1923 wrapped its first season with an emotional pausing point for each character in the earlier branch of the Dutton family tree and those living lives parallel to theirs. Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel was told in three parts, with each sub-story holding its own unique storyline, characters, and points of both immense joy and devastating pain.
For easily the most brutal yet hopeful character arc of the series as a whole, this chapter’s conclusion signals something innocent and beautiful, magnificent and deserving: hope… the kind you feel as a child when you’ve yet to be hardened by the world. Even more perplexing is the character feeling it: Teonna Rainwater, played by Aminah Nieves.
Teonna spent much of the series in various stages of pain and healing, stuck between courage and vulnerability, fighting for her life and her right to live it in a way that is genuine and authentic to herself. Trapped in a hellscape disguised as a boarding school, Teonna and other young indigenous women were forced to have the “Indian within them killed” if they hoped to go a day without pain, and Teonna wasn’t willing to play their game.
Ultimately escaping and taking life-ending steps in the process to ensure her survival, Teonna is plagued by a deep-seated unkindness, and that’s been the crux of her journey until the clouds above her head begin to open as the season draws to a close. It’s almost as if the lens on the camera clears itself of dust — just in time. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Nieves says that it was nice to allow audiences to see her in that regard, to see the cloak of her pain removed; more so, it was a freeing moment for Teonna herself.
“More than anything, it gave everyone a chance to see her as a child. And it gave her a chance for her child self to show. (Gets emotional.) That, for me, meant more than anything else. Because you don’t get to see her as a child. She doesn’t get to express being a child. And if she can have that one moment, that’s it. Yes, she’s getting away. But she could be herself for a second. And she could breathe. And she could hug someone who feels familiar. So yeah, let’s see what happens in season two!”
In addition to Nieves, Mo Brings Plenty had a massive part in the storyline of Indigenous Peoples in the early chapters of western expansion, not just in 1923. Fans of the Yellowverse will recognize him as Chief Thomas Rainwater’s right-hand man, Mo, in the core series — Yellowstone, but they might not immediately understand the depths of what he provides to Sheridan’s growing Dutton story as a whole. He’s an integral part of storytelling in each chapter, serving as the American Indian Coordinator Consultant, recognizing the importance of showing the cultural and spiritual pieces of Indigenous Peoples in the most authentic light.
Of course, that means that a fine line exists between what can be shown in the Yellowverse and what cannot, and he says that Sheridan himself clearly understands how vital it is to protect them.
“I always go to the concept that years ago, our way of prayer was banned. And so, everything went into secret. I think about the children and the importance of them at least having something that would give them some type of acknowledgment of their bloodlines and of their existence, but also maybe an inspiration to get involved in their cultural identity. And so I’m fond of doing what we have done because Taylor understands. He fully understands our cultural ways. He’s participated in a lot of our ceremonies, and so he knows there’s a fine line in that we can reveal some things to give a general idea to the audience but also continue to protect these ways.”
That being said, Brings Plenty understands that some Indigenous Peoples will question why their intimate customs are being shown on television, and his response to those questions shines a light on why this avenue of storytelling is so important and how much space Sheridan has given him to ensure their stories are told with care and compassion.
“I understand where a lot of people come from. There are so many spiritual predators out there, always looking for their next item they can utilize in their sales of considering themselves a spiritual leader or whatever the case may be. But that’s in all aspects of life, so we just have to stay in the positive aspect of everything and continue to look at our children and see what we can do to continue to influence or inspire them. The bottom line for me, at the end of the day, is if you want to walk beside Taylor Sheridan, he’s so fearless that you, too, have to be courageous to do what needs to be done and tell these stories in a good way. And be aware and conscious of the boundary that you don’t want to cross. That’s really what it boils down to for me.”
Brings Plenty and Nieves both know that the story is heavy; there are a lot of painful scenes within the storyline, several of which are almost too brutal to watch and undeniably hard to act out as well. Nieves notes that her character’s journey is a lot… it’s heavy, but she feels a responsibility to tell it.
“It is a lot to carry, and also I think it’s our duty to carry it. It’s our duty to tell these stories and to share these stories. Because I think to a mass amount of people, we still don’t exist. And people like to ignore the fact that we do exist. So I think I have a duty to share our stories and to be a voice. Because it’s not just me doing it. It’s a mass amount of people coming through me at once. I’m doing it with Mo, I’m doing it with Birdie, I’m doing it with Leenah Robinson [who plays Teonna’s cousin, Baapuxti], with Michael Spears [who plays Teonna’s father, Runs His Horse], and Michael Greyeyes [who plays Hank] and Cole Brings Plenty [who plays Hank’s son, Pete Plenty Clouds]. And I take great pride and honor in knowing that our faces are being seen and that our voices are being heard during 1923 and beyond.”
There’s a brutal sense of unkindness in how Indigenous girls are spoken to in the boarding school. These young women aren’t just hurt physically; they’re “reminded” daily that who they are is wrong, that they’re unnatural, and somehow that means they must be rid of themselves from the inside out. They’re broken of everything they were and could have been, and even then, their survival isn’t promised. There’s a heartbreaking scene early in 1923 when Teonna is speaking to another young woman at the school, and she reminds her that those who have “aged out” of the program are never heard from again. It’s not that they go off to form such valuable lives that they forget about their friends — no, it’s far more sinister than that.
Brings Plenty sees that harshness as a window to highlight what the Indigenous People did with their circumstances after. In a vulnerable piece of the conversation, he shares that telling these stories gives him the space to revisit his own history, fragments of it which are reminiscent of what we’ve seen in 1923. As he explains that he has sensory memory of his Oglala Lakota childhood, experiencing some of these same punishments, it gives us pause.
“I’m very familiar with the story. Like Aminah, I had my hesitations because I was revisiting different places and moments in my life, where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to reopen those wounds. I remember the rulers. I can tell you what a bar of soap tastes like. I remember getting a haircut in third grade and going through that because that era and that moment didn’t just end when those boarding schools closed. The mentality carried through.”
How did he find the strength to move forward and tell these stories? It’s a hope he has for us as a nation now, for how we raise our children who will lead in the future. Brings Plenty and Nieves agree that there’s hope for the next generation as they open their hearts to share a painful history.
“The game-changer for me to get involved and to get in-depth in all of it was the fact that, if we don’t tell these stories, then society will not know what we’ve been through. And neither will our own children. What it did for me was it fueled me to become more of what [the children at those schools] were told they could no longer be. Why not become that again? Hence, why I wear braids every day. That’s why I braid my hair. And understanding and knowing our language, our culture, and traditions, and being an example of that. Every day that I’m given, I try to be more of an example of the past more so than the present, with hopes that I can inspire the present to also do the same.”
Inspiration is something ever-present in the Yellowverse, be it through the breathtaking vulnerability of actors like Nieves and Brings Plenty and the way they’re willing to bare it all to bring truth to these stories or how Sheridan walks with them, giving them the reigns and the space to tell their truth in a realm that honors them — there’s something inherently beautiful about what’s happening in a series that could easily be written off as a dramatic take on cowboy life. There are so many stories being interwoven, with respect given to each piece of the moving puzzle, and we feel lucky to be fans of it all.
