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‘Yellowstone’ Prequel ‘1923’s Premiere Episode Is Streaming for Free Online: Here’s How to Watch

Have you checked out 1923, the Yellowstone prequel? If you’re interested, Paramount+ is offering a way to watch several episodes for free.

The streaming network dropped the premiere episode on its YouTube channel. And new users can use the code 1923 for a free, 30-day trial. That should get you the first four episodes or so.

The prequel, the second one for Yellowstone, definitely is drawing a ton of buzz. It seems everyone wants to check out Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as Jacob and Cara Dutton. On the show, the two have been married for four decades.

1923 Drew Record-Breaking Audience in Its Pre-Christmas Premiere

The prequel premiered Dec. 18, basically following the same schedule as 1883, which debuted right before Christmas in 2021. Paramount+ confirmed that 7.4 million viewers checked out the 1923 premiere. The audience shattered the previous viewership record by nearly 80 percent.

The series ran on Paramount+ and Paramount Network, the cable home for Yellowstone. Paramount+ didn’t specify a breakdown in viewership between the streaming service and the cable channel.

And to think, 1923 came about because so many beloved characters in 1883 died by the end of the series run. Taylor Sheridan, who created Yellowstone and its spinoffs, told Deadline that the new prequel was to fulfill a promise for a second season of 1883. He leaned on history to inspire a storyline.

“So, I said I’ll come up with another peek into the window,” Sheridan said. “And I sat there and tried to look at it. I studied Montana’s history and the history of the world. Covid was ending, which is a very similar thing to World War I. Because after World War I ended, about a half a year later, the Spanish Flu arrived and it killed 100 times what our Covid-19 did.”

He added: “Montana interestingly had a depression about a decade before the (Great) Depression because it was such a cattle economy… All the cattle ranches at that time were sending all the beef to the British army, and French armies, and ultimately our army. There was a lot of pressure and a lot of free money for these homesteaders.

“Even though they had big tracts of land there was a lot of pressure to raise more and more and more beef,” Sheridan said. “So they took out these big loans to get more things and Montana had its depression a decade before the depression. And there were really range wars between all of these different groups largely divided among not nationalistic lines.”

Prequel Also Focuses on Surviving Sons of James and Margaret Dutton

Toss in all that built-in Dutton drama and you have a series people want to watch. We learn in the 1923 premiere that Jacob is the brother of James Dutton (Tim McGraw). Jacob and Cara headed to Montana in the 1890s after James, then Margaret (Faith Hill) died to help raise their two sons, John and Spencer.

So by 1923, the sons are grown. Presumably, the story will offer more clues as to how Kevin Costner’s John Dutton and his family evolved into the way they are in present day. Obviously, it’s a story millions of viewers find fascinating.