Summary
1923 Season 2 gives welcome focus to Alexandra in Episode 3, as she’s subjected to a litany of indignities entering America. And she’s far from the only one suffering in this morbid outing.
America is the land of opportunity. It’s also, apparently, the land of thieves, sexual deviants, racists, judgy bureaucrats, and very long-winded travel options. Episode 3 of 1923 Season 2 focuses on the staunchly limited options of new arrivals to the U.S., especially if they’re women, and the harsh lives of some long-time occupants, with a particular focus on Alexandra and Elizabeth that after a while begins to feel a bit like sadism.
The attention to Alex is appreciated since she hasn’t had much to do this season, but ironically her subplot makes Elizabeth’s a bit weaker because she’s so determined to push through all manner of indignities just to be reunited with Spencer that Elizabeth, by comparison, feels a bit whiny. But we’ll get to her in a bit, since Alex’s subplot isn’t just about her, but about America in general, at least the parts of it that have “no use for mongrels and invalids”, which in 1923 is basically all of it.
Welcome to America
So, Alex has arrived Stateside, but thanks to an administrative oversight she’s shuttled off to Ellis Island so that she can navigate a brutal immigration process. You’d have thought that the small matter of a visa would have occurred to Alex, but I guess growing up in the bosom of British high society leads one to overlook some of the essentials.
For about half of “Wrap Thee in Terror”, Alex is subjected to a litany of indignities, barked at and mocked and stripped and examined with all the sensitivity of a pig looking for truffles. It’s a long, brutal stretch of time, framed relatively tastefully and often in extreme close-ups of Julia Schlaepfer’s face, contorted with misery and fear. Her performance is excellent in service of a sequence that feels leery and uncomfortable, which it’s supposed to.
All the immigration officials keep reiterating the idea that America has no use for people who can’t work, but it seems to have no want of anyone. It is, however, perfectly happy to allow in women who sleep with the immigration officer, which I guess would be considered a “marketable skill”. Alex takes a different path – she angrily points out that the indignities and injustices that new arrivals are being subjected to run directly contrary to America’s advertised values, chooses a very relevant passage from the Whitman volume he directs her to in order to prove she’s literate, and then sweeps out of the room with her visa approved on the strength of sheer attitude. That’ll do it.
Alex is able to make her way to New York’s Grand Central Station with the help of a kindly newsman who gives her a quick primer on not being raped and robbed in the Big Apple, followed by a similar lecture from the well-meaning guy who sells her a ticket to Montana, even though she can’t afford the safer solo carriage and has to take a risk on a shared one. Given her current run of luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up bunking with a serial killer.
That’s if she gets on the train at all, which isn’t guaranteed given 1923 Season 2, Episode 3 ends with a creepy-looking dude following her into the bathroom, I’m assuming for unpleasant reasons. More on Alex’s travelogue next week.
Elizabeth Is Not Having a Nice Time
There are lots of deliberate parallels in “Wrap Thee in Terror” between Alex and Elizabeth, though as I intimated at the top, I’m not sure it necessarily works. After the cliffhanger ending of the previous episode, it has been determined pretty unequivocally that the wolf who bit Elizabeth was rabid. That’s why it snuck into the house during the night and ate a nurse, which led to its dead body being mounted outside as a warning to its mates that no four-legged life can endure in the presence of Cara Dutton.
What this means for Elizabeth is she has to keep having very long needles jabbed in her stomach. Now, to be fair, I get that isn’t much fun, especially after a recent miscarriage. But neither is rabies, and those are literally her only two options. She makes such a fuss that at one point Cara has to slap her and tell her to be a woman for once, and I totally got where she was coming from.
This life isn’t for Elizabeth, that much is clear. The winters are too harsh; from her point of view, the Duttons just survive rather than live. It’s a reasonable point but feels a bit ungrateful in light of what Alex has been willing to do just to make it to Montana, and the way she’s going on implies that she thinks that Montana’s unfeeling winter is only happening to her. Perhaps it’s because Jack isn’t as much of a motivation to stick around as Spencer is. This season, now that I think about it, Jack isn’t much of a character at all.
Brandon Sklenar in 1923 | Image via Paramount+
Brain Surgery
On the subject of Montana’s winter, you’ll recall that Jacob and the others got trapped in it in the previous episode. They survive that, narrowly, but their problems are only compounded when they return to the ranch while the doctor is still there and get an official diagnosis for Zane.
As was established previously, the doctors never bothered to examine Zane because he had committed the oh-so-terrible crime of marrying a non-white woman, so the fact he has a subdural hematoma hasn’t been identified, let alone addressed. This means that the pressure has mounted up in his skull to such a significant extent that it’s going to kill him unless it can be drained. The doctor can do it and even has the drill in the car, but he didn’t come fully equipped for surgery so has no anesthesia.
As far as rocks and hard places go, that’s another one that makes Elizabeth’s feel a bit tame by comparison. A needle in the belly or a drill through the skull? I know which I’d choose.
Collision Course
1923 Season 2, Episode 3 makes it sadly clear that Marshal Kent and Father Renaud are going to run into Teonna sooner rather than later, since their absence in Oklahoma prompts the sinister lawman to deduce – correctly, as it happens, at least partially – that they’ll probably make a stop in Texas before skipping the southern border into Mexico.
This makes it especially worrying that Teonna will probably be in the Lone Star State for a while. Runs His Horse politely tracks down the ranchers working the land to let them know that they’d been camping there without realizing where they were, and the guy does no more than offer him a job. All this kindness will no doubt compel Runs His Horse and the others to stay where they are for a bit, giving Kent and Renaud long enough to track them down.
This is assuming, of course, that they live long enough to do that. After killing the Comanches, the rest of the tribe is determined to track them down, and if they happen to find them before Mamie and the Marshals well, all the better. It’d be the best-case scenario for Teonna, but given her story thus far, I highly doubt she’s going to get that lucky.
