1923 came roaring back with an all new episode on Christmas Day, and it was a doozy. There were leopard hunts, nun fights, dubious executions, and so, so many sheep. Here are a few things you might have missed in this week's episode, "Nature's Empty Throne."
Warning, spoilers ahead for episode 2 of 1923.
Breeding pairs always hunt together
When we left the dashing Spencer Dutton last week, he was just about to get eaten by a leopard. You see, he'd gone hunting for one on the advice of a British guy who ran a safari outpost and unknowingly run into a breeding pair. That meant that after he killed the one he thought he was looking for, there was still another there, ready to pounce.
Fortunately for old Spencer, though, he's got superhuman Dutton strength and wildlife skills, meaning he was able to fight the leopard off. Unfortunately for his guide friend, though, that meant that the initial leopard Spencer thought he killed was left unattended. He attacked one of the guides and dragged him away by the throat. The guide died, and both leopards ended up dead.
All of this leads to a pretty hairy situation in the camp when a very pissed off and injured Spencer confronts the safari camp leader, telling him that he knew there were two leopards and because he didn't mention it, he let Spencer and his guides walk into certain death. Spencer then pulls a gun on the guy and makes him apologize genuinely and profusely to the guide's far-away family before taking a good warning shot over his head. It's a move so bold that we can't imagine the guy walking away with a clean set of drawers.
Jack survived, but the sheepherders weren't so lucky
At the end of last week's episode, it looked like Jack Dutton was in pretty hot water too, having found Banner Creighton and his fellow sheepherders up in the mountains grazing their flock on Dutton land. Someone took a shot at him, but fortunately for Jack, it ended up hitting his horse instead of him. While his horse lies dead, the men come after Jack, but the Yellowstone gang intervenes, ultimately besting the sheepherders.
In fact, they so overtake the sheepherders that they not only capture their entire herd, which they send down to the reservation, but also the men. After Jacob pistol whips Banner a few times, he reminds him of the promise he made outside the courthouse not so long ago. Banner balks, telling Jacob, "It's the f-ing twentieth century and you're going to hang us for keeping my sheep from starving?"
Jacob seemingly takes his point and instead chooses to almost hang all the men, putting them on their horses under trees with nooses around their necks. It's a race against time to see if the sheepherders can get out in time, and, of course, only Banner manages to do it, and even then it's a struggle. He'll no doubt leave this interaction with a bee in his bonnet and a grudge to settle against Jacob.
Teonna is still raging against the boarding school machine
To put it bluntly: If what we're seeing in 1923 is accurate—and there's no reason to believe it's not—American Indian boarding schools were pure hell on Earth. The native women we see each ep seem to be beaten like dogs, worked to the bone, and whitewashed beyond belief. They're fed maggots and given remedial and/or incomplete instruction, meaning it's no wonder that girls like Teonna would rebel against the racist white figures pushing them down. This episode, that meant that Teonna was left out in some box to catch her death, a procedure that could probably account for at least some of the kids that went "missing" from the schools. And don't even get us started on the subsequent sexual abuse she faced, which came when she was too ill and weak to resist. Every week her situation gets harder and harder to watch, meaning we shudder to think how hard it would be to actually live through it.
Not that there were many options for girls like Teonna...
As we also saw in this episode, going to the school wasn't exactly Teonna's choice. She was taken from her grandmother's home on the reservation after her mother died and her father went off to tend to the tribe's herd. The white people, including the reservation superintendent, believed that her grandmother's house didn't qualify as Teonna's "primary residence," meaning she couldn't attend the day school just a quarter mile from where she lived.
It's total garbage, obviously, and just another example of racist policies ruining families, lives, and generations of people. Her grandmother is hopefully going to head to see a magistrate to solve her issue, but we've gotta say: Given how unhelpful the superintendent was, we're not all that optimistic.
Jack + Elizabeth = Drama
There's a scene in this week's episode where Helen Mirren's Cara and Marley Shelton's Emma sit out on the Dutton family's well-loved stone porch. They're talking about the impending nuptials of Jack and Elizabeth, and what Emma hoped her son's new bride would be like. It seems she thinks Jack is a bit reckless, and she'd hoped any future wife of his would be able to tame that back a bit, a suggestion Cara scoffs at. "It seems your son is marrying gasoline," she tells Emma, "and the fire will only get bigger." We'll have to see what that means in episodes to come, but from the trailer for the season, it does look like their relationship is pretty dramatic!
Alexandra is playing with fire
When Duttons fall in love, it seems to come quick and fast. That certainly seems to be what's happening with Spencer and his British heiress Alexandra, who dashes away from her engagement at the end of the episode to hop into his moving car. So far nothing untoward has happened between the pair—at least, by 2022 standards—but it's pretty scandalous that Alexandra is leaving behind her friends, family, and arranged marriage for a dude she barely knows. Granted, he's a famous hunter who also happens to be a hunk, but Alexandra is still taking a pretty big leap of faith to throw in her lot with Spencer. We've got to think they'll end up getting hitched— Yellowstone romances seem to work out, for the most part—so we can't wait to watch them smolder and sizzle all the way to the altar.
READ MORE: Where is '1923' Filmed? The 'Yellowstone' Prequel's Filming Locations, From Malta to Montana
