Into the West is a 2005 American Western television miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks, with six two-hour episodes (including commercials). The series was first broadcast in the U.S. on TNT beginning June 10, 2005. It was also shown in the UK on BBC2 and BBC HD from November 4, 2006, and in Canada on CBC Television. The series also aired in the U.S. on AMC during June/July and September/October of 2012.
The plot follows the story of two families, one white American and one Native American, as their lives become mingled through the momentous events of American expansion. The miniseries begins in the 1820s and is told mainly through the third person narration of Jacob Wheeler (Matthew Settle) and Loved By the Buffalo (Joseph M. Marshall III), although episodes outside the direct observation of both protagonists are also shown. The story intertwines real and fictional characters and events spanning the period of expansion of the United States in the American frontier from 1825 to 1890. It was filmed in Drumheller, Alberta and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The show has a large ensemble cast, with about 250 speaking parts. The series features well-known performers including Josh Brolin, Gary Busey, Michael Spears, Tonantzin Carmelo, Skeet Ulrich, Garrett Wang, Steve Reevis, Rachael Leigh Cook, Wes Studi, Irene Bedard, Alan Tudyk, Christian Kane, Russell Means, Jay Tavare, Keri Russell, Graham Greene, Sean Astin, Beau Bridges, Judge Reinhold, Zahn McClarnon, Tom Berenger, Gil Birmingham, David Paymer, Raoul Trujillo, Eric Schweig, Lance Henriksen, Simon R. Baker, Tyler Christopher, Tatanka Means, Gordon Tootoosis, Sheila Tousey, Annabella Piugattuk, Glen Powell and Will Patton.
It was nominated for 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, including for Outstanding Limited Series, and won two. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television.
Episodes
Episode 1: "Wheel to the Stars" Growling Bear, an elderly Lakota medicine man, has an apocalyptic vision that the buffalo his people rely upon will soon vanish from the prairie and the Lakota will live in square houses. His vision is controversial and his apprentice, Soaring Eagle, convinces most of the people to disregard Growling Bear's dark vision. A young boy named White Feather overhears and seeks out the now discredited Growling Bear to learn more about his vision. Before he dies, Growling Bear gives White Feather a necklace symbolizing the Lakota medicine wheel. This necklace is passed on to various characters through the miniseries.
Later, during a buffalo jump hunt led by White Feather's older brothers Running Fox and Dog Star, many people from the village are killed during the stampede, but White Feather is miraculously spared when the spirit of deceased Growling Bear appears to protect him. The tribe renames him Loved by the Buffalo and begin to regard him as a holy man healing people by taking their pain upon himself. This causes Soaring Eagle to become jealous and he tries to undermine Loved by the Buffalo by blaming him for an outbreak of pox and then leaving him for dead. Growling Bear appears to Loved by the Buffalo again, teaching him a song to cure the outbreak.
Loved by the Buffalo's sister, Thunder Heart Woman, is married off to a white trapper, Thomas Lebeck. Loved by the Buffalo gives Thunder Heart Woman the wooden medicine wheel necklace as a parting gift. Dog Star and Running Fox marry two sisters and begin families, but Loved by the Buffalo realizes that his destiny lies on a different path.
At about the same time, a young wheelwright named Jacob Wheeler is growing discontented with his settled life in the fictional Wheelerton, Virginia, where he and his brothers work as wheelwrights for his grandfather Abraham, a veteran of the Battle of Yorktown. When a mountain man named James Fletcher passes through, he tells Jacob of the wonders of the western frontier and that he will be joining an expedition to the Pacific Ocean led by the famous Jedediah Smith leaving from St. Louis, Jacob decides to leave his family and head west. He convinces his brother Nathan, to come west with him, but another brother, Jethro, cannot bring himself to leave his home and stays behind.
Once the brothers reach St. Louis, Missouri, they find Fletcher, who rebuffs them. Dejected, Nathan goes into a saloon to drink and gamble, winning a deed to a land claim in the Mexican province of Tejas. Nathan tries to convince Jacob to come with him to Tejas, but Jacob has become determined to become a mountain man and travel to the West with Jedediah Smith. The brothers part company and Jacob heads toward the Rocky Mountains.
Jacob catches up with Fletcher and trapping party captain Jedediah Smith who once again rebuffs him, but he convinces them to take him in. Jacob stitches Smith's scalp after a bear attack and prefers Smith's company rather than fraternizing with a Mojave tribe they trade with for horses in the Sierra Nevada. Eventually he becomes a trusted member of the party. Jacob accompanies Smith's party to California, where they are arrested by the Mexican Capitan de Salamanca for trespassing and held at the San Gabriel Mission. The party is charged with stealing the horses they bought from the Mojave (a brand is shown). The Mexicans fear that if they are freed, the party will show other Americans how to go to California. Smith negotiates their expulsion, promising they would never return to California under pain of death. On the way back, they return to the Mohave camp and are attacked; many are killed including Fletcher, who guards Smith and Jacob's narrow escape through a cave. Loved by the Buffalo undergoes a Sun Dance.
Thunder Heart Woman's trapper husband Lebeck is killed in an attack by the Crow, her infant daughter is captured, and she is sold into slavery. Later, Jacob sees her being auctioned off at a trapper rendezvous and attempts to buy her in order to return Thunder Heart Woman to her people. Trapper Johnny Fox rifle duels Jacob for the right to purchase her. Jacob is victorious, shooting then stabbing Fox one-handed after being shot in his left forearm. Thunder Heart Woman gives Jacob the wooden medicine wheel necklace as a token of her gratitude. When they return to the tribe, Jacob marries Thunder Heart Woman and begins to live with her family as part of the Lakota tribe.
Running Fox trades for a horsecart, much to the dismay of his brothers, who see white goods as a corruption of Lakota culture. When Loved by the Buffalo sees Jacob repairing the wheel, he is reminded of a vision he had during his Sun Dance in which a wooden wheel smashes a stone wheel. Loved by the Buffalo realizes that the wooden wheel symbolizes the wagon wheels of the whites and that the stone wheel is the medicine wheel of the Lakota culture. Loved by the Buffalo takes Jacob and Thunder Heart Woman to a sacred hilltop where a stone medicine wheel has been erected and tells him about the four great powers that it symbolizes. Loved by the Buffalo leaves the tribe to try to prevent the vision of Growling Bear from coming to pass.
Episode 2: "Manifest Destiny" After living among the Lakota people, Jacob decides to take his wife and daughter Margaret Light Shines east to Wheelerton, Virginia. Jacob's family gives Thunder Heart Woman a much colder reception than her family gave him. After living in Wheelerton for a time, Jacob decides to take his family, now including a young son Abraham High Wolf, back west.
This time, Jacob's brother Jethro decides to come along. They are also accompanied by Jacob's three young female cousins; Leah Wheeler, Rachel Wheeler, and Naomi Wheeler. The three girls have been unlucky in love and are lured by the tales of excitement out west.
Meanwhile, Thunder Heart Woman's two oldest brothers, Dog Star and Running Fox argue over whether or not to adopt white technology. The disagreement comes to a boil and the two agree to part ways, splitting the tribe.
After working their way west for several years, the Wheeler clan arrives at Independence, Missouri. Jacob, now with a second son Jacob Junior High Cloud, wants to go west to California or the Oregon Country, but Thunder Heart Woman and some of the others wish to remain in Missouri. Jacob eventually convinces the others to go to California and they join a wagon train led by Stephen Hoxie who is a better salesman than a leader. Among the other settlers is a German immigrant preacher named Hobbes, a free black family fleeing racial prejudice, and several former mountain men.
The wagon train passage is filled with dangers: Leah Wheeler is thrown from the wagon during the crossing of a river and drowns, and the young son of the black pioneers is killed by stampeding cattle during a thunder storm. But life also continues: Rachel and Naomi take husbands from among the wagon trail guides. Later, while traversing a pass, a wagon breaks free, knocks Rachel down and runs over her leg, causing a severe compound fracture. The leg eventually becomes infected and must be amputated. Preacher Hobbes is the closest thing to a doctor available, but he botches the operation and Rachel dies.
Cholera breaks out, killing the wife of the black pioneer. Those exposed, including Jacob, Thunder Heart Woman, the children, and Jethro must stay behind under quarantine while the main body of the wagon train carries on. Naomi and her husband, who have not been exposed, go on with the others. Jethro is afflicted with symptoms of cholera but recovers, and no new outbreaks occur after Jacob orders that all drinking water be boiled. They rush to catch up with the main body, but find it was attacked by Cheyenne warriors, and all except Naomi were killed.
Naomi, taken into captivity, is sold to Cheyenne chief Prairie Fire, who takes her as his wife. The thought of a forced marriage to an Indian is repulsive to Naomi, who has always considered them as barely human savages. She chants nursery rhymes, which put off his amorous advances. In time, she begins to see Prairie Fire in a different light and she grows to become happy in her new life. She eventually gives birth to a son, whom he names One Horn Bull.
Jacob returns to the rest of the wagons, and they are soon attacked. The Indians are fought off, but an arrow is shot through Jacob's upper chest, and he begs to be left behind to recover on his own terms as the trail would kill him faster. After the party leaves, Jacob is rescued by a party led by Running Fox, that stumble across him half-dead. After recovering his strength, Jacob spends several months in the mountains. Haunted by the faces of the children he sent on with his wife and brother, Jacob eventually tries to find them in California. He searches several years for his family but cannot find them, and eventually gives them up for dead.
The Mexican–American War erupts and Jacob joins John C. Frémont's militia to fight the Mexican Army. During a supply stop in one of the settlements, he sees his wife at a distance, but before he can go over to greet her, he sees her and his brother Jethro embrace and kiss. They also have a new child, Cornflower. Dejected that his wife and brother have become romantically involved but not wanting to disrupt their happiness, he decides to leave without making his presence known. Before he goes, he gives the wooden medicine wheel necklace to his young son, who does not realize the man is his father.