1923 Season 2 Gets Off to a Surprisingly Slow But Promising Start

Now that Taylor Sheridan’s OG Yellowstone series has closed its proverbial gates, the battle for spin-off supremacy is well underway. From direct prequels and sequels to shows set in the same universe, it feels as though some aspect of the Dutton family is sure to be on our screens for what feels like literal generations to come at this point. To the franchise’s credit, its two existing prequels are frequently more interesting than the flagship they hail from—grittier, more violent, and more willing to wrestle with the complex issues at the heart of American mythmaking and identity. 1923 is the Yellowstone universe at its most grim and ambitious, placing its iteration of the Dutton clan at a moment of intense change for the American West and refusing to look away from the horrors that frontier setters visited not just on the native peoples whose land they claimed for their own, but on one another. It’s a story of a hard, unforgiving land that’s populated by a hard, unforgiving people and while some of its swings don’t always connect, it’s still captivating television. In its second outing, the various threads of its story finally begin to (slowwwwwwly) tie together, and it’s all the better for it. 

Season 2 picks up where the first left off, but there’s less immediate urgency than you might initially expect. Winter has come to the mountains and with it come problems of survival. Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Cara (Helen Mirren) Dutton have sold most of their herd to pay the taxes they owe to the almost hilariously villainous business speculator Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) and the Yellowstone men are forced to hunt game for food. The unnerving presence of mountain lions and wolves on the property has unsettled new Dutton bride Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph) who doesn’t remember signing up for a life full of this much hardship. And as Jacob and Jack (Darren Mann) prepare to head to town to try and free loyal ranch hand Zane (Brian Geraghty) and his family, who have been arrested for violating Montana’s miscegenation laws, a deadly blizzard looms on the horizon.

On the other side of the Atlantic Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer) are each struggling to find a way to America—-and back to one another. Spencer is shoveling coal on a steamer bound for Galveston, Texas, where he befriends an Italian immigrant named Luca (Andy Dispensa). Alex, despondent in England, pawns some jewelry to book second-class passage on a ship to New York. (Oh, how the mighty—i.e., idle rich—have fallen.)

It’s true, most of the action in the initial three episodes available to screen for critics is of the fairly slow-moving variety. (Outside of the occasional shooting of a wild animal or two.) They feel like nothing so much as elaborate table setting, as if the show’s simply moving various plot points and characters around into position for the big battle for the ranch’s future we all know is coming. Don’t get me wrong, there are many excellent moments: a confrontation between Cara and Elizabeth about the harshness of life on their homestead is richly layered and Alexandra’s trip through Ellis Island is genuinely gut-wrenching stuff. But it’s hard not to feel as though we’re waiting for something—largely because that’s exactly what we’re doing. The impending fight for the future of the Dutton ranch hangs over every character’s head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles—can Spencer make it back to Montana, will there still be a Yellowstone to save when he does, who of his family might still be alive to greet him upon his return?