Things can get a little confusing when you start a new TV series, and Yellowstone prequel 1923 is no exception. Just exactly who is Harrison Ford playing? How do Spencer and Jack Dutton work into the family tree, and how does any of that relate to leopard hunts and sheep wrangling? Don't worry, though: We've got you covered. Here are 8 key things we noticed watching the series premiere of 1923.
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Harrison Ford's character is Tim McGraw's character's brother
As the narrator lays out in the opening of 1923 (she might sound familiar -- Elsa Dutton, who also narrated 1883), Ford's character, Jacob Dutton, was called in to take over the family land after the death of McGraw's James Dutton in 1893. (If you recall, he ran afoul of some horse thieves in a Yellowstone season 4 flashback.) James' sons, Spencer and John, were just kids at the time, so it makes sense that James' widow, Margaret (Faith Hill), would want some help around the ranch and that she'd seek out family help. It's a little unclear what subsequently happened to Margaret, but given that it's been 30 years since the death of her husband and frontier living seems to be hard as hell, it's probably a fair assumption that she's left this mortal coil.
So far, I'm also wondering what Jacob's backstory is and how he came to be this all-powerful cowboy and local badass, but hopefully, we'll come to find that out as the season rolls on. For now, let's just assume it's Dutton power.
We've actually met John and Spencer Dutton before
Unless you consulted IMDb before watching 1923, you were probably a little confused about who was who. Jacob and Cara were easy enough to place, but what about the younger guys hanging around the ranch, or the gadabout shooting lions in Africa?
As it turns out, that firebrand bush hunter is Spencer Dutton, who viewers of 1883 wouldn't recognize as James and Margaret's younger son because he just appeared in that one Yellowstone season 4 flashback scene. He served in WWI, clearly went through some stuff, and has subsequently been off trying to outrun his nightmares in Africa. In 1923, Spencer is played by Brandon Sklenar, and given the events of episode one, we're interested to see where his whole story goes.
Meanwhile, his older brother, John Dutton Sr., has been at home holding down things on the ranch with his uncle, Jacob. John Sr. is played by the always great James Badge Dale, and you might have noticed him alongside his relation at the bar. He's got a fairly dirty cowboy hat on, and he's not as front-and-center as Ford, but one has to assume that Dutton Sr.'s story will get at least some play given that he's the patriarch of the line we've all come to know and love in Yellowstone.
Here's the deal with the whole "soda shop" situation
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect on January 17, 1920, and was intended to effectively end the sale, consumption, or distribution of alcohol in the United States. While it's now widely recognized as a failure given that it was repealed 13 years later and we certainly don't shy away from booze now, it's worth noting that many scholars agree that prior to the 18th Amendment, alcohol consumption was fairly out of control in much of the country, with more than a few people being hospitalized for alcoholism, liver-related medical problems, or because they'd hurt while drinking—or hurt by someone who'd been drinking. (Some scholars have suggested that the prevalence of widespread domestic violence pre-prohibition is one of the reasons why so many temperance activists were women.) Many men spent the majority of their time and paychecks in their local saloon, too, leaving their wives and kids to starve at home.
That's why, in 1923, the bar Jacob and company go to while in Bozeman is a "soda shop," at least on the outside. Soda fountains experienced a huge boom during prohibition, as people looked for both something to do with their old bar space or just something to do with their free time. Soda jerks invented drinks like the Lime Rickey and now ubiquitous drinks like Coca-Cola started becoming more and more popular. While 1923's soda shop is anything but once you walk through the doors, it's easy to see why the saloonkeeper would think the cover would at least give him some plausible deniability.
A look back at Montana's Scotch-Irish history
Unless you're a Montana historian, you probably don't know about the robust influx of Scottish and Irish immigrants to the region in the late 1800s. Many Irish immigrants were drawn to the region during the Irish Potato Famine in the middle of the century, while others came later to work in the copper mines throughout the state. In Butte, for instance, at the turn of the 20th century, nearly a quarter of the town's population was made up of Irish immigrants, with many coming from Cork, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry, Cavan, and Wexford.
The Scots were also early immigrants to Montana, long before the region was truly settled by other European Americans. Many fur traders were of Scottish descent, as were people like Allan Pinkerton, who founded the detective agency that bears his name. Scottish investors also funded the Great Plains cattle boom of the 1880s, with a consortium of Dundee businessmen owning The Matador Land and Cattle Company, which ranched from Texas to Saskatchewan until about 1951.
Many Scots were drawn to Montana in particular because of the promise of farmable land, since owning land was virtually impossible in their native country. Many of those farmers were also sheepherders, and by 1890 sheep were the most prominent stock being shipped into the state. Even today, though cattle make up the biggest part of Montana's livestock, sheep come in a close second.
What was with that gun-toting Helen Mirren in the opening?
I'm a little fuzzy on why Helen Mirren's Cara was stalking and killing some (presumably) bad guy toward the opening of the 1923 premiere, but I'm also not mad at it. She's long shown she's a badass, especially in movies like the Fast And The Furious franchise, so I hope that the show gives that 77-year-old woman a chance to raise hell on screen any chance they can.
And what is Jacob's role in local government?
Is he in livestock management, like Kayce? He has a star badge, so it seems like a solid assumption, but he could also be a sort of ranger, like James was. Either way, he seems important enough that he can get the town (and a whole board of ranchers) to listen to him, so we have to believe that speaking truth to power and seeming authoritative runs in the family.\
The long and brutal history of American Indian Boarding Schools
Over the past few years, a lot has been coming out about the history of Canada's reservation schools and the government has made a lot of moves toward reparations and atonement for the facilities, which basically committed cultural genocide on generations of First Nations people north of the border.
As 1923 serves to remind us, the same thing was going on down here in America, too, though we haven't done nearly as much apologizing for it. There were more than 350 boarding schools for indigenous youth in America throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, many of them run by various churches. By 1926, it's estimated that about 83 percent of native children were in boarding schools, a figure that's particularly staggering because it wasn't by choice: Hundreds of thousands of native children were forcibly taken from their homes, shipped hundreds of miles away, and forced to assimilate, lest they face beatings, starvation, or worse. As scholars have noted, many children never returned home from the schools and the U.S. government has yet to answer for those disappearances.
Getting attacked by a leopard is unsurprisingly pretty awful
During the 1923 premiere, Spencer is tasked with hunting and killing a leopard that's come sniffing around a safari camp in Kenya. (Why this camp didn't up and move all the people away is another story, but man's hubris knows no bounds.) As we see in the episode—spoiler alert!—leopards kill by pouncing on their prey, going for either the front or the nape of the neck, and then drag their prey up into a tree.
There have been many man-eating leopards throughout the years (and that whole "once they get a taste of human blood" thing is true!) and many, many people who didn't actually die from the initial attack later succumbed to infection after the leopard's teeth introduced nasty bacteria into their bloodstreams. So good luck, Spencer! Here's hoping that last shot looked worse than it actually was.
READ MORE: The Newest Generation of 'Yellowstone' Duttons: A '1923' Character Guide
