Yellowstone: What Happened To 1883’s James And Margaret Dutton? – Looper

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Isabel May revealed that she knew early on that Elsa Dutton would narrate any “Yellowstone” spin-offs set after “1883” solely because Taylor Sheridan told her she would. “I always knew that I would narrate every iteration from then on. He told me that from the offset,” the actor recalled. “So I wasn’t surprised by it.” May was, however, shocked by the way in which Sheridan chose to reveal the fates of Elsa’s mother and father.

When asked what she thought of her opening narration of “1923” and how it reveals what eventually happened to James and Margaret, May said, “Oh, brutal! Brutal! So sad. Really what hit me was Margaret, she was so wonderful.” Reflecting further on Sheridan’s treatment of his “1883” characters, May added, “He’s going to make it brutal because that’s what life looked like then.”

The actor is, to her credit, correct in her assessment of Sheridan’s approach to his ever-expanding “Yellowstone” universe. Ever since “Yellowstone” began, the showrunner has displayed a willingness to kill off characters whenever he thinks that his story calls for it — no matter how prominent or seemingly important they may be. In “1883,” he took that even further by killing off most of its leads within the span of its eight episodes.

Right now, it remains to be seen whether or not “1923” will end up telling as brutal of a story as its predecessor. Either way, if one thing is for certain, it’s that Sheridan is fully committed to reminding viewers just how dangerous the Old West really was — and he doesn’t care how many characters he has to kill off in order to do that.