Harrison Ford as Jacob Dutton

‘1923’ Season 1, Episode 7: Full Recap of ‘The Rule of Five Hundred’

1923 Season 1′s penultimate episode takes a slower approach than previous entries while setting up what’s sure to be a gripping finale. Please be warned of spoilers in our full recap and observations of Episode 7 after the synopsis below.

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Banner is met with a surprise, as the feud with the Duttons takes an unexpected turn. Captain Shipley says his goodbyes to Spencer and Alexandra as the next leg of their journey commences. Teonna continues to fight for her safety.

S1E07 synopsis

Full Recap of ‘1923’ Season 1, Episode 7

In the Dutton Yellowstone manor, Jack says his goodbyes to Elizabeth as he prepares to take on his would-be assassin. Jacob does the same with Cara, and the men arm themselves for retribution as the matriarch worries by the fire.

What’s left of the Dutton cowboys saddle up alongside, and their long black train of horses rides out into a bitterly cold morning to reach Butte. In town, Clyde is waiting.

At his own swanky in-town manor, the man of the hour, Banner Creighton, entertains a couple of prostitutes in “his” bed. He’s not even moved his wife and kid into the home Donald Whitfield gifted him. But the doorbell interrupts his nude champagne soiree. It’s Sheriff McDowell, his lawmen, and Jacob Dutton himself.

“Look like you’ve seen a ghost, Banner,” Jacob growls. “And you have.”

For two murders and several other attempted murders, Banner’s arrested and carted off to jail as he curses to both Jacob and Jack.

Donald Whitfield Gets to Mining, Cara Dutton Gets to Writing

North of the Yellowstone, Donald Whitfield’s mine is coming to fruition. He’s amassed an army of workers. Clyde reaches him in time to tell him of Banner’s arrest, confirming his double-agent nature. But Whitfield seems less worried considering Banner is in jail and not dead. We soon find out why.

Whitfield’s sent a lawyer for Creighton, and informs him not to talk to anyone. He’ll be out of jail “tomorrow,” he’s promised. But Banner is more concerned with the prostitutes at his new town manor, so Whitfield heads for his home himself. There, he decides to deal with the prostitutes himself, engaging in a horrific display of abuse with his leather belt (one esteemed actor Timothy Dalton looks physically uncomfortable enacting).

Back at the Yellowstone, Cara writes a letter to Spencer, which is really for her. She knows he won’t receive the letter, but it’s a chance to teach Elizabeth about her new family. As the evening progresses, these two loveliest of humans bond over baking a cake; something Cara must teach her young niece-in-law. The celebration? Jacob coming home from Banner’s arrest. But Elizabeth wants to know where Jack is immediately.

“Dramatic little thing, isn’t she?” Jacob jokes.

“Like having a new puppy,” Cara smiles.

Elizabeth runs out to find her husband, and she sees him by their fire wearing a big smile. These two are still hopelessly in love, and it still shows.

‘1923’ Reiterates the Dutton Philosophy at the Infamous Dinner Table

In a dining room that will become infamous by Yellowstone‘s time, Jack reads the paper to his family. Calvin Coolidge is president, and the world is changing fast. Jack takes note of current politics, and the mining operations of Whitfield written within the day’s paper. But it brings him to question the difference between Jacob’s post as a lawman and the work of politicians. Both enforce the law.

So Jacob explains the difference to his nephew via The Rule of Five Hundred:

Jacob: There’s this theory that these scientists came up with after studying tribes in India, Africa, and South America. The smaller tribes didn’t have any government. Didn’t need any. They could sit down and talk out their problems, decide where to plant crops, to hunt. It was just a big family, really.

But when the number of people got up around 500, if there wasn’t any government, the strongest people would take advantage of the weakest. Every time, without fail. They would enslave, rape, steal; enrich their lives at the expense of other peoples’ lives. Government is man’s way of trying to control our behavior, but it can’t be controlled. That’s what we are.

Sooner or later, the kind of people that would enrich themselves at your expense will use the government to do it. And mark my words, one day they’ll create laws to control what we say, how we think. They’ll outlaw our right to disagree, if we let ’em.

I created the commission to protect the way this family provides for itself, how it protects the land.

Jack: Well isn’t Whitfield doing the same thing?

Jacob: The exact same thing. Unfortunately for him, what’s good for his way of life is not good for ours.

Jack: What about right and wrong?

Jacob: No such thing. Can’t think that way. You can only think about what’s good for this ranch. What’s good for your family. That’s it. Then you use their rules to do it.

Jacob and Jack Dutton, S1E07

But Cara isn’t having it. “This isn’t the news, Jack, this is camouflage!” she retorts as she waves the paper. “We don’t talk politics at the table! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll remember that!”

Jacob knows his wife isn’t angry, however. She’s scared because she knows what Jacob says is true, and Banner won’t stay in jail. Whitfield will play the rich man’s politics, escape sentencing, and come for the Duttons once more. In the west of 1923’s America, playing by the law gets you nowhere. The family remains in grave danger.

Death Defines Teonna Rainwater

On the Lodge Grass Reservation, the corpse of Teonna’s grandmother, Issaxche, is discovered in her home by the leader of their shepherds, the man we suspect to be Teonna’s father and her son. We have yet to learn her father’s name, however.

Outside, he looks to tracks. Horse shoes made these tracks, and Indigenous people do not shoe their horses. White men do.

Soon, Hank’s son, Pete Plenty Clouds, arrives, confirming the shepherd as Teonna’s father. Pete delivers their message, letting her father know Teonna has left her school and is coming home. But she is in trouble. “Big trouble.”

After burying his own mother, Teonna’s father rides off to gear up at his teepee.

Out in the Badlands, priests from Teonna’s school come across Pete. They question him as he sits by a fire causing no harm. But he is of “school age,” and so the priests begin to interrogate. Pete puts up a fight, and the priests brutally beat him, bind him, and prepare him to take to Teonna’s school.

Later into the evening, Teonna’s father discovers a lone horse, then the fire at which Hank’s son was taken from. Enraged, he finds more shoed tracks, and heads off into the night.

‘Salvation awaits in the light, and yet you people choose darkness. Seek it. Crave it.’

At a separate campsite, the priest that has taken Pete captive attempts to preach to him. But the young man will have none of it. The priest retaliates, and as soon as he’s about to kill the Indigenous “boy,” Teonna’s father arrives, scalps him, slits his throat, then “eats his soul” by consuming his heart.

The next day, Teonna is close by Hank’s flock out in the Badlands. There, the two remaining priests find her. But they believe her to be a boy shepherd. Hank is hiding close by as the men interrogate her, staring into her face. And they recognize her.

A fierce battle ensues, and Teonna drives her thumb into the eye of a priest. As they prepare to beat her to death, Hank arrives, shooting them both with his shotgun.

Teonna is heavily battered, but she is alive. Hank carries her from the scene, and as he does, he is shot in the back by the surviving priest. Teonna strugges to her feet, grabbing a rock as the priest reloads. She bashes his skull in, collapsing onto both of their bodies. She screams in horror as she grasps hank’s lifeless shoulders.

‘1923’ Spencer & Alexandra Finally Escape Africa

Out at sea, Spencer and Alexandra are brought to port by their esteemed captain. “I’m in your debt,” Spencer tells him.

“You’re in no such thing,” the captain replies, before revealing that he does, in fact, know who Spencer is. “You’re famous, Spencer Dutton, in case you were unaware.”

“I’m becoming aware,” Spencer offers alongside a handshake. And with that, he and Alexandra have made it to another shore. They’re finally out of Africa.

The newlyweds are now in Italy, where the mafia rules by 1923‘s time; a last piece of advice from their savior sailors. But the mafia is the least of Alexandra’s worries. As she and her new husband sit down at a seaside cafe, a familiar voice calls out to her. It’s the husband she left behind.

And with this brief appearance by our new favorite Duttons, we’re left waiting for the season finale of 1923. Season 1, Episode 8 airs next Sunday, February 19, exclusively on Paramount Plus.