The Yellowstone story continues with the launch of 1923 on Paramount+, with the first episode revealing what a different world it was almost 100 years ago.
Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren lead the cast in Taylor Sheridan's third addition to the Yellowstone universe, which picks up the stories and characters from 1883, four decades later.
The first episode of 1923 introduces a number of new characters, but the action mainly takes place in a trio of distinct locations, so this recap will be split up into three separate parts.
Keep reading to find out what happened in the first episode of 1923, which is also titled "1923."
Yellowstone Ranch in 1923
Just like in the premiere of 1883, we open with a flashforward of an event that is likely to happen later down the line. This scene shows Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren) chasing down an injured Scottish man with a shotgun in hand.
Once she catches him, he begs for his life, but she goes to shoot him anyway. Her chamber is empty, giving him a chance to reload and shoot her, but Cara beats him to it and manages to end his life before letting out a bloodcurdling scream.
The first surprise for viewers then arrives as Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) is back to narrate the events of 1883. She informs the viewer that her parents, James and Margaret, died in 1893, making orphans of John and Spencer Dutton.
Margaret had written to Jacob Dutton, who arrived to raise the boys and make an empire out of the Yellowstone ranch. Ominously, Elsa also suggests that only one of the Dutton children would survive and watch their own children grow, meaning there's another death on the horizon for the family.
Eventually, we meet Jacob (Ford) who is looking over his cattle, many of which are dead.
After the credits, Jacob and his men ride their horses into town. The world's moved on drastically since 1883, as his horses are now riding on roads, next to cars and fancy carts, alongside buildings and powerlines. He sees a boxing match taking place in broad daylight, and women protesting in favor of prohibition.
We discover Jacob is likely the state livestock commissioner, and he's arrived in town to meet the sheriff (Robert Patrick) to solve a dispute with local sheepherders. It's mayhem at the meeting, and the sheriff has to break up a brawl between the Scottish and Irish by firing his gun in the air.
Land disputes between sheepherders and cattlemen get tense, and Jacob sends them away unhappy with his verdict. It seems locusts have eaten all the grass, which has made it tough for the animals to survive. Outside, Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn) confronts Jacob, guns are drawn, but everyone survives.
Later, we arrive at ranch, and although it's a century earlier, the landscape and buildings look very familiar to what we see in the modern-day Yellowstone. We meet loyal ranch hand Zane (Brian Geraghty) and John Dutton Sr's son Jack (Darren Mann), who's helping to tame colts.
When Jacob and John Dutton (James Badge Dale) arrive home, they inform Jack that they're going to have to work on the day of his supposed wedding. He seems fine with it, but they warn him about how he tells his bride-to-be the bad news.
Sure enough, when he tells Elizabeth Strafford (Michelle Randolph) the bad news, she doesn't take it well, and in a roundabout way, she tells him to make love to his precious cattle on a hilltop. Cara arrives to explain the situation delicately to Elizabeth who is now more accepting, and the young couple make up.
Later that night, we see the sheepherders, led by Banner, cut through a fence to let their sheep onto someone else's land.
The following morning, we see the distress the cowboy life has on Cara, John's wife Emma (Marley Shelton) and now Elizabeth, as they see the men ride off to herd their cattle on further land.
The last we see of these riders in this episode is when Jack stumbles upon the sheep. While looking off into the distance, he sees a man with a gun on a horse. The last thing we hear from this part of the episode is a gun being fired.
Hunting Leopards in Nairobi
Meanwhile, Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar), the youngest of James's sons, is off adventuring in Nairobi, Kenya. We first meet him hunting and shooting a lion, before he takes a train journey to take on another mission.
While he's asleep, we see he's still haunted by the horrors he saw in World War I, and he nearly shoots a ticket inspector after he wakes up because he's so shaken.
Spencer arrives at a camp, occupied by rich British travelers. A beautiful woman takes a shine to Spencer's gruff ways and flirts with him in front of her own husband, but Spencer keeps his eyes on the task at hand, since he's there to hunt down a leopard that has been terrorizing the camp.
Later on, as Spencer puts his plan into action, we see that the flirtatious woman has been mauled and killed by the leopard. Spencer shoots it, but is then attacked by a second one unexpectedly.
School for American Indians
Out in the middle of nowhere, we see three distinct buildings, which is the location of a government residential boarding school, named the School for American Indians. Inside, we see a number of young Native American girls are being taught at a school by nuns.
One strict teacher, Sister Mary O'Connor (Jennifer Ehle), pushes her student Teonna (Aminah Nieves) too far. Teonna fights back after being caned too many times. They're both then brought to the office of Father Renaud (Sebastian Roche), a French priest.
He punishes both women brutally for their role in the altercation. First, he punishes Sister Mary until Teonna begs him to stop. She's not so lucky, though, as he whips the exposed skin on the back of her thighs.
Later, a tense, drawn-out scene shown Teonna in distress as she baths, under the guidance and instruction from the nuns. Seeing the blood on the ground, Sister Mary informs her that it is in both of their interest to get along in future.
At night, Teonna is telling her classmate about the punishment she received, and suggests that neither of them is going to live long enough to graduate in a year, let alone find a husband one day. She says that they "need to get out of this place," perhaps pre-empting an escape plan.
The next episode of "1923" will launch next Sunday, Christmas Day, on Paramount+.
Update and corrections 12/20/2022, 05:10 a.m. ET: This article was updated with more information and to correct a spelling error. Jacob's job title was also changed from town commissioner to state livestock commissioner.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Jamie Burton is a Newsweek Senior TV and Film Reporter (Interviews) based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
