In the first third of 1883’s premiere, you’ll see a burning wagon and a man burning down his house after losing his daughter and wife to smallpox. That sets the tone for the rest of the series about the ruthless origin story of the Dutton family finding the ranch that will eventually become the Yellowstone. Now, as a fan of the Yellowstone shows, I expect violence, brutality and devastation. However, when I watched 1883 for the first time, it hit differently than the rest of them in all those departments.
The Challenges The Characters In 1883 Face Feel More Grounded And Realistic
Overall, 1883 is the most brutal Yellowstone show by far, and that’s saying a lot. Both Yellowstone and its other spinoff 1923 are violent and dramatic to the point that you have to suspend your belief a bit. However, 1883 feels more grounded, and the challenges they face are simple yet deadly. So, that’s why this show hit so much harder than Taylor Sheridan’s other Westerns.
The majority of the intense moments in this series are centered around natural challenges that would be easily solvable or avoidable these days. For example, one of the events in the show that caused the most casualties was when the caravan of pioneers had to cross a river.
While there are bandit attacks and some big action, for the most part, the challenges in 1883 are grounded and based on day-to-day hardships that came with traversing across the country with nothing but wagons, horses and cows.
There’s no train station yet to take all those who have wronged the ranch, no one has been attacked by a lion and in a boat wreck in one season. 1883’s drama is centered primarily around survival, and it feels a lot more realistic which makes it a lot scarier.
Can We Take A Minute To Talk About The Tragic Yet Heroic Tale Of Sam Elliott’s Shea?
As I mentioned at the top of the story, this show starts with a man burning down his house after his wife and daughter died of smallpox. That man is Sam Elliott’s Shea, a Civil War veteran who helps lead a group of pioneers West.
That opening scene happens long before he meets the pioneers in Texas, and it is the backbone of his story. Later on in the series, when Elsa loses her first love Ennis (who was a ranchhand moving cattle with the group), Shea reveals that he’s going to make it to Oregon so he can take his wife to the ocean.
In the final moments of the show, we learn that Sam Elliott’s character did make it to the ocean, and the story ends with him shooting himself in the head.
His tale is truly tragic, however, it’s simultaneously a big part of the heart of 1883. When the families in the group of pioneers lose loved ones, he feels that pain, and while he tries to hide it, he’s clearly impacted by it. As a viewer, I could feel the weight Shea was carrying between his past and the pressure of getting these people to Oregon. While he ultimately accomplishes his goal, it wasn’t without great loss.
When it came to how fans saw the show, Sam Elliott said he didn’t want 1883 to feel like a Yellowstone spinoff. And Shea’s story is one of the reasons why it doesn’t. Yes, it has obvious connections to the flagship Western, and it is the Dutton’s origin story. However, this project has a gritty voice of its own, and part of that comes through Elliott’s character's tragic and heroic story.
No Death In The Yellowstone Universe Has Hit Harder Than Elsa’s
Speaking of tragic and heroic, while Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Sam Elliott are the first three names listed in the 1883 cast, the show really centers around Isabel May’s Elsa Dutton.
She’s the oldest daughter of McGraw’s James and Hill’s Margaret, and she’s the voice of the show.
As the caravan made its way west, Elsa’s voiceover provides a profound inner monologue about the lessons they were learning and the challenges they were working to overcome. At the start, she was a bright-eyed girl who was excited about what the world had to offer. By the end, she was a cowboy who was jaded by everything she’d been through.
Due to all of this, she was the character I became the closest too, so you can understand why I was shattered when she died.
She didn’t die quickly, either. Her death stretched out across a full episode and change. We had to watch her slowly lose her strength, which meant we also had to watch her parents grieve her before she was even dead. Then, seeing her take her final breaths in her father’s arms under a tree that would eventually be on the Yellowstone ranch was shattering.
In the grand scheme of things, Elsa’s death was the beginning of the Dutton legacy we know, because where she died marked where they settled in Montana. However, it also marked the tragic end to this journey.
While they technically succeeded with this series, James and Margaret lost so much, and Elsa’s death was the final note of this terribly sad chapter.
Learning About James And Margaret’s Fate In 1923 Makes The Show Even More Brutal
On top of the series breaking your heart as a whole, it has an aftershock in its follow-up series 1923, which I also watched for the first time recently.
This spinoff follows James’ brother Jacob and his wife Cara years after the wagon journey.
Elsa narrates the beginning of the first episode, and it’s quickly revealed that after James died and Margaret froze to death, Jacob and Cara had to step in to raise their sons, John Sr. and Spencer. Ultimately, they really didn’t live long after that initial journey, and their sons spent most of their lives without their parents.
So, the intro to 1923 is like twisting a knife in the injury 1883 left, making that adventure and what came after it even more brutal. James and Margaret didn’t get to grow old on the land they worked so hard to get to, and it adds to the questions they were asking for the entire show about whether this move was worth it.
Obviously, it was, because we know the Dutton empire has lived on for well over 100 years. However, it breaks my heart to know for certain that the people who traveled all this way to Montana never got to see the fruits of their labor.
It’s the culmination of all of this that makes 1883 so deeply moving and tragic, and it’s why this show hits so different compared to the other series in the Yellowstone universe.
Now, while 1883 won’t get a Season 2, the Dutton story will continue on as Yellowstone Season 5B prepares to premiere on the 2024 TV schedule on November 10. To go back and watch James, Margaret, Elsa, Shea and co’s ruthless journey west, you can stream 1883 with a Paramount+ subscription.
