Taylor Sheridan has put the Dutton family through hell for four seasons on Yellowstone.
They’ve weathered bombs, stabbings, kidnappings, and blazes of gunfire.
Is he really going to kill off the heart and soul of the Dutton family?
We’ve watched 1883 with a sense of foreboding since 1883 Season 1 Episode 1.
On 1883 Season 1 Episode 9, the story caught up to the atrocities that were foreshadowed. And if James is right, Elsa Dutton will not make it past 1883 Season 1.
The reality is that someone from the Dutton family has to die sooner or later. Yellowstone treats its characters like veritable superheroes, so killing one of them off seems unconscionable.
Yet, with Elsa’s fate hanging in the balance, here we are.
Sheridan has gone to great lengths to focus 1883 around Elsa. She’s not just the apple of James and Margaret’s eye, but she’s the wagon train darling. She’s our voice, narrating the journey, pointing out various nuances some might not otherwise understand.
With “Racing Clouds,” Elsa realizes the land’s hatred for humanity. That was before the hatred humanity has for humanity overshadowed Elsa’s realization.
We have a neverending capacity to love, but the same neverending capacity to hate comes with that.
Humans look down on what they don’t understand, and hair triggers leave us acting first and questioning later. Just look at our world in the past six years. Did you ever imagine there would be so much strife within our own borders?
We don’t often think, acting out of fear or anger. Listening to others and understanding each other’s differences seems like hard work. It is hard work. But it’s well worth the effort.
Our travelers were faced with impossible decisions in light of bandits with a disdain for Indians. That anyone can treat another human being with so little disregard would be shocking if we didn’t see it happening every day of our lives.
Things haven’t changed as our country, and the world has grown. We still fail to see the good in others before considering them unworthy of our understanding.
We also fail to consider other opinions when thinking about ourselves. Cook was guilty of that. He pulled up to the rear of the wagon train long after James, Shea, and Thomas had considered the consequences of splitting the group and leaving for the fort for safety.
Their plan made sense, but Cook thought he knew more than the others, and he kicked up dust, daring the travelers to stay and die or follow him and live. There was disaster written all over that plan, and it got most of them killed, including Cook and, most likely, Elsa.
Putting your trust into leadership isn’t easy, but you shouldn’t follow blindly. Even if time isn’t on your side, you need to weigh the consequences of every action. James, Shea, and Thomas did that. Cook did not.
We need to stay right here till we find those murders, kill their sorry asses, cut the hair from their fuckin’ scalps, take them and their horses back to the husbands and fathers of these people.
Shea
But there is also safety in numbers. That idiom didn’t get created for nothing. Size matters, no matter what they say. Elsa and Margaret were at loggerheads over whether to follow the train and accept that numerical strength or to stay and try to reason with the Indians.
Margaret: Two women and a child alone on the only road in the most dangerous country in this nation. There’s strength in numbers. We have no numbers. We go with them.
Elsa: I think it’s a mistake.
Margaret: It’s all a mistake, Elsa. The right choice is luck, that’s all.
Elsa’s gut told her that leaving was a mistake. She was right.
Margaret hasn’t had faith in Elsa as Elsa blossomed into a woman unlike any Margaret had known. She failed to see the beauty of her daughter’s strength, ushering her into a dress again to keep Elsa safe from the men at the fort.
Margaret is right, in some respects, but when it comes to the Indians, Elsa has proven far more astute than her parents.
If they had stayed at the sight of the slaughter, the Indians may have considered that if they were at fault, they would have moved on. Perhaps they would have talked first and struck later.
Indian: We made war on your people, but your daughter stopped it.
James: How’d she stop it?
Indian: By being the best warrior of them all.
Talking, as we soon discovered, saved the day. It was already too late, but the Indians reconsidered and stopped their ill-placed payback once Elsa said her peace.
The damage had already been done, though.
Elsa’s spirit made her the first Dutton warrior, and I’m not ready to say goodbye. So, will the foreboding of death (possibly at the hands of her parents) come to be, or will she be spared like all of the future Duttons who have come before her?
Tell me your name! Do you remember it? I don’t know the Lord’s Prayer, but if there is a God, he will not keep you out of heaven for what I don’t know. You deserve peace, and this ain’t it. [kills the woman]
Colton
Colton’s decision to kill the scalped and shot woman wasn’t easy for him, but she had lost everything. If she had lived, it would have been in word only. Her life was effectively over. Shooting her spared her the indignity of living beyond her time. It truly brought her peace.
James: You were a nurse in the war.
Margaret: So?
James: So how many liver shots you see survive?
Margaret: We got it out fast, James.
James: Let me see it. [looks at the arrow] That’s filthy, honey.
Margaret: She’s young. She’s so strong.
James: And she’s the light of my life. And she’s my soul. But she’s gonna die.
Margaret: [slaps him] How fucking dare you?! I will not lose a child!
James: She is gonna die, and it’s gonna cut us in two, and if we don’t accept it now, she’ll die in some fort with some doctor, dopin’ her up so badly she can’t see straight, and we will have robbed her. She needs to see every sunrise and every sunset, and we will lie to her, and we tell her she’s fine. And we will let her look at this world with those big dreamer eyes, ’cause they can’t see anymore.
Margaret: Then what are we gonna do? She gonna be another cross on a trail that we don’t visit. Ten years from now, it’s just gone.
James: Our wagon drive’s over. Where we bury her is where we stay. That is our home.
Margaret: Not here. Not in this place.
James: No, not in this place. I will find the place. By God, I will find a place.
That was foreboding for what James and Margaret discussed. They seemed unwilling to wait and see what might come for Elsa. They’d both seen others killed under similar circumstances. In fact, they’d never seen anyone survive a similar injury.
They know how deeply Elsa feels and loves, and they want her to go out on top. Just like Colton did for the scalped woman, they want to ensure Elsa doesn’t suffer, that she knows peace, and to spare her the indignity of an ugly, painful death that would rob her of life’s beauty.
When she was first shot, Elsa’s adrenaline was pumping, and she felt no pain, but by the time she woke up the following day, she was suffering. Still, her unwavering strength propelled her forward.
Is there a chance she will survive the trip? I don’t know how long it will be before they reach Montana, but James decided to homestead where they buried their girl. We know they homestead in Montana, and we also surmise that Elsa is no longer with them at that point.
It makes me sick to my stomach to consider Elsa may be leaving us, but she sees it, too. James and Margaret did exactly what they said they’d do, lying to her to keep her from understanding her fate. But Elsa is too bright for that.
What are your thoughts?
Will Elsa pull a 21st Century Dutton trick and conquer death, or will her parents take it from her before she even has a chance?
Are they right, or should they let it go?
I want to hear from you. Would 1883 be the same without Elsa Dutton?
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.