The Yellowstone prequel 1883 was full of painful surprises and slow reveals. But
did you know the finale had more connections to the original series than meets the eye?
Keep watching for the truth behind 1883's final moments.
With Elsa seriously injured from the wound inflicted by the Comanche in "Racing Clouds,"
James and Margaret take her to the nearby fort to see a surgeon.
They suspect the wound is infected, due to the fact it wasn't healing.
With Josef and his wife also sick and injured, Shea agrees to the detour. At the start of
"This Is Not Your Heaven," they arrive at a small fort guarded by two teenage soldiers.
Their call for a surgeon is answered by Major Hemphill, who has no staff and no nurses. After
examining Elsa, the Major reveals that the arrow that struck her hit her liver, and
that she's already gone septic. He tells Shea and Thomas that there is nothing he can do for Elsa,
and that what they thought was their salvation is little more
than a meeting place for ambitious railroad engineers mapping the region.
He explains that Fort Laramie is their best option, and not by much.
"She's done traveling. Laramie's as far as she goes, if you're lucky.
Best you could hope for is that she wakes and you get to say goodbye."
At this point, it seems the hope that fans had pinned on Elsa's
survival in the previous episode were crushed by the Major's sobering words.
When they realize that Elsa's arrow wound won't heal,
James and Margaret clash over what they should tell their daughter.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Elsa remains steadfast that she'll recover,
and her mother doesn't want to take that hope away. James, meanwhile, believes in his daughter's
strength and spirit, and wants to be honest with her about the seriousness of her wound.
As it becomes more and more clear that their daughter won't survive,
tension between James and Margaret arises. It's unspoken, but James is clearly frustrated that he
can't tell Elsa the truth, and that she may die without ever being able to say goodbye.
Margaret, meanwhile, is still holding on to the last vestiges of hope that Elsa might recover.
She even reassures Elsa that her fever has broken, and she's looking better. While this
decision upsets James, he still agrees to lie to Elsa when she confronts them.
When 1883 first started, many fans of Yellowstone must have scratched their heads when they learned
James Dutton wasn't traveling to Montana, but instead joined a wagon train headed to Oregon.
Audiences knew the train would be diverted at some point, and began theorizing how and why it
would eventually happen. We finally discover the reason in the finale.
With the Fort offering little help for Elsa, and the next destination too far to reach in time,
James and Shea decide they must make drastic changes to their travel plans if they're to
give Elsa a proper resting place. The journey that was destined to end in Oregon will now
divert to the Bozeman Valley in Montana, where he tells the group they will spend the winter
before departing for Oregon in the spring. With their numbers dwindling, Elsa dying,
and Josef and his wife unable to travel, it seems the best and only option for survival.
Unfortunately, the rest of the group is adamant that they continue on to Oregon,
with or without Shea. The grizzled war veteran promises he'll still get them to Oregon,
but they insist on continuing. Despite Shea's warnings, their minds are made up.
"We are staying. The trail is easy enough to follow now. We'll make it to Oregon without you."
"Suit yourself."
Yellowstone fans now know why the Duttons settled in Montana,
and it was due to a tragedy few saw coming when the series began.
As the rest of the wagon train departs for Oregon on their own, Shea stays behind with
James Dutton and his family, preparing to begin their journey to the Bozeman valley.
Shea releases the cattle, and lets cowboys Colton and Wade depart the wagon and train.
After saying goodbye to their companions, they ride off to an unknown future. Thomas, Noemi,
and their children decide to stick with Shea. Josef and his wife also want to go to Montana,
but Shea refuses them, saying they are too sick to keep up. Noemi demands they be allowed to
join them, declaring to Shea that they are now free people whether they live or die.
She even offers up her own services as driver of their wagon.
As days drag on, and Josef's snake bite continues to worsen, they're forced to face the stark truth
that he might not make it to Montana. Thomas then offers Josef a choice: They can amputate
the snake-bitten leg, or he can die with it. Josef chooses the only real option, and Shea and Thomas
prepare to become battlefield surgeons. Getting Josef drunk enough to pass out, they remove
Josef's leg in a brutal surgery by firelight, to which the rapidly dying Elsa responds,
"Sure glad I didn't get shot in the leg."
Before the surgery on Josef, Shea and James sit around a fire and talk while Margaret
sings Elsa a lullaby. James explains that she only sings for their children,
and that she paradoxically promised to sing at his funeral, despite making him promise
he'd die after her. However, it's Shea who tells the most revealing story of the night.
He finally opens up about his past, and how his wife helped him survive the Civil War.
According to Shea, his wife back home had sent
him a letter explaining that she was leaving him for another man,
prompting him to leave his unit and return home with the intent to kill his wife's new lover.
When he got there, it turned out to be a ruse designed to get him to leave the war, ultimately
saving him from death on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and reuniting the couple.
It's a touching story, one that gives new meaning to Shea's longing for the family
we saw him leave behind in the premiere episode. The story illustrates the sadness in Shea's past,
and the passion that drives him throughout the series. It also
helps explain the respect he has for James and his relationship with his wife and daughter.
The love he sees in their eyes proves that he's more than just a battle hardened war veteran.
The settlers' decision to proceed to Oregon without Shea was met with derision from the
cowboy, who warned them they would die if they attempted to go it alone. He insisted that their
best hope for survival was to spend the winter in the valley and set off for Oregon in the spring,
but the remaining group had had enough of Brennan's delays. Even with his protection, he
had gotten many of them killed crossing a river, with more dying due to accidents and attacks.
The settlers also felt that at this point in the journey, the trail was well marked
enough that they didn't need Shea as a guide — a decision which would quickly
doom them. Not long after splitting up, a group of bandits attack the wagon train, looting it,
and killing everyone they found. It was another grim reminder of the lawlessness
and brutality of life on the plains, and the dangers that lurk around every corner.
They came to American shores with dreams of freedom and prosperity,
but in the end they wound up meeting their fate at the end of an outlaw's pistol.
Though all hope seems lost for Elsa as James, Shea, and the remaining members of the group take
her north towards Montana to die, they have an unexpected run-in with a band of friendly Native
Americans. The leader of the tribe, an elder named Spotted Eagle, sees that Elsa is in rough shape,
and says he has a doctor in his own group that may be able to help her.
"What do your doctors say?"
"We have no doctors."
"I'll get you a doctor."
After days spent injured on the trail, Elsa finally gets proper attention for her wound
from two medicine women who take her to a nearby stream and flush out the infection.
Audiences may have believed this was the moment when things would change for Elsa,
and she might finally be saved. It would have made thematic sense if she were healed by the tribe,
since she had bonded to a Native American man earlier in the season. Unfortunately,
the tribe's prognosis wasn't any better than the fort's. The leader of the tribe explains that
the Lakota coat the tips of their arrows in cow manure, to ensure that their victims are killed
by infection if not from the wound itself. Despite their medical attention and a spiritual ceremony,
it seems that there was truly no saving the young Elsa Dutton.
Having accepted his daughter's fate, James tells Spotted Eagle of his intention to take Elsa into
the mountains to die. He explains that wherever Elsa lays is where he and his wife plan to lay
claim and build a ranch. He goes on to say he does not know this region, and fears it will not be
hospitable to him. In response, Spotted Eagle suggests a valley he hunted while growing up.
"The winters are cruel, but the summers are rich and a man who plans can thrive."
Spotted Eagle says it is called Paradise Valley, which Yellowstone fans will recognize as the real
life valley where the series is set. It's also the name of a capital investment firm, run by
Dan Jenkins, that tries to push the Dutton's off the Yellowstone more than a hundred years later.
Spotted Eagle also gives James a word of warning, telling him that in seven generations,
his people will rise up to reclaim their land. The one thing he asks of James is permission to
continue hunting in the valley, which he happily gives. This also explains James'
kindness towards a small tribe we saw him meet in flashbacks in Yellowstone,
as he owes them a great debt for helping Elsa and pointing them to their new home in the valley.
Finally realizing that she won't get better and will soon die,
Elsa feels betrayed that her father lied to her. While speaking to her father, she requests to
choose the spot where she is to die. James grants her request, as Margaret watches from a distance,
distraught that her daughter has to face the truth of her own demise. However, it's once again wisdom
from Shea Brennan that helps James come to terms with Elsa's impending doom. The veteran soldier
consoles him with the fact that Elsa lived a full life, fuller than most, despite her young age.
"She has outlived us all."
Elsa had a happy childhood and a loving family. She traveled the plains, rode horses,
joined a wagon train, saw the beauty of the land, and bonded with many of its inhabitants.
She clashed with Comanche and battled bandits;
she fell in love more than once, and was loved back. Elsa had indeed lived the American Dream,
and death was now the last destination on her short journey through this world.
In "This Is Not Your Heaven," fans of Yellowstone finally get the significant connections they'd
been looking for all season long. We learn what pulled James Dutton off the path to
Oregon to founding the Yellowstone Ranch. After years of hints and references to family legacy,
we finally understand the spark that ignited the Dutton's passion for their home in Montana.
In an early part of the episode, Elsa muses to her father that the only thing she fears about
death is being forgotten. James and Margaret vow that if she's to die, they will make their home
where they bury her so they can visit her grave every day, ensuring her memory. When Elsa chooses
a spot by a tree near where the Dutton ranch is to be built, audiences finally understand
the Dutton's ancestral claim to the land. We've heard John Dutton's promise to his father not to
let the land go, and now we see that the same promise has been handed down for generations.
It seems the Dutton's claim to the Yellowstone Ranch stretches back to 1883, with the death
of Elsa Dutton. While her descendant John Dutton refuses to relinquish it,
it remains to be seen if Spotted Eagle's prophecy that his people will one day reclaim it is true.
Once Elsa passes away in her father's arms,
the story flashes forward one year. While we do not see James and Margaret in their new ranch,
we do get updates on the surviving cast. Josef is seen on crutches, his right leg amputated, as he
removes his wedding band in memory of his wife. He pulls a stack of wood planks from his horse,
and we're left to believe that he is building his new home in a valley. He is the lone survivor of
his group, but he has finally found the home he set out to build when the series began.
We then cut to Willamette Valley, Oregon and see Noemi and Thomas staking a claim on a plot of land
near a river. Noemi's two children rush to embrace her. This is especially meaningful,
because earlier we learned that her children blamed her for the death of their father,
and hadn't spoken to her since. Finally in Oregon, they build a new home and new life with Thomas.
Finally, we see Shea on a beach, looking out over the water. He speaks to his late wife Helen,
admiring the beauty of the Pacific Ocean. Having completed his journey,
and seeing nothing left to hang on to, Shea ends his own life while sitting on the shoreline.
Whether heartwarming or devastating, the ending of 1883 won't leave a dry eye in the house.
When the series began, audiences may have suspected that 1883 would be a series very
much like Yellowstone — a high octane drama full of action and suspense. The Wild West
seemed like the perfect place for the series' first spin-off, and surely fans
dreamed of rough-riding cowboys chasing down bandits in a fast-paced western adventure.
When it premiered, viewers were instead treated to a somber and emotional drama — a slower,
more intimate look at life on the frontier than they may have expected. While James indeed played
a central role, it became clear right away that it would be Elsa Dutton's story, as she narrated
her journey north from Texas. An unexpectedly subdued premiere episode gave way to a series that
provided background to Yellowstone while telling its own story that required no prior knowledge.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about 1883 is that it wasn't the story of hope
and discovery that many may have thought. Instead, the series was ultimately a bleak
tale of the hopelessness and sorrow felt by so many as they ventured out onto the frontier.
Though there are moments of joy to be found, even those are bittersweet,
as so many of the series' characters meet untimely ends. The unforgiving narrative we're
left with illustrates how every element of early American life was fraught with danger and death.
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