a skilled mountain man who comes to the aid of an endangered woman and her young son in the 1857 frontier.
Just who is Isaac Reed?
According to Netflix, the streamer now showcasing Taylor Kitsch as that character in the limited-run series American Primeval, Reed is “a broken man in mourning. His family murdered by thieves, he is on a self-destructive path of rage against the world.”
Now a lethally resourceful mountain man in the 1857 American frontier, Reed “picks fights with anything that comes before him on a mission to die the ‘right way’ and return to his wife and son in the next life. ‘When our story begins, you’re meeting a man at his lowest state,’ Kitsch told Netflix.”
Fortunately for almost all parties involved, Reed is in the right place at the right time when Mormon militia members disguised as Native Americans attack a party of California-bound travelers in Utah. (This clash is based on the real-life Mountain Meadows Massacre.) Among the pioneers at risk: Sara Rowell (Betty Gilprin) and her son Devin (Preston Mota), who are making the arduous journey in the hope of connecting with Devin’s father in Wyoming.

In a key scene from American Primeval, Isaac rescues Devin and Sara during the Mormon-led raid on their party. Warning: The violence here is pretty graphic.
American Primeval is Taylor Kitsch’s fifth collaboration with director Peter Berg, following Friday Night Lights, Battleship, Lone Survivor, and Painkiller. The Canadian-born actor, whose credits also include Waco and The Terminal List, recently visited the C&I Studio to talk about their limited-run Netflix series.