There is a powerful storm gaining ever more ground on the Paradise Valley, which threatens to consume everyone and everything in it. But besides Donald Whitfield, now the Duttons also have a blizzard blowing in. 

In Season 2 Episode 2 of 1923 (“The Rapist is Winter”), the scene is set for us by Elsa Dutton, through more of her beyond-the-grave narration and some especially overcooked writing from Taylor Sheridan. “Hell is a river frozen, with canyon walls of ice and bitter air that ruptures lungs and rapes your sanity.” A blizzard like the one hitting the mountains of Montana makes compasses lightheaded. It forsakes reason. It can make someone wonder why they endure such conditions. Someone like Elizabeth. Last week she almost became a mountain lion’s meal. And this week on 1923, after she’s attacked by a possibly rabid wolf, Elizabeth declares her intention to cut and run. 

Now, keep in mind that in her time with Jack Dutton and his family, Elizabeth has suffered a miscarriage and got caught in the crossfire of a bloody range war. And even assuming they convince her to stay, it’s not like the warmer months will be all flowers. With the help of Sheriff McDowell (Robert Patrick), Jacob got Zane the wagon boss, Zane’s wife Alice, and their two small children released into his custody. (And to the elder Dutton’s credit, he wasn’t gonna tolerate the racist judge – seems like we’ll never be free of these guys – who called the kids “mongrels” and questioned the legal birthright of their citizenship.) But as the entire group makes their way from Bozeman to the ranch, the blizzard hits them in full gale. In zero visibility, Jack frees the horses to find lower ground, and Jacob tips the wagon to improvise a shelter. The storm will pass. But Whitfield, with all his money and power, is still on the advance. Given the blows Team Dutton continues to absorb, the edge feels dull on Jacob’s promise to Zane, and by extension to the population of the Dutton ranch: “Come spring, we’re gonna do some choppin’ of our own.” 

At least Spencer Dutton is back on American soil for the first time in six years. Wading ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, Spencer discovers “The Free State of Galveston” in full bloom. Luca, his little buddy from the Italian merchant ship, is cousins with Salvatore “Sal” Maceo (Gilles Marini), a real-life Prohibition-era figure whose hotel, casino, and bootlegging operations called Galveston home. And while Sal, with his menacing charm and razor-sharp lapels, thanks the lion hunter for protecting Luca, and feeds him – Spencer Discovers Pizza in a funny little scene, complete with a cartoonishly-rendered Italian chef – things turn troublesome when he leaves Sal’s hotel with a mind to walk from Texas to Montana. 

“My family is in danger. My wife is lost to me. I don’t have time for hospitality.” Brandon Sklenar can be a real beast with lines like this, where he fills up each syllable with Spencer’s righteous warrior-hero ethos. And just like last season, whenever his travels with Alexandra brought his rough-hewn shape into contact with the rarefied air of early 20th-century modernization, it’s a trip to see Spencer, with his leather bedroll and a long gun over his shoulder, stalking through the lobby of Sal’s fancy hotel. But the determination Spencer shows for his cause also impresses Luca’s cousin. 

The mafioso presses him into service. With Luca, Spencer will drive a load of Maceo’s illegal booze to Fort Worth. He is given cash for bribes, a pistol for any other problems. And once (if) they secure the delivery – war fighter, big game hunter, bootlegger; Spencer’s colorful resume just keeps growing – Sal says he is free to take the truck and drive it all the way to Montana.

It’s not clear that Salvatore Maceo can be fully trusted. But at least Spencer is in the US and closing the distance. Spring is coming! But there is also something interesting that passes between the two as they make their agreement. Another note of warning. The war Spencer describes, the war over the land his family has controlled years, is a conflict Sal understands from his own experience back in Sicily. He knows a family must fight it. But he also knows how it can end. 

There’s a new marshal in town, and she’s not taking any shit. Jennifer Carpenter joins 1923 in the coolest way possible as Mamie Fossett, an Oklahoma-based US Marshal who wears her gunbelt positioned for a left-handed center draw. (Like he did with Salvatore Maceo, or Bass Reeves for that matter, Sheridan has based Fossett on a real person out of history.) As the traveling posse after Teonna Rainwater describe their quarry – they leave out the part about how the priests and nuns Teonna killed were all rapists and murderers – Marshal Fossett tells Kent and Renaud that Oklahoma is not Montana, that they better respect any Native Americans they encounter, and that just like Jacob Dutton with that judge in Bozeman, she doesn’t tolerate outmoded ideas. “You’re a bigot,” Fossett tells Kent with quiet certitude. She’s tired of always having to always deal with dudes like this, who reside in the wrong century. 

While wolves attack the Duttons in the cold expanse of winter, and their supplies dwindle even as more mouths to feed make their way to the ranch, Donald Whitfield is out here consolidating his awfulness. When he notices a few Norwegian miners skiing on the mountains that contain the shafts of his successful gold mines, he sees even more opportunity in such “euphoria of peril.” Not to fall on his ass in search of outdoor fun – like anyone could imagine Whitfield skiing in his Prince Albert topcoat, but the Norwegian guy is nice so he still offers to teach him – but opportunity in the tycoon’s ability to sell the act of skiing back to the people who would wish to do it. Basically, in the 1920s, Whitfield sees snow and mountainsides and envisions the same ski resorts Market Equities wants to put on Dutton land in the 2020s.

While Banner Creighton is still as beholden to his benefactor as he ever was, the former sheepherder regrets it more every day. “There is no vision,” Banner says of Donald Whitfield. “He sees through us. Sees the greed in our hearts. The man scares me. He fucking scares me to death.”

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.