1923 Season 2 Premiere Recap: Boats, Beatings and a Baby — Plus, Grade It!
Welcome to the winter of the Dutton family’s discontent.
Montana is a snowy, frigid, desolate place as 1923‘s second season kicks off, and Jake and Cara’s family aren’t doing much better than they were when we left them in the Season 1 finale. Money is low. The pressure applied by Donald Whitfield is high. And Spencer is still halfway around the world, shoveling coal on a merchant ship.
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Things are rough, is what I’m trying to say — and that’s before the mountain lion shows up. At least we have Alex’s good news to perk us up (though her booking passage in the “gamblers and thieves” class does give me a little pause).
In a little while, we’ll want to hear what you thought of the premiere. But first, read on for the highlights of “The Killing Season.”
CHILLING EFFECT | There’s snow on the ground and a wicked chill in the air as Cara’s voiceover reads her latest letter to Spencer, which is full of bad news. She and Jake have sold most of their herd and are keeping only a few bulls and some heifers, aka “the seeds with which you must rebuild the ranch,” she notes. The weather has shut down automobile travel between the ranch and Bozeman until spring; anyone who makes the trek must do so on horseback or wagon. The family is relying on the game Jacob and the men hunt, because they don’t want to tap into the already decimated beef cattle. “We hibernate, impatiently waiting spring,” she writes, “and your return.”
As Jacob prepares to head into town for a hearing, he and Cara have a banter-y conversation about how she’d like a telephone in the house, if only so he could call her and tell her he arrived safely. “I will not allow today to be the last time I see your face,” he promises, shutting down her worry as he kisses her, then steps outside.
Jack is outside with the horses, who are suddenly and inexplicably skittish — and in a flash, Jake figures out why. “There’s a lion on the porch!” he shouts, not breaking eye contact with the mountain lion who’s crept up near the house and is ready to pounce from the shadows. As Jack quickly turns the horses back toward the barn, Jake pulls his gun and calmly asks the wild creature if it’s looking for warmth or its next meal; after a moment, the big cat runs away. A short while later, the men leave for their trip.
WHITFIELD’S EVER-MORE-EVIL PLAN | If you are at all put out by even the idea of Jake hurting the cat, you… might wanna skip this next section. At Donald Whitfield’s house, Lindy, one of the ladies he was hanging out with last season is still with him — and still nude; she finds him in the bathroom and climbs into the tub beside him. He’s droning on about a trial that’ll start in the morning, but she’s more focused on getting him to slip his hands under the water and restart their party. “I think we should bring our little doll out to play, don’t you think?” he purrs. Then he orders her to retrieve said “doll,” which, oh no, is Christy, the other sex worker we saw with them last season. She’s naked and tied up in the closet in the dark, a belt around her neck like a leash, and she’s got marks up and down her back like she’s been beaten more often than the time we saw last season.
When Lindy wakes her, Christy starts to cry. “You’re going to get punished if you don’t try hard, that’s all,” she coos. “But if you try, really hard, we’ll give you a surprise.” Ew.
Later, when Jake and his guys meet up with Sheriff McDowell at the speakeasy in Bozeman, we learn that the hearing Whitfield was talking about has to do with the miscegenation charges brought against Zane and his wife. Apparently, Zane is in a bad way and hasn’t been able to see Alice or the kids since the night they were attacked.
Both the sheriff and Jake know that Whitfield is behind the charges against Zane and Alice; they’re all part of the battle he’s waging against the Duttons. “He’s gonna knock all your chess pieces off the board,” McDowell says. That’s also when we learn that Jake was able to pay the previous year’s taxes, but he has no clue yet how he’ll pay the coming year’s bill.
THE HUNT FOR TEONNA CONTINUES | Father Renaud and his detectives show up at a Comanche village and near-instantly shoot the men who come out to defend it. As the community looks on, horrified, the detective terrorizes first a woman, than a young child, as he demands that they give up any information they have about Teonna. Eventually it’s too much even for Father Renaud, who yells that they have to go. On the way out, the detective runs over the young child with his horse, out of spite.
Elsewhere, Teonna, is still traveling with her father and Pete. (Side note: Pete is now played by Jeremy Guana after the death of cast member Cole Brings Plenty; a title card at the top of the episode pays tribute to Brings Plenty.) After a conversation about why and how the American government wants to keep Native Americans as beggars, the talk switches to whether Teonna wants to offer Pete her hand in marriage. In what will come as no surprise to anyone with eyes, she does! Runs His Horse is good with it, but he asks her to wait until after the ceremony to sleep with Pete. “Did you wait for the ceremony?” she wonders. “Nobody waits for the ceremony!” he replies. “You just have to say it.” And suddenly, Teonna feels a strong urge to go find Pete, who’s out hunting.
Pete doesn’t know what’s happening when Teonna suddenly appears. But when she throws a blanket on the ground and starts to disrobe, but he catches up fast. He’s barely started kissing her neck when they notice a white man on horseback nearby; when Pete sneaks out to the clearing to pick up the clothes she tossed there, he runs right into the man. Thank goodness, the guy seems friendly. He explains that he’s looking for stray cattle, then he informs Pete that he’s veered into Texas (which they didn’t know).
Pete returns to Teonna to tell her what he learned, and she says maybe they should go tell her dad. “Not yet,” he says, and they get back to it. (Side note: After the Season 1 she had, NOTHING BUT GOOD THINGS FOR TEONNA THIS SEASON, please and thank you.)
SHIP FIGHT CLUB | “Yeah, yeah, but have Alex and Spencer reunited yet?!” you ask. Sadly, the answer is nope. He’s working in the engine room of a merchant ship alongside a young Italian man named Luca. One night, Spencer wakes in the bunkroom to find a big, mean-looking sailor raping Luca in his bunk. Spencer pulls the big guy off Luca and beats the rapist into submission with his belt. When the captain shows up and has a shattered Luca confirm what happened, he shoots the rapist dead right there, then makes Spencer clean it all up.
The next day, Spencer finds a note on his bunk. He can’t read it, because it’s in Italian, but he knows what it says. He finds Luca sitting on the ship’s rail, ready to end it all by jumping into the water. Spencer calmly muses that, because Luca knows how to swim, it’ll be a long and agonizing death; his body just won’t let him give up, Spencer reasons. They talk about how the big guy had been raping Luca ever since they left port. “People aren’t defined by what happens to them,” Spencer says. “They’re defined by what they do.” The chat seems to help Luca a bit, and he climbs down from his perch as Spencer tosses the letter into the ocean.
Bolstered a bit, Luca finds a new focus: He suggests that Spencer fight the other sailors for money, which will help him get home quicker. After a little cajoling, Spencer finds that this business proposal fits into his “I only fight for survival” thing — after all, his getting home means the survival of his family — so he puts up his dukes with Luca acting as his hype man.
The fights take place right there in the mess hall and make $420 total, with Luca taking a cool 20 percent off the top for covering the bets and making it all happen. (Anyone else worried, though, about how Spencer really does not seem in control of himself after a certain point in any given fracas?) Up on deck for a smoke afterward, Spencer squints at the horizon: Yep, that’s land in the distance.
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ONE MOTHER OF A PLAN | And now for the uplifting portion of the episode. Though the premiere makes us wait roughly 31 minutes for even a glimpse of Alex, we’re soon met with good news: She’s pregnant! The announcement comes when Alex, in the throes of a deep depression from which not even a visit from Jennifer can shake her, falls apart when her friend tells her to be patient and wait for Spencer to send for her. She sits up, placing Jennifer’s hand on her belly. “I’m running out of time,” she says, and starts sobbing.
Alex, who is essentially a prisoner on her family’s estate, begs Jennifer to help her escape. Though Jennifer is wary, she eventually agrees to sell some of Alex’s family jewels and use the money to buy passage on a ship to America. Once she arrives, she reasons, she’ll take a train to Montana.
Against her better judgment, Jennifer books Alex tourist-class tickets, aka where the “gamblers and thieves” hang out, on the Cunard line. At the dock, she gives Alex her watch. “I’m hoping you send it back to me,” she says. “But if you don’t, I’ll know you needed it.” They hug, and a renewed Alex all but skips up the ramp to her fate.
THE LION’S SHARE | Oh, you wanted a happy wrap-up to the first new episode in quite some time? I’ll assume you’re new here, then. Because the hour ends with a reality check: Elizabeth, excited to see the sun streaming through the windows during such a dreary winter, rushes outside to feel it on her skin… and comes face-to-face with the mountain lion, who’s back and hungrier than ever. Thank goodness Cara sees the younger woman’s look of horror through the glass, realizes in an instant what’s going on, and fires two shots right through the wall/lower window, killing the animal. When she goes out to see the carnage, she hears more predators howling in the distance.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the premiere? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!
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