Critic’s Rating: 2.25 / 5.0
2.25
What can possibly come after this?
1923 Season 2 Episode 6 wiped out seven characters and left another without much hope of survival. I fear that Taylor Sheridan has no happy endings in store for the Duttons, no matter when or where they live.
Watching a TV show can alter your mood. I’ve been carrying around this sense of grief for two weeks now, and I’m not even sure how to unpack it.
The good news is that you’re all here beside me now. We can grieve together. And although it makes no sense whatsoever for me that Alex could possibly survive, the description for 1923 Season 2 Episode 7 suggests that she “braves the cold.”
If Paul could barely get 15 feet in the blistering cold, I don’t see how a pregnant woman stands a chance amidst snow drifts and miles of barren land.
But let’s back up a bit and talk about some more devastating endings. Why the hell not, right?
Remember back in our 1923 Season 2 Episode 1 review when I mentioned that it was so lovely that Teonna was our beacon of light right out of the gate?
Unless she’s pregnant already, any future happiness will be a long time coming. Even if she is carrying Pete’s baby, it will be a bittersweet cap for the last few years of her life.
Yes, Pete is dead, as is his horse. Don’t even get me started on how much both of their deaths hurt. Teonna could sense it, but her dad just kept hoping for the best.
All that got him was killed.
The partially good news? Father Renaud finally had enough of the murderous marshal and capped his nasty ass. Unfortunately, Father Renaud was left alive, and he was slinking through the brush like a ninja, suddenly coming up on Teonna and Runs His Horse as if he spent a lifetime in the trenches.
It was ridiculous and insulting that anyone would think we would buy this from a friggin’ priest. Yes, the Native Americans are the good guys here, but they have been forced to fight for their lives for a long time. That a priest got one over on them is too much.
Maybe Runs His Horse’s words to Teonna sank in. If she doesn’t survive and carry on for her people, they won’t be around to right the wrongs they suffered in the past. They’ll be obliterated, and history will be written for them.
Maybe that’s what inspired her to keep going when things got progressively worse, or maybe it was just that she’d had enough of Renaud and his antics.
Either way, watching her take him down with a pan of hot ashes and multiple stabbings was cathartic.
I can only take pleasure in knowing that eventually, her people will be vindicated. What’s funny is that the Duttons will be imperative in that part of her story, but they not had a chance to butt heads so far. They’re not even in the same orbit.
Oh well. The ends justify the means in this story.
Before Teonna even began her assault on Renaud after everyone she loved was dead, Jack Dutton had already lost his life.
The Dutton story in this episode began hopeful and playful, but it didn’t last long. They haven’t even set things right after the chicken coop debacle before the pendulum swings in their direction again, sucking the life out of the youngest Dutton.
That morning, he admitted he’d miss eating beans for breakfast, making his wife giggle. It was a welcome sound after she’d been so far down the rabbit hole of unhappiness.
Well, Jack never has to eat eggs again, and if Elizabeth doesn’t kill herself after this, I’ll be shocked as hell.
Sheriff Bill delivered the good news about Spencer’s impending arrival, which set the whole thing in motion.
Zane is still down after his head injury, but he’s eager to get back to business. Jacob is intelligent enough to know he has to lie low and heal, but that kindness inadvertently killed his grandnephew.
Jack liked to think he knew more than he did and that he could make good decisions for the family. One such decision, to go after Jacob so he wouldn’t be alone waiting for Spencer when Whitfield’s men were all around, was exceedingly bad.
When he met up with Banner’s men in the woods, it was obvious he wouldn’t make it out alive. His youthful bravado was his downfall. That hurt. But for Elizabeth, it will be the end of her world. Jacob told Elizabeth that she was Jack’s sunrise. The same could be said for Elizabeth.
One scenario in which I see her surviving is if Spencer comes home, Alex dies in a snowbank, and Spencer and Elizabeth are the missing link in John Dutton’s family tree, coming together out of grief to raise a child as their last chance to carry on the Dutton name.
If that’s not depressing, I don’t know what is. Elizabeth may surprise us. After all, the Irishwoman on the train with Alex proved to what lengths you’ll go to protect your children. Elizabeth is a mom now. Here’s hoping she fights like one to survive.
On the plus side, the sheriff is on the Duttons’ side.
It didn’t seem that way during 1923 Season 2 Episode 5, but he was being pragmatic in wanting to keep Spencer away. He’s like me. If you bury your head in the sand, maybe the worst that will happen won’t happen at all.
We can see how that worked out.
Spencer is making his way home, finally with an actual train ticket to a sleeping car and everything. Not that he can sleep. His mind is focused as always. He wants to get home and take care of business. Has he even been thinking about Alex? Has he had the time?
As another snowbank threatened his travels, the conductor offered him options for various other routes, and one of them would have had him cross with Alex if she had gotten stuck in Fargo.
Her fear of that instead led her to accept a ride from a couple as clueless about traveling the American West as Alex herself.
We barely got to know Paul and Hillary before they were dead. They seemed to be fun-loving and compassionate, but when the weather got bad and they just kept holding hands, driving headfirst into a bad storm, I wondered if they were somewhat suicidal.
You can be adventurous, but you can’t be idiotic about it. They were both.
When they stopped for gas and learned it was the last station before their destination, they should have all bid each other adieu, with Alex taking her chances on another train, this time, paid for by the generosity of her new friends.
Alas, that was not their choice, and Alex is stranded in the middle of I don’t even know where without a snow plow in sight.
Yeah, I don’t imagine she’ll be rescued by a hot guy in a snow plow like on a Hallmark movie. It’s desolate out there. That car looked like a tiny little speck as the camera pulled back.
Nobody knew they were there or that Alex was coming that route other than the gas station attendant, and she’s not likely to think about them again.
Sure, I could cling to the fact that the episode description says she braves the cold, but this episode suggested that Teonna reunited with a face from the past, and Alex caught a lucky break in her journey. Hardly what I’d call lucky.
As for Teonna, the next episode also claims she has a fateful run-in. Who is left to run into? I could try to guess that it might be Spencer, converging these two stories, but they’re nowhere near each other anymore.
Elsa’s voice-over at the end of the episode suggested that they could all die because only the Earth prevails. Hell, at this point, it might be best for them all to succumb to nature rather than constantly being kicked in the face by one thing or another.
I’m tired. My mood is shot. My precious Spencer and Alexandra may never see each other again. How in the hell can this story be wrapped up in one episode? Yes, you read that right. We don’t get the full eight promised. The hits keep coming (although it’s said to be close to two hours).
I’ve been skeptical that there could be another season, but now I’m wondering how there couldn’t be. At the rate we’re going, we’ll be ending mid-fight scene just like the epic finale of Angel. At least we know the Dutton line continues.
Then again, we have to wonder how many characters will still be alive by the end of 1923 Season 2. They’re dropping like flies!
What do you think about “The Mountain Teeth of Monsters”? Does Alex stand a chance? How will Elizabeth take Jack’s death? How will any of them shoulder that loss?
Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.
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