On Screen: “1923: Season 2”
1923: Season 2
First there was “Yellowstone,” Taylor Sheridan’s Montana-set dynastic drama, starring Kevin Costner as the Dutton patriarch. Then came “1883,” a wagon train prequel, featuring country singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw as ill-fated early settlers, James and Margaret Dutton, whose daughter Elsa (Isabel May) serves as narrator from beyond the grave.
That was followed by “1923,” introducing Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as Jacob and Cara Dutton, Elsa’s childless great-aunt and uncle, who raised Elsa’s surviving brothers: John Dutton Jr. (James Badge Dale) who dies early in “1923,” and Spencer Dutton (Brandon Skelnar).
When we meet Spencer Dutton, he’s a WWI war hero battling PTSD by lion hunting in Africa. That’s where he meets an adventurous Brit, Alexandra Sussex (Julia Schlaepfer), who breaks her aristocratic engagement to run off with him.
Meanwhile, the survival of the Dutton ranch is threatened by sadistic business tycoon Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton), prompting Cara to write to Spencer, explaining the dire situation, and begging him to return home.
En route to America, however, elephant gun-toting Spencer and now-pregnant Alex are forcibly separated, yet both are determined to arrive in Bozeman in time to save the Dutton ranch.
In a parallel story, abused Crow teenager Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves) is eluding bounty hunters led by a priest who is determined to wreak revenge because she refused to culturally assimilate; obviously “Yellowstone” Chief Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) is one of her descendants.
Writer-director Taylor Sheridan split “1923” into two seasons, the second having just concluded — and Western sagas don’t get more intriguing than this.
Cliffhanger: Who are the parents of John Dutton II (Dabney Coleman), the father of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton III? On the basis of the final “1923” episode, it could be Spencer and Alexandra, yet Spencer’s nephew Jack’s beleaguered fiancée Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph) was pregnant when she left the ranch to return east. Perhaps we’ll find out in “1944,” the next prequel in the “Yellowstone” franchise.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “1923: Season 2” scores an exciting 8 — mixing hardship and pain with adventure and romance. All episodes are now available on Paramount+.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.