1883Yellowstone

1883 Fans Are Scratching Their Heads Over This Elsa Dutton Detail

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“1883” is the first spin-off of “Yellowstone,” the insanely popular show about the Dutton family and their trials and tribulations at their Yellowstone Ranch. The show focused on James and Margaret Dutton (Tim McGraw and Faith Hill), the great-grandparents of John Dutton (Kevin Costner), and how they came to own the Yellowstone Ranch and surrounding land. Their daughter, Elsa (Isabel May), narrated their adventures and heartaches.

Most viewers are willing to allow for the occasional discrepancy to move the story along, but some of the errors make us question the statement Tim McGraw made to The Hollywood Reporter that referred to creator Taylor Sheridan as “a stickler for authenticity.” Viewers want accuracy, and they’re very vocal when they notice that the story being told doesn’t line up with actual historical events or truth. One such example that had 1883’s fans’ heads spinning was when the show got the locations of both the Red River and Brazos River wrong. While “Yellowstone” fans love that the show’s creator Taylor Sheridan is constantly working to build and expand the universe that the show exists in, going back into history to tell a story always requires a bit more diligence to small details, and fans think Sheridan dropped the ball on one detail concerning Elsa’s age.

James would’ve been in a POW camp when Isabel was conceived

“Please correct me if I missed something, but as far as I can tell her [Elsa] age doesn’t line up with the background of the rest of the series,” u/LeanMeanGreenBean88 asserted on an “1883” subreddit. “She is stated to be 18 years old in the title year of 1883. Which would make her born in the year 1865 (maybe 1864 if she has a birthday later in the year…). James Dutton is established to have been captured by Union forces (and by Tom Hanks himself!) at the battle of Antietam, which occurred in September 1862, and then spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.” To be blunt, either Elsa isn’t 18, James isn’t her father, or someone screwed up, overlooking this Elsa detail.

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While fans have generally laughed off other Elsa details that don’t make sense, this one had fans more divided, with some accusing Sheridan and the writers of not doing a good job researching POW camps from that era and others claiming the mistake occurred because Sheridan is stretched too thin between all his shows. U/SnowedInByEdward summed it up, saying that Sheridan has “his money and legacy but he needs to chill a bit and get back to quality over quantity.” With Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford set to take over for Sheridan’s next “Yellowstone” prequel, hopefully Sheridan heeds this advice.

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