SD enterprise: The Best ‘Yellowstone’ Show Yet

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1923 Is the Best Yellowstone Show Yet

Hello! Welcome to the second edition of The Cliff-Hanger. If this is your first time here, I hope you're ready to dive into this week's heart-pounding episode of 1923, which is easily Taylor Sheridan's darkest work yet. But first, we need to discuss a piece of entertainment news that is shaking and stirring audiences everywhere: Amazon acquiring creative control of James Bond's future. (I will connect this back to the Sheridan-verse, I promise!)

Naturally, 007 fans fear that the company that slings toilet paper and cat food might turn the iconic film franchise into a slew of mediocre TV shows and Disney World-esque theme parks. Those fears are certainly not unwarranted. Almost every media company nowadays gobbles up intellectual property just to regurgitate messy, underbaked versions of what you loved before. I'll never forgive Disney for what they did to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Paramount is one of the only studios that still dares to employ an outdated strategy: One creator. One pen. The company put all of its trust into the idea machine that is Taylor Sheridan—and it paid off. Aside from Yellowstone and its spin-offs, the writer is also behind Landman, Lioness, Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, and Lawman: Bass Reeves. Every original series has been a hit with fans.

The top five shows on Paramount+ are all helmed by Sheridan, with 1923's season 2 premiere garnering 5.4 million viewers last week. Hell, Landman's premiere even shattered that number last year by drawing in 14.6 million viewers, according to Variety. That's as much viewership as the premieres for Shōgun and The Bear season 3 garnered… combined.

"When I quit acting, I decided that I am going to tell my stories my way, period," Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. "The freedom of the artist to create must be unfettered… if I have to check in creatively with others for a story I've wholly built in my brain, that would probably be the end of me telling TV stories."

Keywords here: "Wholly built in my brain." I don't need seventy James Bond prequels. I just want one good story. And Sheridan knows that better than anyone.

In this week's 1923 episode, Sheridan continues to flex his stranglehold on the modern Western. First off, he finally finds a place for Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar) in this American tapestry. If I gave you 1,000 guesses, I'm sure you would never land on our Dutton hero squaring off with the Italian mafia. Spencer wades knee-deep in illegal booze in episode 2, as he makes a deal with a fictionalized version of the Maceo family to transport their bootlegged liquor on his way back to Montana. I could go on all day about Sheridan's revisionist history here, but the short and sweet explanation is that a character in 1923 now has a direct connection to Martin Scorsese's Casino.

Sheridan also introduces audiences to Mamie Fossett (Jennifer Carpenter), the female deputy U.S. marshal of Anadarko, Oklahoma. Mamie tells the bozo Marshal from Montana (Jamie McShane) and Father Renaud (Sebastian Roché) to abandon their search for Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves) unless they want to find themselves six-feet in the ground. "Comanche only respect that badge if it respects them back," she tells them. "Many a marshal's found their way into a pine box learning that lesson." She's also based on a real person from the Old West. It seems I'll need to keep my eyes open for historical figures entering the Yellowstone universe moving forward. Who's next? Al Capone?

Back in Montana, Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren) ends the episode on this newsletter's namesake. Giving the Dutton family matriarch a shotgun has paid off as one of Sheridan's greatest ideas yet, and she puts the weapon to work again in episode 2. So, Mirren blasts a ferocious animal for the second week in a row and screams bloody murder—this time, off-screen!

Her husband, Jacob (Harrison Ford), wasn't there to help protect her—not that she needs it, clearly—because he went into town to deal with another mess entirely. His ranch manager, Zane (Brian Geraghty), was arrested for miscegenation. In case you were wondering: It's a racist law that sought to stop people from marrying outside of their race. Jacob quickly dismantles it when he meets with the local judge.

As I wrote about more in-depth in my full recap of episode 2, the law is hypocrisy in Sheridan's works. Generally, people are going to figure out how to do whatever they want no matter what anyone tells them. It's the most that Sheridan's own philosophies appear in Yellowstone, simply because it aligns with the Dutton family mythos that no one can tell them what they can or can't do. As Sheridan said in the quote above, "I am going to tell my stories my way, period." Few have the luxury, but he's certainly earned it.

Tonight, the Oscars plan to honor longtime James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson with a musical tribute to Hollywood's favorite spy. It's as if the Academy is recognizing Bond's death with his own in memoriam segment. But as I listen to what's hopefully the best medley of Bond songs ever performed live ("Live and Let Die" better make the cut), I'll just sit there hoping that Jeff Bezos doesn't write Sheridan a blank check someday.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next Sunday. Have thoughts or theories you need to share before then? Send me an email at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.

READ THE RECAP

The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week

Winner: Pizza

During Spencer Dutton's run-in with the Italian mafia, the World War I veteran tries pizza for the first time. As a New Yorker, I can't speak for Texas-style pies, but that 1923 pizza must have truly hit different.

Loser: The Nurse

After treating Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph) for rabies, the traveling nurse swears that she's "fine on the sofa" as she waits out the blizzard. No, you are not! The wolf breaks into their house and devours the nurse first. Lesson learned: Never settle for the sofa.

Winner: Jennifer Carpenter

I wasn't joking when I said that Mamie Fosset could have her own spin-off after this. If she can saddle up and put on a good show in further episodes this season, I'm certain that audiences would love a Yellowstone-meets-Lioness series about a female deputy U.S. marshal.

Loser: Any Man on Screen Who Is Larger Than Spencer Dutton

Spencer's arc looks a lot like Reacher this season. Sheridan keeps lining up larger and more muscular men than our Dutton hero—and Spencer keeps on knockin' them down.

Winner: Cara Dutton's Shotgun (Again!)

Back-to-back kills for Cara Dutton!I hope that she survives the cliff-hanger at the end of episode 2, because she's quickly becoming my favorite character. Her joke this week about refrigerators? Priceless.