1923 Premiere Episode Recap

Here are some random thoughts prompted by the premiere episode of 1923, which premiered on Paramount+ in the wee small hours of Sunday morning. Please keep in mind: There will be scads of spoilers here, and we’re not the least bit ashamed.

• • Nice to see, or at least hear, Isabel May as Elsa Dutton from 1883 in what essentially is a sequel to that Yellowstone prequel. And it was helpful for her to provide backstory in her narration for linkage: After the death of her father James Dutton, her mother Margaret wrote to James’ brother Jacob, begging him to come to Montana and help her raise her two surviving children. Unfortunately, by the time Jacob (Harrison Ford) and his wife Cara (Helen Mirren) arrived, they found Margaret “frozen in a snowdrift,” and two little boys malnourished and barely to speak. Jacob and Cara assumed responsibility for the children — the now grown-up John Dutton Sr. (James Badge Dale) and Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) — and the ranch James had founded. Jacob “took my father’s dream and made it into an empire.” And that’s where we are now.

• • But here’s the thing: Isabel May… well, she died in the final episode of 1883, remember? Are we supposed to be listening to a ghost? And if so, should we expect her to be haunting future episodes?

• • All you folks who have complained at tedious length about the R-rated language in Yellowstone and 1883, take note: No one drops an F-bomb until 11 minutes into Episode 101 of 1923. And unless I missed something, that’s the only time anyone uses that particular cuss word in the premiere. Maybe producer Taylor Sheridan has developed some sense of restraint?

• • Remember how Sheridan kicked off the first episode of 1883 with a jolting flashforward to the Indian attack that would ultimately lead to Isabel’s death? Well, he offers a variation of that opening-with-a-bang curtain-raiser here, as Helen Mirren demonstrates the industrial-strength badassery of Cora by reloading her shotgun just in time to take out someone whose identity we presumably will learn a few episodes down the road. What an entrance!

• • But wait, there’s more: Mirren’s Cara has most of the best lines here —her description to Ford’s Jacob of what might happen “if marriage were up to men” was a laugh-out-loud hoot — and she promises to be the feistiest female rancher this side of Barbara Stanwyck’s Victoria Barkley on The Big Valley. No wonder Jacob refers to her early on as “the boss.”

• • On the other hand, Jacob doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge higher authority, or take any guff from anybody, in his role as head of the Montana Livestock Commission. (Yes, it’s true: At age 80, Harrison Ford remains one seriously tough customer you do not want to mess with.) Trouble is, he has no control over the swarms of locusts that have been gobbling up the grass necessary for cattle and sheep to graze in the area. (Nice touch: When we first see Jacob, he actually has a few of the troublesome bugs on him.) Right from the get-go, 1923 lays the groundwork for what appears to be an inevitably bloody clash between sheepherders and cattle ranchers seeking to feed their investments. Maybe that’s why Cara had to dispatch that fellow in the prologue?

• • Meanwhile, way off in Africa, Spencer is pursuing gainful employment as… well, not so much a big game hunter as a big game exterminator, ridding various communities of ferocious beasts who have developed an appetite for two-legged entrees. (“Once they get a taste for man,” he informs a new client, “that’s all they’ll ever eat.”) Plagued by flashbacks from his Great War experiences, Spencer shows every sign of being a poster boy for PTSD — so maybe he’s trying to exorcise the lingering demons inside his head by waging a different kind of war. Whatever the reason, I was glad to see such a troubled soul could still add a touch of comic relief to the proceedings. Obviously, when Spencer wants to remain alert by drinking coffee, the dude drinks a lot of coffee.

• • Must admit, I have no idea how Teonna (Aminah Nieves) — the Native American girl who’s enduring horrible corporal punishment at a government-run school for Indians — will fit into the Dutton saga. But please forgive this personal observation: When she finally turned on the sadistic ruler-wielding nun (Jennifer Ehle) who was giving her grief, at least one viewer who survived a Catholic school education cheered “You go, girl!” And when the priest (Sebastian Roché) running the school gave Sister Mary a taste of her own medicine — yep, I laughed out loud. Of course, when the priest turned around and revealed himself to be even more of a brute in regard to Teonna, I shut up real quick. Teonna needs to get out of that place, pronto.

• • Jack Dutton (Darren Mann) —  John Dutton Sr.’s son, Jacob Dutton’s grandnephew — is all sweet on his fiancée, Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph), and looking forward to their marriage. But when Jacob announces plans for a cattle drive to bring his herd up to a mountain location where the grass is plentiful and the locusts aren’t, well, a rancher has to do what a rancher has to do. At first, Elizabeth is furious about the delay of their wedding day, and suggests that Jack should, ahem, pay a conjugal visit to a cow. Good thing Cara is around to help Elizabeth better understand what’s in store for her as a rancher’s wife: “You have to want more than the boy — you have to want the life, too.” Wonder how many times a woman on the verge of marrying into the Dutton family has heard some variation of that line?

• • One more thing about Elsa’s narration. “My father had three children,” she says. “Only one was able to see their own children grow. Only one would carry the fate of his family through the Depression and every other hell the 20^th century hurled at them.” Does this mean Spencer will wind up as a blue-plate special for some man-eating lion? We’ll have to keep watching to find out.