1923 Season 1 Episode 5 Recap

‘1923’ Season 1, Episode 5: Full Recap of ‘Ghost of Zebrina’

1923‘s Yellowstone origin story continues with Season 1, Episode 5, an emotional epic that pushes an already fantastic prequel to its limits.

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Spencer and Alexandra begin their long journey back to Montana. Banner and Whitfield plot their next move to control the valley. Teonna goes to great lengths to secure her freedom and safety. 

S1E05 Synopsis

‘1923’ Season 1, Episode 5 Full Recap

As we rejoin the Duttons of the 1920s, matriarch Cara (Helen Mirren) is escorted to their quaint Paradise Valley post office by ranch foreman Zane (Brian Geraghty) and great-nephew Jack (Darren Mann). There, she hopes for a letter from her dearest Spencer, but it never comes.

“Life had become a series of melancholy routines. Like a defeated stag that had retreated deep into the forest to tend its wounds. Our family had lost itself in the tedium of healing. The hobby of watching young love being robbed from her, Jack choosing to spend his evenings patrolling headquarters. Choosing revenge over passion.

A billion years of life led to my family standing in the mountains of Montana, and only four Duttons remained on this earth to survive another generation. We were going extinct.”

Elsa Dutton’s Narration, S1E05

The Yellowstone manor has become a gloomy, desolate place. Emma (Marley Shelton) has entered a deep depression in the wake of John Sr.’s death. Jack and Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph) have become estranged as he chooses to seek revenge over their life together. And Cara struggles to keep them all afloat as she tends to her own husband, Jacob (Harrison Ford) in their bed.

To help Emma, Cara has sent for the doctor, as she clearly needs help. But this gesture turns into a spiteful response from Emma, in which we (officially) learn that Cara and Jacob have never had children of their own.

It would be the last conversation they ever had. That night, a gunshot rings out in Emma’s bedroom as she takes her own life. The family buries her the following morning, and Elsa Dutton’s (Isabel May) narration on the extinction of the Dutton family rings out.

Spencer Dutton Heads for America

“Our family is condemned to journey. Journey from Ireland to escape poverty, journey from Tennessee to escape war. Journey from Kentucky to offer salvation, journey from Africa to seek vengeance…

Montana is the magnet now. It is the next journey. And for my own brother, it will be his last.”

Elsa Dutton’s Narration, S1E05

Back in Africa, Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer) are passing through Mombasa, Kenya, and hoping to do so safely. “Stay close,” Spencer tells her.

The pair make their way through busy streets to a Union transport station. Disappointment awaits as they learn there is no passage to America from here, only London. Even that will take three weeks. “I can’t wait three weeks,” Spencer laments. So they push on for an expedited option.

Teonna Heads for Montana

Journey is to consume Teonna (Aminah Nieves), as well. At her North Dakota Christian “boarding school,” the death of Sister Mary is discovered. Here, we learn that Teonna took another life on her way out – that of the nun who sexually assaulted her.

The children are summoned, and Teonna’s friend, Baapuxti (Leenah Robinson) is subject to brutal beatings by Father Renaud (Sebastian Roché) as he attempts to discover where Teonna has gone. “Home…” Baapuxti weeps. But this is not enough, and Renaud continues to beat the young girl, resulting in a threat to “send her to God” himself. To this, she replies in Crow:

“I am Otter from the Kills Many Clan. My cousin will reach our home. And then the Kills Many Clan will come to kill you. “

Renaud, outraged, sends her to the ground once more with a heavy fist, then stomps her to death. Outside, the search for Teonna begins as he sends three priests on horseback. “Bring her back to me,” Renaud scowls.

We then catch up with Teonna herself as she finds fresh water in the Badlands; brush tied to her waste to hide her tracks as she moves. As she settles into a cove, a summer-coated wolf finds her, and the two face off. Teonna bashes the wolf’s head with a rock, but the tough canine merely backs off. She then scales a rock column to escape, only for the wolf to lie calmly and wait.

‘1923’ Stampedes Forward with Episode 5

In a local cantina, Spencer looks for passage aboard another ship. A friend is able to shoo him away from large ships where Alexandra will not be safe, and instead to an “old man” who needs deckhands. This old man is Captain Lucca (Peter Stormare), who recognizes Spencer as a hunter right away, also spotting his mustard gas scars from WWI. The two understand each other immediately.

“Mr. Hunter, tomorrow we make a sailor out of you,” Lucca says before a horrid coughing fit. He’s clearly not long for this world, but Spencer agrees.

Then next morning, Teonna awakens to find herself surrounded by sheep. She meets their Native shepherd, Hank, who advises her not to return home as it is the first place her “Indian School” will look for her. He asks her name, and she replies: “Teonna. Teonna Rain Water”

Hank knows this name and its people. And so he chooses to help Teonna, shelter her, and send word to her father.

Back in Montana, Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn) and Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) get to work laying out their plan to “choke out” the Duttons from the Yellowstone. Their neighboring Strafford Ranch is now abandoned, and Whitfield aims to own it. To reward Banner for telling him this, Donald gifts him a modern city estate with running water, gas stoves, and electric lights. It’s enough to blow the mind of the “log and sod” shepherd from the mountains.

Jacob Dutton Returns to the Land of the Living

As the Yellowstone sells off their herds to recover financially, Jack becomes deeply bitter. As he returns home, doctors are moving patriarch Jacob outside as he needs sunlight to help heal his body, mind, and spirit.

“Look how angry you are,” Jacob growls to Jack.

“The Brewsters sold out. Straffords are gone. My parents are gone. You goddamn right I’m angry,” Jack replies. He’s eager for revenge. It consumes his every thought. But Jacob knows their men won’t follow him yet. He’s too green. This all must be done right, or the Duttons lose everything.

Through a discussion with Cara, Jacob pieces together who (or what) is funding Banner Creighton’s monstrous rampage. And it’s gold.

Meanwhile, Jack is going to lose Elisabeth. His cold, remote anger has made him completely absent from her life. So she asks to be taken to town to be sent “home.” But Jack won’t have it. He sees the error of his ways, and chases her out into the fields to “marry” her right on the spot. They say their vows, and the two mend their bond.

“Sun feels good,” Jacob smiles closer to 1923‘s version of the Yellowstone manor.

“How does some rice sound?” Cara asks.

“Sounds like shit,” Jacob smiles. “Don’t we have a steak in the icebox? Nine bullets don’t kill me, I doubt a steak will.”

“I’ll boil you a chicken and some rice. Doctor said rice,” Cara replies.

“Chicken and rice… That’s nobody’s last meal.”

“Exactly,” Cara smiles. As she walks towards the porch, she spots Jack and Elizabeth smiling for the first time in an age, bringing a smile to her face and tears to her eyes.

‘1923’ Pushes Spencer & Alexandra to Their Limits… Via Tugboat

As Spencer and Alexandra awake the next morning, they solidify their commitment to one another before meeting the vessel that will begin their adventure towards America… A Tugboat.

Once onboard, Captain Lucca gives multiple chaotic lessons on the sea, including how to pilot a tugboat while 20 miles offshore. After several nights getting to know him, Lucca’s bloody cough finally claims his life while piloting the ship. And so Spencer awakens to the sight of an abandoned ghost ship directly in front of them. He makes a mayday call as their tugboat is caught underneath the enormous ship’s bow. This, alongside Lucca’s stories, gives the episode its name: “Ghost of Zebrina,” and it also places Spencer and Alexandra in grave peril.

As snow falls on the Yellowstone, the family stirs inside the manor, and Elizabeth asks Cara for a wedding. She won’t fit into her dress come spring, so they cannot wait… Elizabeth is pregnant. “That is the first good news I have heard in so long,” Cara rejoices. It’s winter now in 1923, and a winter wedding is to come.

But first, Cara heads down to the post office as she does every week. This time, her carriage and horse escort is intercepted by a shiny red motorcar driving Banner Creighton and Donald Whitfield. Donald introduces himself, asking to meet Jacob. He and Banner still believe Jacob is dead, and that Cara can be choked out of the Yellowstone after a harsh winter. But they are in for a rude awakening.

Not only is Jacob alive… But Spencer is coming home.

“Aunt Cara,

I’ve received your letter, and I’m coming home.”

Spencer

Despite the mid-season trailer promising more to come from the couple, 1923 Season 1, Episode 5 ends with a shot of Spencer and Alexandra’s tugboat overturned in the ocean without a sign of life. And we’re left pining for Episode 2.

1923 returns February 12 for Episode 6 exclusively on Paramount Plus.