America's past is pock-marked with cruelty, blood and deceit, and while more and more films and movies ("1883," "Killers Of The Flower Moon," "Power Of The Dog," et al) have tried to show that reality in recent years,

The series, now streaming on Netflix, depicts the brutality with which the Mormons sought to create a new world for their beliefs, the pride with which the native people held onto their ancestral lands, and the tragedy of the people just seeking to make a new home in the chaos. But is any of it true?

However, it saps anything resembling wistfulness from its Hollywood Western roots, complicating its chances of cornering the post-Yellowstone market (alongside the latter's many spin-offs). What's left is the husk of a beloved genre,