1883 Delivers a Bloody Gut-Punch in Two-Episode Premiere

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the first two episodes of 1883! Read at your own risk.] 

1883 has finally arrived, and I gotta say I'm fully on board. There's just something about the 1880s that I find particularly fascinating, especially when it comes to being a woman at that time. Parts of the world were bustling and brimming with society and class systems and industry, while relatively nearby, there was wilderness, where laws and social rules no longer mattered until white settlers made them matter again, for some reason ,as they trekked across the country and took land away from the Native Americans already living there. 

The series is narrated by and told from the perspective of Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), the teenage daughter of James (Tim McGraw) and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill), ancestors of Yellowstone's central family. They're on a journey out west from Tennessee, and in the first episode, they get roped into joining Pinkerton agent Shea (Sam Elliott), his associate Thomas (LaMonica Garrett) and a woefully unprepared but determined group of immigrants who want to go to Oregon. Shea, Thomas ,and James all have a lot of concerns, starting with "everyone needs a gun," and "nobody had better have smallpox." 

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Tease the Yellowstone Connections in 1883

The Dutton party also includes Elsa's younger brother John (Audie Rick), James' widowed sister Claire (Dawn Olivieri), and Claire's obedient daughter Mary Abel (Emma Malouff), who does not like Elsa one bit. She's also got quite an attitude towards Margaret and the fact that she, a woman, likes coffee, and I immediately both hated her and loved her as a foil. Then, she was violently killed.

In Episode 2, James had taken a bunch of the men and Elsa, because she's a skilled rider, out to wrangle some cattle, leaving the camp largely unprotected by the kind of people (men) who would intimidate anyone (men) who might pose a threat. When a few of those threatening men arrived at camp and the women tried to chase them away with shotguns, they simply rode through the camp and shot wildly. I thought Claire had been hit, but then it turned out she was just utterly distraught over her last remaining child being killed, leaving her completely alone. The men who did the killing were quickly disposed of by the local sheriff, who simply shot them while they were drinking in the saloon, but the damage was done. Claire asked to be left behind when the group was moving on, and James left her with a gun. He then watched her shoot herself in the head. 

So that's what we're dealing with here. Things are dark, even darker than some of Yellowstone's hardest moments. But we're seeing it all through the eyes of a young woman on the brink of adulthood who, if the bloody first scene of the first episode is any indication, is about to have her optimism shattered in ways that are hopefully going to be compelling, if heartbreaking, to watch. 

A few notes: 

-At the beginning of Episode 2, we're faced with an uncomfortable truth thanks to a flashback to the Civil War. James is one of very few Confederate survivors of the Battle of Antietam, and we watch him come to terms with the situation as Union Soldier Tom Hanks arrives and comforts him. We then learn via Elsa's voiceover that James then spent three years in a Union prison, and now, he is not proud of having fought in the war, lies about having fought in it, and does not acknowledge it when any fellow soldiers approach him. It's good to know that James seems to no longer believe in what his side was fighting for, but I'm gonna need a little more than that scene going forward.

-Shea is clearly going to be a fun character, if "fun" is the right word. He's menacing, but sympathetic, especially after we watched him lose his family to smallpox and have to burn the house down. "You're not too sure from moment to moment what you're going to get from Shea," Elliott told TV Guide. "He's a complicated character for a number of reasons. Number one, he's a veteran of the Civil War. He saw a lot of brothers in arms die, and he killed a lot of people in the process. He travels with a Black man who's his closest friend and ally. He loses his wife and daughter in the first episode, and he takes on this job of transporting these immigrants to Oregon and loses a lot of them along the way, and he's deeply affected by that and shows a lot of compassion for them. At the same time, he's willing to pull out a gun and kill a thief." 

-If you too are a fan of this time period or are just looking for some new books to read, I've got two recommendations: The Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn, and the Rose Gallagher mysteries by Erin Lindsey. The third installment in the Rose Gallagher books is even set in Montana. 

1883 is streaming on Paramount+ Watch Now