Series / 1883

1883 is a 2021 TV Western about the ancestors of Yellowstone's Dutton family Settling the Frontier. That is, if they can even get there alive.

Roaming bandits, roaring rivers, starvation, the coming of winter, and rightfully-vengeful American Indians all make the prospect of actually reaching Oregon or anywhere decent out-West an unlikely one. To assure their survival, James and Margaret Dutton (played by country power couple Tim McGraw and Faith Hill) join up with a company of Central European immigrants guided by two experienced cowboys, Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott) and Thomas (LaMonica Garrett). All this is told to us from the perspective of young Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), our main protagonist and narrator, as she learns to become a lover, killer, and woman in this strange new land.

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1883 contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: Shea and James talk about ranching in Montana. Shea is played by Sam Elliott who starred in The Ranch, where he was a rancher (albeit in Colorado, not Montana).
• Artistic License – History: In a flashback, James Dutton is shown wounded at the Battle of Antietam right in front of the (in)famous Dunker Church, where he is subsequently captured and held in captivity until the end of the war. The scene, as depicted, takes license in a few areas:
  • It would've been impossible for the Army of the Potomac to take Dutton prisoner on the day of the battle, as the Army of Northern Virginia held the position until very late the next day.
  • It is very unlikely that Dutton would've been taken prisoner at this relatively early stage in the war. Instead, would have been exchanged or made to sign a parole (essentially a promise not to fight until later exchanged).
• Badass Boast: Shortly after gunning down all the bandits before they could even draw their weapons during the Bar Brawl, Courtright reasserts why he has such a terrifying reputation as the local gunslinger.
  Courtright: There's only one killer in Fort Worth, and that's me.
• Bar Brawl: The pioneers and the local sheriff track down bandits to a local bar and kill them in a gun fight that breaks out in the middle of everyone's dinner.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite all her trials, Elsa always manages to look amazing.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Duttons never reach Oregon, instead they settle in Montana where their daughter Elsa dies from an infected wound. The Romani woman, her children, and Thomas do reach Oregon and settle down, while Josef continues the trek alone in spite of his losses, but with the necessary materials to start building a house. Shea reaches the ocean and commits suicide after finding some sort of peace. Elsa and her husband Sam are reunited in the afterlife, which is the frontier without the dangers inherent in it. While James and Margaret do honor their promise to let the Natives that gave the land to them for their ranch to have hunting rights to it, we know that his descendant does not honor his promise to give the land back many generations later.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Marshal Jim Courtright has Shea's cowboys, James and Josef accompany him in order to track down the bandits that attacked the German caravan, as a precaution in case things go south. Turns out, only Josef was really needed to pinpoint the culprits, because Courtright alone guns down the bandits so quickly that they don't even have a chance to retaliate.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: The American Indians in the show are generally depicted with the stereotypical long-hair and brown-toned clothing. The Indian men we see getting ready to defend their people also have face paint and feathers in their eye, which is prominently displayed in the show's first conversation.
• Downer Beginning: Shea's part in the story begins with him laying his dead daughter to rest next to his equally dead wife, with both having succumbed to smallpox. He then sets his house on fire and nearly shoots himself until Thomas talks him out of it.
• Due to the Dead: James explains that they left the dead Lakota villagers where they lay because of this to a Lakota warrior.
  "I don't know your god or his rules."
• Driven to Suicide:
  • James' sister shoots herself out of grief after her daughter is killed by bandits. James seems to know that this is her intention after she refuses to leave her daughter's grave, and he stays behind to bury her.
  • Shea finally commits suicide after seeing the Pacific Ocean after arriving in Oregon, after considering it on several occasions.
• Dung Fu: The Crow elder Spotted Eagle reveals to James that the Lakota dipped their arrows in manure, confirming the Dutton patriarch's fears that Elsa's wound is fatal and she doesn't have much longer to live.
• Dwindling Party: The group of emigrants don't even leave Fort Worth before the numbers start dropping, as Shea does a health check of everyone and notices that some have smallpox. They reach the first river, where they are attacked by bandits. Several more die through the journey until there's only a small number left.
• Flaying Alive: The Lakota are shown scalping at least one woman while alive and screaming.
• Good Is Not Nice: Shea Brennan really doesn't take shit from the complaining immigrants, given that he knows just how arduous the journey to Oregon can be. He can instantly tell the migrants just aren't up to snuff for it. He does soften some as the journey continues.
• Historical Domain Character: Three notable figures that existed in real life show up in the series.
  • Tom Hanks cameos as George Meade, the Union general who apprehends James in a flashback to the Battle of Antietam, though not before sharing a moment of empathy with James following the aftermath of that disastrous battle.
  • Billy Bob Thornton portrays Jim Courtright. The show deviates from the historical records in that he's still Forth Worth's sheriff here while the real Courtright lost that position in 1879.
  • Taylor Sheridan does a Creator Cameo in episodes 7 and 8 as Charles Goddnight, a well-known rancher.
• How We Got Here: The series opens with Elsa waking up amongst a bunch of burning wagons and dead bodies while American Indians attack. She has a brief conversation with one of their men before they shoot each other, and Elsa goes off to fight the rest of them with an arrow through her abdomen before the show cuts back to before they even decided on where they're going. We don't learn how this moment came to be until episode nine.
• Mercy Kill: Colton is forced to shoot down a woman who survived getting scalped by the Lakota, but has clearly gone mad from the attack and her arrow wound. Colton is distraught at having to do this, and voices his grievances towards Shea until the latter tells him to make peace with his choice.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: After losing his wife and daughter, Shea has almost nothing left to live for. The only thing keeping him from killing himself is his goal of seeing the Pacific one last time: his wife always wanted to see it, and he believes that a part of her soul lives on through him, and will see it through his eyes.
• My Way or the Highway: Shea frequently reminds the pioneers in his care that if they don't follow his instructions, they might as well keel over and die. Want to bring more stuff than you'll need? You'll die. Want to go north instead of west? You'll die. Want to go north instead of new direction we're headed? You'll die.
• Outliving One's Offspring: A common experience.
  • The show starts with Shea burning down the house with the bodies of his wife and daughter inside who died of the pox.
  • James' sister had seven children once but is down to her last daughter who dies during a bandit attack.
  • Elsa dies before James and Margaret do.
• Quest to the West: The whole point of the show is to go out West so the character's can find a new life.
  • Elsa is excited to go out West to escape the strict rules of society and become her own person. At each milestone in the journey, she defines herself in new ways, gun-fighting for the first time, mastering horse-riding, wearing pants instead of a dress, losing her virginity, getting married, and when they finally settle, dying.
  • Josef and the immigrants want the freedom and prosperity they didn't have at home. Unfortunately, the harshness of the West makes it so that they have to compromise on their morals and give up on the thing they prize most on the way.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: James and Shea fought in the Civil War, on opposing sides, and James was broken after a disastrous battle. Josef, while drunk and delirious from a rattlesnake bite, rambles on about his experiences in the Franco-Prussian War.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog:
  • The characters sacrifice almost everything they have for a better life in Oregon. They suffer hardships and face many dangers on their journey. Of those who make it near the finish line, most die due to something that was not their fault and they had no control over. Only a handful avoid this fate.
  • The sequel series ends up revealing that both James and Margaret are dead within a decade and both John and Spencer nearly die from exposure before James' brother Jacob arrives to take over the ranch.
  • Most of the remaining pioneers decide to press on to Oregon despite Shea's insistence on taking a detour so that they may wait out the winter and make it in spring. This leads to the caravan splitting, with Shea, the Duttons, Josef, Noemi and her kids, and Thomas taking the route north to Montana. The pioneers pressing on to Oregon don't even make it out of Wyoming, as they are massacred by bandits.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: The German immigrants are routinely portrayed as dangerously foolish for their pacifism and sentimentalism.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: Thomas still wears his old Union army jacket.
• Suck Out the Poison: Attempted with Josef's rattlesnake bite, but it eventually gets to be so bad that they're forced to amputate the infected leg.
• The Wild West: The show starts in colonial Texas in an old West town where gunfights break out at the drop of a hat, public hangings are eagerly applauded, and loud saloons come to silence at the entrance of new arrivals. From then on, the characters spend all their time in the wilds of Texas and beyond on their way to Oregon, and Montana. They ride through plains, ford rapid rivers, and contact the natives of this great country.
• Too Stupid To Live: This is how the American frontiersmen feel about the Germans, who don't know how to shoot, don't have any survival skills, and don't even know how to swim because swimming is illegal in their home country. Half of the Germans die before the trip is even halfway over, despite the best efforts from Shea and Thomas to keep them alive.
• Took a Level in Badass: Elsa undergoes a transformation on the wagon journey from rebellious pretty-to-look-at-in-a-dress daughter to experienced cattle-driver, swift horse rider and ultimately lethal and merciless shooter.
• Worthy Opponent: After Elsa kills a few Lakota warriors before taking an arrow to the torso, she cries out in her native language. The confused head warrior, who speaks English, asks her how she learned that language. After she replies that she learned it from her Comanche husband, the warrior nods and says that she fights like a member of that tribe.
• Wretched Hive:
  • Fort Worth is a horrid town where pickpockets roam the streets, lynch mobs form in seconds, and gunfights between outlaws break out at a moment's notice.
  • Fort Caspar is no better, as it is under the control of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association; the same organization whose members massacred Lakota women and children and threw the blame on the caravan, which would result in the Lakota attack in episode 9. Upon realizing this, Shea decides that the caravan shouldn't linger too long in the Fort, least they get shanked by the organization.