The second season of 1923 must have set some record for the most misery endured by characters in a TV show.
While Season 1 had its ups and downs, Season 2 dials up the suffering as everyone faces situations many would not endure — and some characters don’t.
The unforgiving nature of the natural world, coupled with the human race’s never-ending greed, creates some of the most horrible situations.
It can be hard to watch others endure unimaginable horrors. For many, this can compound their general hopelessness in the face of uncontrollable situations.
The fact that we cannot fix most things, no matter how much we want to, is spiritually debilitating.
1923 Season 2 explores the struggles of these characters in the early 20th century, when people had less understanding of the world and society than they do today.
Death was the order of the day. If other people don’t get you, animals sure will. If animals fail, the weather and climate will get the job done.
It seemed like a real-world Russian roulette game in which all the slots in the gun are loaded. While the game might not fail at some point, it doesn’t matter because you cannot stop playing.
However, the season featured another problem: it leaned into too much.
Taylor Sheridan Writes Sex Scenes
The fact that Taylor Sheridan knows how to balance the narrative is one of the biggest allures of his works.
When he writes a scene, he will leave no stone unturned, but he doesn’t spend too much time on something that loses its impact.
This balance has stopped his shows from focusing too much on one thing, and it’s been clear since time immemorial that sex sells.
While many of his shows are sexual, they manage to blend in with the narrative and feel like a natural part of it.
1923 Season 2 is the first time that it feels like sex is being used sinisterly, which is way worse than gratuitously.
The season features numerous sex scenes, beginning early in the season premiere.
In one, Spencer stops a rape and in another Whitfield continues his assault on sex workers. In yet another, Alex is assaulted on a train.
The common thread here is that sex is presented as a means of control, which is not far from the real world.
However, the sex scenes in the season have a particular nastiness to them, where they focus on the negative aspects of sexuality.
To make matters worse, the show dwells too much on these scenes, making an already uncomfortable show even more disturbing.
Seeing Whitfield abuse the women he keeps hostage is as chilling as watching a racist marshal murder a child without a second thought or remorse.
Every other scene on the Paramount+ hit to do with sex is explicit rape or rape-adjacent, removing the balance that Sheridan’s shows try to establish.
1923 Season 2 Went Too Far
It was important for the season to balance it out with loving or consensual depictions of sex and sexuality to counter everything else that was happening too frequently.
Apart from Teonna and Pete, everything else was just too awful.
Another thing that sneaks into these scenes is the depiction of sex between genders.
Sheridan’s shows don’t even remotely feature decent depictions of same-sex relationships. One can count on one hand the number of queer characters on all of his shows.
Queerness is talked about in passing, almost always being a punchline to some joke or scenario.
And I’m not even mad about it because Sheridan’s shows attract a particular audience, and I knew what I was signing up for with them.
But to make the only depiction of same-sex sexuality almost exclusvely tied to rape is not something without any negative consequences.
Viewers can be very biased against certain demographics and queer people have seen their unfair share of this bias.
Writing scenes that show same-sex interactions the way 1923 portrays them in Season 2 is frankly disgusting.
It reinforces existing notions that there is something fundamentally wrong with same-sex relationships.
“I mean, look at them. All they do is abuse each other and innocent people,” is a thought someone who is homophobic might tell themselves.
But above all, it’s just disturbing to be subjected to constant rape scenes when one scene or even alluding to it can be effective.
Over to you, 1923 Fanatics.
What did you think of the constant depictions of sexual violence in the season? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.
Watch 1923 Online
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