Taylor Kitsch appeared in two major thriller TV shows in 2025, officially marking the year as the return to the center of pop culture for the Friday Night Lights star. When Taylor Kitsch appeared in Friday Night Lights, everyone had the sense that we were going to be watching Tim Riggins for years to come.
Friday Night Lights recently made its way back to streaming, available on Prime Video, giving everyone a chance to revisit Dillon, Texas, and their high school football team, the Panthers. You’ll also see actors who’ve gone on to great things, like Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Minka Kelly, Jesse Plemons, and now, finally, Taylor Kitsch.
Taylor Kitsch Stars As Isaac Reed In American Primeval
Taylor Kitsch stars in American Primeval as Isaac Reed, also known as Spotted Hawk, a skilled mountain man who was raised by the Shoshone. Isaac is still haunted by the loss of his wife and son, so when he runs into Sara Holloway (Betty Gilpin) and her son Devin (Preston Rowell), he makes it his mission to save them.
A wanted fugitive, Sara is on the run from the law, and she finds a kindred spirit in Isaac. The Shoshone are having their own violent struggle with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are just arriving in the Utah Territory. It’s all in anticipation of the very real Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857.
Isaac has been raised in the rough wilderness, and his outer shell is proof of that. However, Kitsch plays Isaac with more depth than that. He’s stony and cold on the outside, but there’s a warmth underneath that Sara and Devin immediately recognize. He saves the mother and son, but also saves himself along the way.
American Primeval is a beautifully shot series and is appropriately grim. It’s a series that sheds a harsh light on the brutal origins of America. It’s a savagery that’s deep in the bones of the land, and Kitsch portrays confusion and exhaustion that’s produced from a period of time steeped in blood and injustice.
Taylor Kitsch Reprises His Lead Role In The Terminal List: Dark Wolf
Taylor Kitsch stars in another major thriller series in 2025, The Terminal List: Dark Wolf. Dark Wolf is actually a spinoff of The Terminal List from 2022, which starred Chris Pratt as James Reece. Kitsch appears in the main cast as Ben Edwards, a former Navy SEAL and a CIA Ground Branch operative.
The Terminal List: Dark Wolf is a prequel that swaps the lead characters so that Kitsch is the lead, with Chris Pratt as the second or third lead. In this series, Edwards is a member of SEAL Team 5 and Chief Special Warfare Operator, with the series tracking his expeditions in the Middle East and eventual move to the CIA.
Kitsch is perfect in the role, and it’s the best use of his acting skill set out of anything he’s done in his whole career. The “world-weary anti-hero” is a description for an actor that is not always a glowing recommendation of his talents, but Kitsch is the exception that proves the rule.
Kitsch is an actor who has been playing world-weary since the start with Tim Riggins, but for him, world-weary doesn’t have to be one-dimensional. As Edwards, Kitsch is determined, angry, and even fearful. He turns what could have been one note into something colorful. Dark Wolf needs a star to work, and Kitsch is a bona fide star now.
We’ve Been Waiting For The Return Of Taylor Kitsch For Years
After Friday Night Lights, it felt like Taylor Kitsch could do anything. He had the looks, the physicality, the sultry stare, and some impressive acting chops. However, he ran into a problem called 2012. In that year, Kitsch starred in Savages, Battleship, and John Carter. All of these were unsuccessful, with John Carter being a historic bomb.
While he was not the problem in any of those movies, they stopped all the momentum he had coming out of Friday Night Lights. What came next over the following 13 years was a handful of movies, with the only one of note being Lone Survivor in 2013, and Kitsch is only in the supporting cast.
On television, Kitsch didn’t fare much better, but roles in True Detective season 2 and Waco served to show that he was just as captivating an actor as ever and had actually seemed to have improved at his craft. Then in the 2020s, things started to pick up, with The Defeated, The Terminal List, and Painkiller.