“We have sold the last of our herd, keeping only four bulls and 100 heifers. The seeds with which you must rebuild the ranch that trickery and laws drafted by loan sharks have stripped from us. The road to Bozeman is snowed over now, passable only on horseback. Our movement is restricted to the lodge and the pastures around the barn until spring. We dare not kill a beef, so the men hunt. Gone are the great feasts of summer. It is stews and stale bread and bland fuel of substance. Like the bear, we hibernate, impatiently awaiting spring.”
It is the second and likely final season for the Yellowstone prequel 1923. I have heard whispers that there will be more, and we might see Harrison Ford and Helen Miren again in a series likely to take place a little later, hence a new name, and focused more on Brandon Sklenar’s character Spencer who will, no doubt, be raising the grandfather of Kevin Costner’s patriarch character in Yellowstone. In the extras Ford hints pretty strongly by reminding us that Harrison Ford is still alive, as are Helen Mirren and Taylor Sheridan. My sources confirm something is in the works but likely years away, and these two leads are not spring chickens. Paramount has released this second season, avoiding the word “final” in the title on DVD and Blu-ray, and it’s another one of those must-haves for your home video collection.
“Threats have a level of uncertainty to them.”
So much for the threat of discs going away any time soon. I’ve been hearing that since I took over here back in 2008, and I’m still waiting. Yeah, most of you enjoy streaming it, but as Costner recently said, dropping an F-bomb on an interviewer who suggested home discs are dead, “You’re F’in crazy. You think they would give up the home disc market?” There are millions to be made here while still retaining all of you streamers. Some of us like owning a title so it can’t be “modernized”, “Woke Up”, or completely removed, as has already happened to shows in the streaming world. The fact that you’re here at a place called Upcomingdiscs tells me that you get it, and as far as the second season of 1923 … you’ll get that, too.
“I try not to shoot a man so far away that the shake matters.”
Harrison Ford’s Jacob Dutton is a little bit Indiana Jones and a little bit Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. He managed to build a comfortable home and spread, and it’s something he wants to see passed down through his family for centuries. but there are always threats. Just like last season, the big threat is mogul Donald Whitfield, played by the second James Bond actor Harrison Ford has gotten to work with, this time Timothy Dalton. Whitfield is about as evil as they come. We get more than a passing glance at the perverted sexual habits he shares with his women and how he tortures them and finally has them disposed of. Hey, we finally get to see where the railroad station comes from. If you don’t understand the reference, perhaps you should take a step back and catch up on your Yellowstone seasons.
Last year Whitfield’s number one henchman was Banner Creighton, played marvelously by Jerome Flynn, who also had a pretty good run on Game Of Thrones. He’s had a grudge against Jacob and his family for a long time, and joining with Whitfield offers him a lifestyle beyond his dreams and that wonderfully “served cold” dish of revenge. But is the evil nature of Whitfield too much for this villain? Maybe he finds himself in a redemption story. Whichever way it goes, you’re going to want to watch. Flynn is a compelling actor who can hold his own with the heavyweights here on 1923.
The big issue here is that most of these characters do not get to play together this season. The seven episodes find most of them separated and trying to work their way home before the inevitable fight for their lives and the Dutton ranch. We know that Spencer fought in the first World War and then spent time as a mercenary in Africa. He hasn’t been home in years, but Cora has been writing letters to urge him home before it’s too late. He got married last year to Alexandra, played by Julia Schlaepfer, but they were immediately separated, and now each is fighting to get home. Spencer saves an Italian kid but gets involved with his bootleg family along with law encounters to get home in time. Those law encounters include Marshall Maime Fossett, played by the ever-irritating Jennifer Capenter. I thought it might just be her Dexter character that was so obnoxious. Nope. She’s just as bad here, and her voice should be outlawed as excessive torture by the Geneva Convention. Sheridan almost always nails his cast. She’s the exception that proves the rule. Meanwhile Alexandra has been assaulted, beaten, and robbed, only to keep finding herself in another hopeless situation. It’s given the actress some real meat to play with, as each time she finds a way forward, she ends up going back. Also she’s carrying Costner’s John Dutton’s grandfather, so she has to make it … yeah? You’ll have to see for yourself.
“It seems surreal to me. It’s the 20th century. We have motorcars and the airplane, movie theaters, and yet we have men guarding our front porch to prevent other men from taking it, killing us in the process. And that won’t change no matter what man invents next. Don’t let the fancy suites and the cars fool ya. We’re still animals, and we have more in common with the wolf than the rabbit.”
Back at the ranch they are dealing with everything from rabid wolves to thugs with Tommy guns and hoping reinforcements arrive soon enough. Helen Mirren does a great job of providing the leadership you really don’t expect to see in a woman of this era. She’s the perfect complement to Harrison Ford’s Jacob, and it makes it all so compelling when she has to lead the few people left to protect the ranch house and the family members inside.
And meanwhile we have the side story of Teonna Rainwater, still running from a murder rap that she doesn’t deserve. Aminah Nieves does a great job with the part, and I understand that Sheridan is using her story as a moral of some kind, but it just distracts from everything else that’s going on, and I never found it added anything except atmosphere and moral to the overall story. It might not matter so much, but you only have so many episodes to tell this story, and we’re taking time to enjoy the details. That’s eight hours (the last episode is nearly two hours long), and it never seems enough time to pay off so many compelling characters and their story arcs. The season takes a risk having so many characters going their own ways, but it works for the most part.
You get all seven episodes on three discs. Each episode has the usual Taylor Sheridan “Behind The Story” pieces that take you behind the scenes for each episode. There are several more features that touch on the characters, production design, costumes and other details. But here’s the problem I’ve had with all of Sheridan’s releases. They repeat so much interview footage over the extras that I feel like much of my time is being wasted. The release deserves better. I beg you guys. Stop repeating the interviews. “And just like that, a problem disappears.”
