History Series / NineteenTwentyThree

* KilledOffscreen: The narration reveals that Margaret Dutton froze to death in the year 1984 and her body was found in a snow drift. Her two sons, John and Spencer, were still alive although they were half-starved and could barely speak. Jacob and Cara Dutton, who were childless, raised the two boys as their own.

* AccidentalMurder: A US marshal kills Teonna's grandmother while serving a warrant at her homestead, looking for the runaway. Not fully understanding the warrant, the old woman yells at him to get out of her house and he pushes back. She hits her head on the stove and dies. Not that he's too broken up about it...

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Sister Mary may be an amoral thug in a habit, who goes around disciplining Indian girls by beating them, locking them in a PunishmentBox or worse... but even she finds it beyond the pale when she catches a fellow nun about to molest Teonna, causing her to quickly make her presence known and stop the act. Though she quickly askes Teonna about why she is so quick to hit her and not the other nun, [[VictimBlaming wondering if Teonna somehow enjoyed it.]] Teonna was, at the time, so exhausted from her time spent in the punishment box that she could barely even speak.

** The whole reason why Alex becomes so smitten with Spencer (and is willing to abandon her upcoming marriage to spend time with him) is when she counters that the act of dying is romantic, in response to his comments that there's nothing romantic about working in a dangerous profession. She even [[DareToBeBadass inspires him to bring her along]] by saying they should "look death in the eye together." The moment she's thrown into a situation where she has no control, however (the rampaging elephant that totals their car and has to be put down by Spencer), she immediately becomes a panicked wreck. This culminates in her screaming for help (making their situation worse) when the duo are besieged in a tree by a pack of encroaching leopards and hyenas in the middle of nowhere at night. When they are finally rescued, she says she never wants to go through that experience again.

* GreatWhiteHunter: Played with - yes, Spencer Dutton hunts exotic animals, but he is hired to kill them that have been preying on people.

* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: Exemplified early on in the first season, when Spencer is forced to protect Alex after they're pursued by an angry elephant, then forced up a tree, where he fights off a pack of leopards and hyenas before TheCavalry arrives.

* RightThroughTheWall: Jack and his fiance begin to make love in her room at the ranch as Jacob and Cora talk outside. They soon become audible in their lovemaking until Jacob bellows that they can hear them. The two shut their open window quickly.

** Spencer Dutton served in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and narrowly survived a mustard gas attack. Unable to deal with his experiences during the war, he left Montana and went to Africa, working as a big game hunter in an attempt to feel more alive. It's only after he meets Alexandra and she helps him confront his demons that he starts to move past this mindset.

* SoleSurvivor: After his ambush group is caught by Jacob and the rest of the ranchers and given a dangerous punishment (tied and strung up to trees and forced to free themselves before the horses spook and run away), Creighton is the only one of the five sheep herders to make it before hanging to death, leading him to swear that ItsPersonal.

* DentedIron: Jacob Dutton is this even before he is critically wounded in an ambush.

Nearly forty years after the Dutton clan uprooted from their homes and moved to Montana, the family ranch is now managed by Jacob Dutton (Creator/HarrisonFord)m and his wife, Cara (Creator/HelenMirren), who oversee the ranch's day-to-day livestock operations and are well-respected among local law enforcement and business owners. As the series opens, Montana is in the grip of an economic depression caused by a locust infestation destroying most of the pastures used for grazing livestock. This causes strife among local landowners and cattle[=/=]sheep farmers and leads to increasing concern whether the local landowners will be forced to give up their land. When Banner Creighton (Creator/JeromeFlynn), a Scottish sheepherder, runs afoul of the Duttons and swears vengeance against them, Cara and Jacob are forced to band together with other family members and associates -- including Spencer Dutton (Creator/BrandonSklenar), the youngest son of [[Series/EighteenEightyThree James and Margaret Dutton]], who is overseas in Africa working as [[GreatWhiteHunter a big-game hunter]] -- as a war breaks out for control of the Yellowstone valley.