In Its Second and Final Season, Taylor Sheridan’s ‘1923’ Delivers More Thrills on a Sweeping Scale

Alci Rengifo

Depending on your sensibilities, the universe of Taylor Sheridan is either an example of the real ethos of America or a soapy guilty pleasure. Wherever you fall, it is simply hard to deny that Sheridan knows how to make entertaining television. “1923,” one of the spinoffs of his massive hit “Yellowstone,” which just concluded, returns for a second and final season that is undeniably never boring. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren define toughness, facing blizzards, mountain lions and the most supreme of predators, land-hungry rich men. While Sheridan makes the effort of including more progressive ideas into the plotting, there’s a clear old-fashioned appeal to its ideas of righteous, self-sufficient characters who have no time to be wimps.

As the season kicks off, Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford) and Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren) are facing a serious threat to their Montana ranch from Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton), the villainous tycoon plotting against them with his posse of thugs. As a blizzard starts to blow in, Jacob still heads into Bozeman with Jack (Darren Mann) to discuss an urgent matter with the local sheriff. Cara is left to take care of the ranch alone with daughter-in-law Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph). Their first major threat is a roaming mountain lion. In the other storylines continuing from last season, Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar) is working the boiler room of a ship taking him back to the United States, after being separated from wife Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer), who wallows away in England before deciding she too will jump on a ship headed for the United States. Over in Texas, Comanche on the run Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves) is camping out with her father, Runs His Horse (Michael Spears), and love interest Pete Plenty Clouds (Jeremy Guana), avoiding the violent posse searching for her led by Marshal Kent (Jamie McShane), Father Renaud (Sebastian Roché), and Marshal Thomas (Ross Crain).

Each of these storylines is meant to eventually link up at the end of the season, and somehow link to the wider Dutton saga that feeds into “Yellowstone.” Sheridan is of course not stopping and a direct sequel to his magnum opus, “The Madison,” is slated to premiere later this year starring Michelle Pfeiffer. The fun of this series is how it combines Sheridan’s love for macho Westerns with the world of the roaring ‘20s. Jacob and Cara discuss a new invention, the telephone, that would be nice to install in the ranch. Jacob meets with the sheriff at an illegal speakeasy to discuss how Zane (Brian Geraghty), has been locked up for marrying an Asian woman. On the vessel where he labors away, Spencer makes friends with Luca (Andy Dispensa), an Italian he saves from a late night rape in the workers’ quarters. Luca shares about his country being run by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini before roping Spencer into fighting for money to secure full passage home. All this is written with the air of testosterone lessons about righteousness and endurance. Spencer can beat down a man with a belt then talk Luca out of suicide with good old fatherly advice. Jacob Dutton just needs to aim his pistol at a mountain lion, ask it if it’s just trying to get out of the cold, to scare the beast off. Once in Palermo, Spencer takes a break from beating guys up to try another amazing discovery, pizza.

Complexity isn’t exactly Sheridan’s game. You’re just meant to root for your favorite characters and get swept up in the feverish melodrama. Alexandra will be in bed depressed, her friend arrives, she gives her jewelry to sell for a ticket to America and off she goes, not before dropping a big revelation. The Comanche storyline is the weakest only because it feels like Sheridan and team don’t know what else to add other than use it for the show to have some egalitarian credentials by acknowledging the violence endured by Native Americans. It turns into a sweet romance between Teonna and Pete, complete with some naked romping by a brook before a close call. Meanwhile, Father Renaud is horrified to see Kent’s brutality towards Native Americans, then tells him by a campfire about how racism is wrong and even much of Europe was once ruled by darker peoples. Obviously the intention in the storytelling isn’t wrong. Sheridan just has no room for subtly on anything, but we shouldn’t care considering how much gusto is put into it.

The scene stealers of the show are Brandon Sklenar, who looks like he walked out of the 1920s, and Helen Mirren, who takes up more screen time than Ford in these early episodes. She’s again great as the strong-willed overseer of the Dutton farm while Jacob is away, keeping a shotgun close and slapping Elizabeth into accepting a rabies vaccine after an encounter with a big wolf. Like the men, characters such as Cara instruct younger women on how to be tough women in this unforgiving land that needs to be tamed, etc. They can’t let down those forbears from the “Yellowstone” prequel series “1883.” Plus we need to believe this is the root from which Kevin Costner’s John Dutton will spring forth from. 

“1923” must also be ranked as one of the best-looking shows streaming right now. That is another secret to its appeal. Like “Yellowstone,” Sheridan and his team are applying genuine Western aesthetics with sweeping vistas, rich sunsets and twilights, complete with snow-capped valleys and massive ships. This series could easily be screened at a multiplex. Sheridan’s shows have been branded as tailored for Middle America sensibilities, and in a sense they are, yet on a broader level of appeal, he is simply updating classic forms of television and soap operas. It’s not always a political statement to celebrate rugged personas and adventure in wide open spaces. You can be entertained by “1923” without ever having thrown a punch or stared down a mountain lion.

“1923” season two begins streaming Feb. 23 with new episodes premiering Sundays on Paramount+.