This ‘1923’ Dutton Plot Hole Makes Us Wonder if Taylor Sheridan Has Spread Himself Too Thin With Yellowstone

There’s no doubt that the Yellowstone universe has managed to expand into an Old West-sized empire over at Paramount. Combined with all the other TV projects that Taylor Sheridan is attached to, it’s clear that the filmmaker has his hands full — but are they too full? It’s been said before that Sheridan ought to return to making killer neo-Westerns for the big screen. More than that, it’s certainly been implied that the filmmaker is a bit too stretched out in terms of creating new content these days, but we’re beginning to see this even more through various plot holes and dropped balls on some of his biggest television dramas — most recently, his Yellowstone prequel 1923.

‘Yellowstone’ References An Event That Likely Should’ve Happened in ‘1923,’ but Never Occurred

When we compare what we see in 1923 to what was previously heard on Yellowstone, seeing the disconnect between them, we have to wonder if Sheridan let this detail slip his mind because he was too busy or because he simply forgot. While we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter, the truth is that the former likely still had something to do with it. But what are we talking about? Well, back in the Yellowstone Season 4 episode, “Phantom Pain,” we learn the only piece of information the original series gave us about John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) grandfather, Specner (Brandon Sklenar), information that 1923 would quickly forget. Here, John warns Jimmy Hurdstrom (Jefferson White), who got into a bad accident while pursuing rodeo, that he could’ve permanently injured himself. To emphasize the point, John recalls that his own grandfather got into a similar situation.

“My grandfather lost a leg,” John explained to the young ranchhand. “He said the worst pain was in the toes of the leg he didn’t have anymore. They call it ‘phantom pain.'” While John could be lying about this detail to scare Jimmy, that seems highly unlikely given the pride that John has in the previous Duttons that came before him. More likely, this was a very real detail about Spencer that was meant to be addressed in a future prequel. The trouble is, 1923 never brings it up. At the end of 1923‘s second season, we learn that Spencer and Alex’s (Julia Schlaepfer) son is John Dutton Jr., named after Spencer’s deceased brother. It’s here that it becomes clear that Costner’s John is a direct descendant of Spencer’s John. However, we never see Spencer lose any appendages in the series. In fact, being a World War I vet and all, the time to see one of Spencer’s legs blown away comes and goes without a second thought.

Not even in the battle against Donald Whitfield’s (Timothy Dalton) men in the series finale, “A Dream and a Memory,” does this come up, nor is it mentioned (or even implied) in the flashforward sequence at the end of the series. While the old Spencer seen at the very end of 1923 is, admittedly, shrouded in shadow, it doesn’t appear that he’s missing a leg either. Sure, he walks with a little bit of a limp, but we can chalk that up to him simply being old. Again, given that this is one of the very few details that Yellowstone provides us with about Spencer before 1923 aired, it seems that Sheridan should have been able to recall this. Of course, it’s not the only idea the show came up with that it later dropped.

This Isn’t The Only Time ‘Yellowstone’ Has Abandoned Certain Storylines

Over the years, there were plenty of Yellowstone plotlines, characters, and concepts that were simply abandoned by the show, for no explainable reason. In the second episode, “Kill the Messenger,” Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his family discover dinosaur bones on their land, but nothing ever comes of it. We could have gotten a cool Dragon Teeth-inspired plotline where excavators wrestled with the Broken Rock people over how to proceed, but the story was entirely forgotten. You know who else was forgotten? Monica’s (Kelsey Asbille) grandfather, Felix Long (Rudy Ramos). Although Kayce and Monica leave the Rez to move to the Dutton Ranch, that doesn’t mean that Monica or Tate (Brecken Merrill), his only grandson, would have cut Felix out of their lives? Yes, the character came back for a few episodes following the first season, but never in a recurring or notable capacity. And that’s not all either.

Over the years, many fans have pointed out that there is still a bomb on the Beck Brothers’ airplane somewhere waiting to explode. While the villains (or someone) may have dismantled it, we see Kayce plant the thing, only for nothing to happen afterward. And that’s not to mention all the drama surrounding Jamie’s (Wes Bentley) murder of that out-of-state reporter, which was somehow swept under the rug without becoming a national media sensation. In our age of true-crime podcasts and armchair investigators, someone would have come up with a connection between them, right? The list goes on, but the point is that the show continued to introduce ideas and concepts relating either to the plot or important characters that often fell to the wayside, which is just bad writing, really.

Is Taylor Sheridan Working On Too Much to Be Most Effective in the Yellowstone Universe?