A look back into the family history of the Dutton family: "1923" is the second offshoot of the successful western series "Yellowstone" by Taylor Sheridan. This time we are in the early twenties of the last century in Montana. The Great Depression moves out, Native Americans are forcibly kidnapped and re-educated, and war breaks out between the Duttons, a group of shepherds and prospectors. "Violence has always haunted this family," says Elsa Dutton, known from the series "1883", who also acts as the narrator here: "We are looking for her."
With his three Dutton stories so far, Taylor Sheridan has created an epic about the American question, whose country this is actually and that is worth considering in all its facets. But as with "1883", you don't have to know the present-day plot of "Yellowstone" to keep up here.
The way of life of cowboys
Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness: "Yellowstone" tells the story of the Duttons of today, whose huge ranch is in danger. The Crow lay claim to the land, as do greedy urban developers and bureaucrats from the national park authorities. The patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) is supported in his efforts to save traditional values and ways of life of the cowboys into the modern age, sometimes more, sometimes less loyally supported by his children Beth (Kelly Reilly), Kayce (Luke Grimes) and Jamie (Wes Bentley).
The series struck a chord in the United States. Its fifth season became the most-watched TV event next to football last year. Sheridan created two offshoots about the prehistory of the Duttons: The ten-part series "1883" fans out the hardships the emigrants took on their journey across the American continent. Here it's Dutton ancestors James (Tim McGraw) and Margaret (Faith Hill) moving out of Texas. In Montana, indigenous people leave them a paradisiacal valley for a period of seven generations.
"1923", the second season of which is already in the works, tells the story of the struggle between James' brother Jacob (Harrison Ford) and his wife Cara (Helen Mirren) for the empire they have built and for whose continuation the family will fight a hundred years later. Jacob and Cara don't have children of their own, but they did raise nephews Jacobs, Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and John (James Badge Dale). While John started a family on the ranch, Spencer served in World War I. He tries to suppress the horror of this time as a big game hunter in Africa.
When Cara's news reaches him that the drought-stricken ranch is engaged in a brutal conflict with shepherds who illegally used the grazing land, he sets off with his adventurous wife Alex (Julia Schlaepfer) on the long and dangerous journey home to Montana. And as in "1883", series creator Sheridan shines here with the illustration of the risky pilgrimage across continents and oceans.
"Exorcising everything Indian"
Meanwhile, at home on the ranch, the dispute between the Duttons and the leader of the shepherds, Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn), comes to a head. Jacob teaches Creighton a hard lesson, but he can't be turned off that easily. In a third storyline, the young Crow Indian Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves) tries to escape the barbaric impositions of the Catholic boarding school, into which she and her ilk were forced in order to "exorcise everything Indian" from them. Their resistance is brutally punished. She fights back and flees alone into the wilderness, soon pursued by captors of the cruel Father Renaud (Sebastian Roche).
In "1923" Harrison Ford remains strangely pale as a grumpy old rancher, Helen Mirren comes up trumps as usual. She is the matriarch whose toughness hides a big heart, and carries the series. Like almost all of Sheridan's female characters, Cara does what needs to be done, even if it demands great sacrifice and ice-cold action. And like many other Dutton women, she's not afraid to ground the guys, who are often blinded by pride. The speech she gives to her husband in the sixth episode makes Ford's already elderly-looking Jacob look pretty old.
The fact that Teonna belongs in the story, although her story takes place away from the events on the ranch, can be deduced from her last name: Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) will one day compete with the modern Crow for John Dutton III, played by Kevin Costner. And yet "1923" comes across as less resolute than the other two Dutton stories. Perhaps all this is just a prelude to what is looming: a bloody war over the lands of the idyllic Yellowstone Valley in Montana, which belong neither to ranchers and shepherds nor to prospectors, but to those who have never claimed them as possessions. Instead, they generously left them to the Dutton newcomers – for, as I said, seven generations. Their next one comes out of the shadows in the already announced "1944".
1923 airs on Paramount+ starting today, Saturday, May 27.