‘1923’ Episode 4 Recap: “War & The Turquoise Tide”

“Whatever war you fight within yourself must wait. You must come home and fight this one.” But guess what? We won’t have to wait an entire year for Cara’s important letter to find Spencer in the wilds of Africa. As 1923 Episode 4 (“War & the Turquoise Tide”) reveals, the hostilities in Montana occurred a full three months before what we’ve seen of his life as a hunter and his whirlwind courtship of Alexandra. And when she discovers the sheaf of unopened letters in his things, as they luxuriate in an open air cabana situation on a secluded stretch of beachfront, the revelations within the most recent missive are an answer to the question of where the lovers might make their permanent home. Spencer, with Alexandra by his side, will return to Paradise Valley immediately. And he’s bringing his guns with him.

Good thing, too. In the wake of the ambush orchestrated by rogue sheeper Banner Creighton, Jacob Dutton is alive, but barely stable and confined to his bed. His nephew Jake has a bad wing, but he’s upright, which is more than we can say for his fiancee Elizabeth, who is also recovering but beset with fever. And with her rancher father dead – Bob Stafford was cut down in the sheepers’ ambush of the Duttons – Elizabeth’s mother Beverly (Jessalyn Gilsig) has arrived at the ranch to collect her wounded daughter, cancel her marriage to Jake, head back east, and leave this dreadful place for good. Think again, Beverly. Cara says the ranch is Elizabeth’s home now, if she chooses it, which the young woman immediately does. And after a slap fight – on this ranch there’s only one woman who gives the orders, and it’s not Mrs. Stafford – Cara sends the woman off with the body of her dead husband in tow. 

The depth of Banner’s ambition has also been revealed. It wasn’t blind rage that inspired the ambush, but calculated aggression. Believing he has killed Jacob, he plans to take the entire Yellowstone Ranch for himself, and approaches sinister rich guy Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) for financial and material support. Whitfield is a mining baron who lives in a pink stone mansion complete with fancy motorcars in the driveway, and he has no remorse for what seems to have befallen Jacob Dutton. But killing a king doesn’t make one a king. It makes him an assassin. And Whitfield won’t give a blunt instrument like Banner cash to hire gunmen without first extracting assurances that the Yellowstone’s valuable mineral and mining rights will be his exclusively. Whitfield also delivers a warning that speaks plainly to his ruthlessness. “Know this, Banner. If you lie to me, if you steal from me, I won’t just kill you. I’ll kill your wife. I will skin her alive, and I will bury your children in her fucking hide.”

Jacob awakens as Cara prays for guidance beside him. “You will be the leader. It’s only lives we can’t afford to lose. No fighting until Spencer gets here.” And Cara holds back Jake and Zane from chasing Banner’s men as they steal half the ranch’s cattle herd. It’s a weighty sacrifice, but one shot through with savvy. Because in Bozeman, when Cara arrives in Jacob’s stead at the monthly meeting of the livestock association, she doesn’t say a word about the attack to Sheriff McDowell and the gathered ranchers and sheepers. Instead, she says Jacob is in Wyoming chasing the cattle thieves, and she conducts a vote to authorize arresting authority for the agency. Banner can’t protest publicly without admitting he attacked the Duttons, so instead he confronts Cara personally, who immediately spits in the sheeper’s face and tells him his days are numbered. “I can’t wait for you to meet my nephew.” And she doesn’t mean Jake.

Out at the boarding school, ever more cruelties are being inflicted on the young Native American women held there. Forced to harvest fruit as they listen to the nuns callowly dismiss the ancient nomadic traditions of their people, Teonna Rainwater defends her friend Baapuxti (Leenah Robinson) from physical abuse and receives a shovel to the face for her efforts, a beating with rulers while she’s bound to a chair, and a bath featuring a horrible steel wool cleanse. These inequities must end. The moment to act has arrived. That night, Teonna dons improvised warpaint and bludgeons Sister Mary with a sack full of bibles – poetic justice for sure – before suffocating her torturer. “Know that this is the land that is killing you,” she seethes in her native tongue. “I am the land, and I am killing you.” Our wish for Teonna to escape this awful place has come true – who wants to bet she eventually joins the Duttons in the battle for their land? 

“There are only three answers to a prayer. Yes, not yet, and I have something else in mind for you.” As the narration of a disembodied Elsa Dutton makes clear, this is a family which doesn’t rely on an empty notion like hope. Cara’s devotion to her faith is absolute, and the Duttons might leave room for miracles. But they’ll also fight for what’s theirs or die in the process, so it’s the latter message, that God has something else in mind for them, which Cara takes to heart. Her husband at death’s door, the bloodsoaked rags piling up in her kitchen – her resolve has been tested. But Clara will lead the family and their dedicated cowboys with authority against whatever heat Banner brings. And now it’s clear that Spencer’s aid isn’t as far away as we might have believed, which ensures reinforcements in the form of a guy whose warmaking valor might have robbed him of his soul but has also provided him with a skill set to make mince meat out of any range war aggressors.   

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges