This is a scene-by-scene recap of 1923 Season 2 Episode 4, “Journey the Rivers of Iron.” For a discussion of the episode, please visit the 1923 Season 2 Episode 4 review.
Whitfield is addressing some men about modern American conveniences. They no longer use their hands to get rich but their minds. But where will they spend their money and free time?
They’ll travel wherever they can experience a world opposite of their own. Montana is the perfect place to do it. Selling an experience is an infinite resource that costs nothing to create because it already exists.
He speaks of three concurrent phases: an airport, paved roadways through Paradise Valley, and a winter park resort that will keep people coming year-round to ice skate, toboggan, and ski. The men laugh at him. Why suffer through winter only to vacation there?
The man thinks vacationing on a beach is much different than snow. Whitfield knows better. The best part is that other than the resort itself, the state will pay for it to get the tax revenue. The men jump at the opportunity.
Banner Creighton whispers to Whitfield: The resort sits in the middle of Yellowstone, which is Jake Dutton’s land. Whitfield says it’s time to build that army he’s talked about.
In the Grand Central restroom, Alex is attacked. A man steals her money and empties her luggage, but not before she bites through his thumb.
He punches and kicks her multiple times, jamming her body inside the bathroom stall while the train she was to take starts to leave. A woman enters the restroom, and Alex awakes. What time is it? Alex grabs what she can and runs for the train.
She misses the train, but she runs like hell and jumps aboard. The conductor thinks she’s off her rocker.
“I’ve never seen someone so desperate to reach Billings,” he says. The whole place looks at her like she’s a lunatic. She gathers her composure and walks to her quarters, holding her head high.
Of course, she’s sharing a compartment with a woman and multiple children. The woman wonders why she has a fat lip. She was robbed, she says. What did she take? He took everything, Alex responds.
Spring is coming, Elsa says, but it will be teased over and over with snow and greenery and more snow and more greenery. It’s a test of their perseverance.
They have crafted a vice for Zane’s head. Cara wants Alice to come with her. The doctor has never performed this procedure, let alone on a man who is not under anesthesia. The doctor uses chloroform, but it’s not expected to last long. (I have to turn the volume down for this one.)
Zane’s kids are building a snowman outside. Alice heard there are no laws against their marriage somewhere nearby and considers moving there, but Cara says that’s wrong. Even worse, they were hurt to get to the Duttons, which is a strange kind of bigotry.
The operation is successful. Zane already feels better. His muscles haven’t been used much lately, though, so he’s got to take things slow. Jack is in awe of the procedure. Zane just wants to know if they’re going after them for what they did to them. Jacob assures him they will.
The doctor needs a drink, and he earned it.
Elizabeth has turned off her love for Jack entirely. She doesn’t even want him in the same room. But part of that seems to be to trick herself into not loving him.
Jacob wants to try talking to her. Cara says if anyone can make it worse, it will be him. He says her unwavering belief in him is why they’ve lasted so long.
When he talks with Elizabeth, Jacob reminds her that Jack wants to protect his family by protecting the ranch. He understands that she wants to visit her family and doesn’t blame her, but he hopes she’ll return because the sun doesn’t rise in the east for Jack; it rises with her.
It’s time for her shot, and she gives it to herself this time. But something’s not right. It shouldn’t hurt that much. Cara goes to fetch the doctor.
Elizabeth is pregnant. I swear, Taylor Sheridan is messing with us.
Elizabeth joins Jack outside to tell him the news. Jacob thinks he saved the day until Jack screams that they’re going to have a baby. Cara says his complete ignorance of the female mind has been the cornerstone of their marriage, and without it, she would have left him years ago.
Spencer is walking along the road when the Fort Worth police department drives up next to him, considering him a vagrant. Trouble follows Spencer and Alexandra for reasons I don’t understand.
The cop opens the door. Put your things inside and I can either take you to the rail station or the jail in Fort Worth.
The country has completely changed since Spencer left. Unfortunately, the cop knows that Spencer was in the truck with Luca yesterday. They take him to the truck, where men are watching it with guns.
His next choice? Either spend the next five years in prison or deliver the whiskey. If he delivers it, he’s free to go.
They want to use Spencer to find the delivery location.
Spencer wants his things to go with him, or he’d prefer to go to jail. The man complies.
In Fort Worth, a naked woman has been tarred and feathered. She’s been deemed a prostitute, and they are parading her through the streets, chanting ugly things.
They find the location, and a shootout commences. Spencer is stuck in the middle again, and this time, the damn cop has cuffed him to the steering wheel. Spencer removes his pistol and shoots the cuffs off, wrecking the truck and running off.
Running through the streets, he detours and cuts the woman free. He makes it to the train tracks and hops in a rail car.
Spencer isn’t alone in the car, of course. There are several bums in there, and they want him to pay the train tax. A toothless fellow says he’s the tax collector. The guy isn’t worried that Spencer will pay because men always fall asleep on the train.
Banner hasn’t been home in a while, but he heads straight to the bottle instead of greeting his wife.
Banner imagines his son going to any university he wants and running the empire he creates. She’s taken with his promise to deliver all of the things, but if he gives it to her, then another family must go without.
She says that’s the only way people get rich; they take it from others. She’s all for it. Just make sure the job is done completely.
Banner has found 35 shepherds who will fight alongside him. Whitfield doesn’t care. Whitfield thinks he’ll get the Yellowstone when Jacob doesn’t pay his back taxes again. There is a county that has no sheriff, no residents, no nothing. That’s where you take the bodies — the place where there can be no crime.
Whitfield’s woman knocks. She was ready to have an orgasm, so she strangled the other woman to death. Whitfield gives Banner the body to dispose of. He can consider it practice. Now, Whitfield needs to punish the other woman.
Spencer hasn’t fallen asleep on the train yet.
Runs His Horse, Pete, and Teonna learn how to be cowboys. When they settle with the others to eat, Teonna learns about the rodeo. There is even prize money. But she finds something else: her face on a flyer for a $250 reward. They’re plastered all over the rodeo grounds.
Spencer is the last man awake on the train, but his eyes finally close, and at that moment, the other guy’s eyes open. The three beggars spring into action. They think they’ve got him, but they have met nobody like Spencer Dutton.
He’s a man on the move again.
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