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If you have watched Yellowstone but have not seen 1923, I think you are missing one of the most important pieces of the story that made the Dutton family saga so compelling. And if this article is introducing you to this remarkable universe set largely against the breathtaking landscape of Montana, I would recommend watching the shows in chronological order: 1883, 1923, Yellowstone, Marshals and Dutton Ranch. The Madison, although connected to Taylor Sheridan’s wider storytelling world, is better approached separately as a different story set against the beauty of Montana rather than as another chapter of the Dutton family saga. Paramount+ itself identifies 1883 as the beginning of the Dutton story, followed by 1923, Yellowstone, Marshals and Dutton Ranch.
But back to 1923. At its heart, this is a story of true love between two wild mustangs, as Jacob Dutton, played by Harrison Ford, might describe them. The two mustangs are Spencer Dutton, played by Brandon Sklenar, and Alexandra, played by Julia Schlaepfer. Their love story is unlike the conventional romances we are accustomed to seeing on television. It is beautiful, adventurous, passionate and, ultimately, devastating.
The beginning of the series does not immediately suggest that romance will become one of its emotional centres. Instead, 1923 initially feels like a classic Wild West story, introducing us to Cara Dutton, played magnificently by Helen Mirren. Cara’s intermittent narration through letters to Spencer immediately establishes the emotional distance between the Dutton family and the nephew who has travelled far from Montana.
Spencer has gone to Africa after his service in the United States military, seeking a new kind of war by hunting dangerous animals. His experience in the First World War has left him traumatised, and the hunt gives him an outlet for the violence he has already witnessed. Cara’s letters reveal how much she misses him and how desperately the family needs him back home.
Then Alexandra enters the story.
Alexandra is engaged to the Earl of Sussex when she encounters Spencer in Africa. Fascinated by his physical presence, reputation and adventurous spirit, she makes the extraordinary decision to abandon the life expected of her and follow this stranger into an uncertain future. It is reckless, romantic and completely in keeping with the character she becomes throughout the series.
Their relationship quickly becomes one of the strongest elements of 1923. They are not simply attracted to each other; they seem to recognise something wild and restless in one another. They travel through some extraordinary locations, share intimate moments and begin a journey that constantly tests whether love can survive circumstances designed to destroy it.
And 1923 gives them plenty of circumstances to survive.
Just when I thought the worst experience they would face was their vessel colliding with another ship at sea, the story found another way to punish them. Their journey to Montana becomes a nightmare of separation, danger, bad luck and almost impossible circumstances. Alexandra eventually travels towards Montana while Spencer is simultaneously making his own difficult journey home to join Jacob and Cara in the fight to protect the Dutton ranch.
This is where the Dutton curse begins to feel almost real.
Much like the conflict in Yellowstone, where the central battle revolves around land, legacy, power and the preservation of the Dutton way of life, 1923 establishes the roots of that conflict. The Duttons seem almost cursed to attract trouble. If someone is not trying to take their land, nature itself appears determined to throw another impossible challenge at them.
Yet one thing remains constant: the Duttons do not surrender easily.
They are stubborn, sometimes violent and occasionally willing to operate outside the law, but they are also fiercely loyal to one another. Their land is not simply property to them. It represents family, memory, identity and survival. This philosophy becomes particularly clear through Jacob Dutton, whose approach to protecting the ranch helps explain the mentality that later generations of Duttons inherit.
Spencer is perhaps the clearest embodiment of this mentality. After being decorated for his military service, he travels to Africa and builds a reputation as a highly accomplished big-game hunter. His work places him in constant confrontation with death, and his experiences leave him carrying the psychological scars of war.
But Spencer is not simply a killer. His defining characteristic is that he knows what he is fighting for.
When the Dutton family comes under threat, Spencer eventually returns to Montana, and his military and hunting experience become weapons in a much larger battle. His willingness to protect his family at almost any cost makes him one of the most compelling characters in the series.
Opposing him is Donald Whitfield, played by Timothy Dalton, a wealthy and ambitious businessman whose interest in Montana is driven by opportunity rather than sentiment. Whitfield sees land where the Duttons see home. He sees investment where they see inheritance.
His plans for the region are not entirely without vision. He imagines a more developed Montana, complete with tourism and modern infrastructure. But his ambition is corrupted by greed and a willingness to destroy anyone who stands between him and what he wants.
That distinction is important because 1923 does not simply present a battle between progress and tradition. It asks what happens when progress is pursued without morality. Whitfield is intelligent, sophisticated and ambitious, but his inability to recognise the humanity of the people standing in his way turns his vision into a threat.
And for every predator, 1923 eventually produces someone willing to fight back.
Spencer is that person for the Duttons.
He does not always fight within the boundaries of the law. In fact, some of the series’ most memorable confrontations demonstrate that the Dutton definition of justice is often very different from the justice enforced by courts and institutions. Spencer believes that protecting his family sometimes requires doing things that the law itself would condemn.
That moral ambiguity is one of the things that makes the Dutton universe so interesting. You may not always agree with the Duttons, but you understand why they believe they are right.
The other major storyline that gives 1923 greater depth is the story of the Native American characters, particularly Teonna Rainwater.
The series shows a brutal period in American history when Native American children were subjected to institutions that claimed to educate and civilise them while stripping them of their culture, dignity and identity. Teonna’s story is painful because the violence against her is not presented as an isolated act of cruelty. It is part of a larger system built around prejudice, religious authority and the belief that Native people needed to be transformed into something else.
This storyline gives 1923 a dimension that goes beyond the Dutton family.
The land that the Duttons are fighting to preserve is also land with a history that existed long before the ranch became theirs. The Native American perspective forces the audience to confront an uncomfortable question: who actually has the right to claim ownership of the land?
That question eventually becomes one of the bridges connecting the Dutton story with the Rainwater storyline that audiences recognise in Yellowstone. The relationship between the Duttons and the Broken Rock reservation is not simply a modern conflict. 1923 helps show the historical roots of the tension.
The casting of Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren is one of the smartest decisions Taylor Sheridan made with the series.
Ford brings Jacob a quiet authority. He does not need to shout to establish dominance. His presence alone communicates that this is a man who has survived enough hardship to know that fear is often more useful than anger.
Mirren, meanwhile, gives Cara a completely different kind of strength. Cara is loving but never weak, compassionate but never naïve. She can be warm one moment and terrifying the next. Her letters to Spencer also provide one of the series’ most effective emotional devices because they allow the audience to experience the distance between Montana and the man who has left it behind.
Together, Ford and Mirren give the Dutton family a sense of history and maturity that makes the younger characters’ struggles even more meaningful.
For me, however, Spencer and Alexandra remain the emotional centre of 1923.
Their relationship is what separates the series from simply being another Western about land, guns and family feuds. Their journey becomes a story about how far two people are willing to travel for each other.
What makes their romance particularly effective is that it is constantly interrupted by circumstances beyond their control. They are repeatedly brought together and torn apart by war, distance, accidents, violence, weather and fate.
It is almost as if the universe itself does not want them to be happy.
And that becomes the cruel irony of their relationship.
After everything they survive, Alexandra finally makes it close enough to Montana to reunite with Spencer. Their reunion on the train is one of the most emotional moments in the entire Dutton saga. Spencer sees Alexandra in the freezing wilderness, jumps from the moving train and finally reaches the woman he has spent so long trying to find.
But 1923 is not interested in giving its characters easy victories.
Alexandra is severely affected by the cold and later gives birth prematurely to their son, John. The child survives, but Alexandra dies shortly afterwards from the complications of her injuries. Spencer is left with the son they fought so hard to bring into the world.
That moment completely changes the meaning of their love story.
It is no longer about whether Spencer and Alexandra will live happily ever after. It becomes a story about whether love can survive after death.
The answer, according to the series, is yes.
Spencer never truly gets over Alexandra. Decades later, after living much of his life carrying her memory, he dies and the series gives them the reunion that reality denied them. They meet again in what appears to be an afterlife, dressed beautifully and dancing together. It is an almost fairy-tale ending to a story that spent two seasons being relentlessly cruel to them.
One of the greatest strengths of 1923 is its cinematography.
Montana is not merely a backdrop. The landscape feels like another character in the story. The mountains, snow, open plains, forests and enormous skies create a sense of scale that constantly reminds the viewer how small these characters are compared with the world around them.
That visual contrast becomes especially powerful during Alexandra’s journey. The same landscape that looks beautiful from a distance can become deadly when someone is stranded in it.
The production also deserves credit for making Africa, Montana and the various locations travelled by Spencer and Alexandra feel like different chapters of one enormous adventure. The series moves across continents without losing its visual identity.
The result is a Western that often looks closer to a cinematic epic than conventional television drama.
There is no shortage of violence in 1923. Gunfights, murder, war trauma, abuse and death are woven deeply into the story.
At its best, the violence demonstrates the brutality of the period and the lengths people were willing to go to protect land, family and power.
At other times, however, the series can feel as though it is deliberately testing the audience’s emotional endurance. Almost every character seems to be punished for wanting something as simple as a peaceful life.
This is particularly noticeable in Alexandra’s storyline. Her journey is already filled with enormous hardship, yet the series repeatedly places another obstacle in her path. The eventual tragedy is powerful, but it also leaves the viewer wondering whether Sheridan sometimes pushes suffering beyond what the story actually needs.
That is probably my biggest criticism of 1923: it occasionally mistakes relentless misery for emotional depth.
What makes 1923 work is not simply the connection to Yellowstone. The series stands on its own as a story about love, family, survival, racism, land, ambition and the price of legacy.
It also helps explain why the Duttons in Yellowstone behave the way they do.
The obsession with land did not begin with John Dutton III. The willingness to fight for the ranch did not begin with him either. The Dutton instinct to protect what belongs to the family, regardless of the consequences, has been passed down through generations.
And perhaps that is the real foundation 1923 provides for Yellowstone.
It shows that the Dutton legacy was never built simply through wealth. It was built through sacrifice.
People died for the ranch. People killed for it. People abandoned the people they loved for it. People lost their children, their spouses and sometimes their morality trying to protect it.
That is why the Dutton family can never simply walk away from the land.
The land has become part of them.
1923 is beautiful, brutal and sometimes painfully frustrating. It is a Western, a family saga, a historical drama and, surprisingly, one of the more tragic love stories in modern television.
Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren give the series enormous weight, while Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer provide its emotional heartbeat. The cinematography turns Montana into something almost mythical, while the writing connects personal tragedy with the larger themes of land, power, racism and legacy.
But above everything else, 1923 is a story about love surviving chaos.
Spencer and Alexandra begin as two strangers who take an extraordinary gamble on each other. They cross oceans, survive disasters and endure separation, only to discover that even after death, their love remains the one thing that the Dutton curse could not destroy.
And perhaps that is why 1923 deserves to be watched before Yellowstone. It does not merely tell us where the Dutton family came from. It shows us why they became the family we eventually meet in Yellowstone.
