Paramount Execs Tried To Force Taylor Sheridan To Retcon The Ending Of 1883
The following article contains spoilers for the ending of "1883."
People who watched the Paramount+ series "1883" from the prolific Taylor Sheridan were very likely stunned by the ending of the first and only season. Though rumors about a second season were out there and very confusing, the final episode about the Dutton family's journey to Montana ended in a devastatingly decisive way.
As viewers know, Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) was shot and died of her injuries, with Margaret (Faith Hill) and James (Tim McGraw) Dutton deciding to settle where her life ended. Elsa was not only one of the main characters but the narrator of the show. (She also narrates the next chapter in the Dutton story, "1923," starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford.) Not only that, but Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott) made it to the ocean as he'd planned and then died by suicide.
As it turns out, the executives at Paramount were just as surprised as viewers were by the way things ended up, according to a 2022 interview Deadline did with Sheridan. The creator was asked about focusing on the year 1923 in the new series and why he picked that time period, which led Sheridan to talk about how the discussions about not having a second "1883" season went.
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'I don't think they digested what had just happened'
Sheridan explained that the studio executives didn't quite believe what they were reading when they got to the finale script for the "Yellowstone" prequel. He said:
"I know they read the scripts, but they don't read scripts, so when they read the last episode of 1883, I don't think they digested what had just happened, even though I made it quite clear from the very beginning. The story I heard is Bob Bakish watched it and said, 'wait a minute, she dies! They all die? What do we do in season two?' I said, there is no season two. They're like, there better be a f*****g season two because we already picked it up. I'm sitting here going, guys everyone is dead."
To be perfectly honest, I had the same shock reaction, but coming from a viewer's standpoint, it felt really brave to show deaths on the trail, something that was pretty common back then. The journey West was incredibly perilous. I loved Isabel May's performance in the series, but as heartbreaking as the story was, it felt right. Of course, from the studio side, it makes sense that they'd already given the green light to a second season and were surprised by what was written.
That said, it got weirder. Sheridan said, "They wanted to have a meeting about how Sam Elliott survived his suicide. By the very nature of the term, it's not something survivable, and who would want to see that?" Of course, that sounds strange, but Elliott was a big name for the series. However, the desire for more of the Dutton's story led to "1923."
'I studied Montana's history and the history of the world'
Sheridan told the publication that he would look into the story and see what else he could come up with. He told them, "I'll come up with another peek into the window, and I sat there and tried to look at it." What he found, he explained, was the devastation of the Montana cattle farmers after World War I, combined with the Spanish Flu that happened less than a year after the war ended. He revealed that the illness took out "40-49 % of [the population of] San Francisco." That wasn't all. According to Sheridan's discussion, Montana hit its depression "a decade before" the Great Depression walloped the rest of the country. Of the cattle ranchers, he said:
" ... all the cattle ranches at that time were sending all the beef to the British army, and French armies, and ultimately our army. There was a lot of pressure and a lot of free money for these homesteaders. Even though they had big tracts of land there was a lot of pressure to raise more and more and more beef. So they took out these big loans to get more things and Montana had its depression a decade before the depression."
There is certainly a lot of story to mine from that, as well as the issues in Kenya and Zanzibar at the time, focusing on another "1923" storyline. "1883" may be done, but that certainly wasn't the end of the difficulties of the Duttons. "1923" is set for a second season, and we're also getting "Lawman: Bass Reeves," which is about the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshal who presided West of the Mississippi River.
"1883" and "1923" are currently streaming on Paramount+.