1883 season 1 episode 5 review: "The Fangs of Freedom"

This review contains spoilers for 1883 season 1 episode 5, “The Fangs of Freedom.” Catch up with What to Watch’s previous recaps for 1883 here.

The fifth episode of 1883 begins at the bed of the river where the previous episode ended and saw a number of people from the wagon train drown as they tried to cross. Elsa’s (Isabel May) narration to start the episode notes this as kind of a marker, as they have left one world behind and officially entered “the land of no mercy.” She, and us viewers, get a better understanding of that throughout this episode, another quality entry that shows 1883 has found its groove.

Beyond the loss of the people, the river sank the wagon that was carrying most of the food the wagon train had. On top of that, Josef (Marc Rissmann) reveals that two members of the wagon train have been stealing food from others. Shea (Sam Elliott), Thomas (LaMonica Garrett) and Dutton (Tim McGraw) go with Josef, but tell him he needs to be the one to show leadership and confront them. He tries, but is pushed around by the bigger man. Dutton eventually puts a stop to it and Shea tells the thieves to leave the wagon train. He also says to the others that Josef is the leader they elected and that either they need to follow him or pick a new leader.

Starvation is one threat (Shea tells Dutton he needs to chip in with rations, to which he only agrees if they get a cook to join them as soon as possible), but bandits are another. Ennis (Eric Nelsen) and Wade (James Landry Herbert) tell Elsa that they now need to hide the cattle each night and that she shouldn’t go anywhere alone, as cattle aren’t the only thing the bandits might try to steal. Wade even finds traces of possible bandits and warns the others.

Elsa gets another bit of advice in the episode, this one from her mother. With Elsa spending more and more time with Ennis and revealing to Margaret that she kissed him, Margaret (Faith Hill) feels that it’s time to give her daughter some advice on love. Rather than a "birds and the bees" talk, though, it is more about making sure that if she decides to go beyond kissing with Ennis it’s something her heart wants. Having watched the two flirt relentlessly this season we know it is, and Elsa decides to sleep with Ennis. The next morning, Margaret tells her to be careful, because even though she thinks she has the freedom to make such choices, she warns her daughter that freedom has fangs and every decision has consequences. Still, Elsa says she has no regrets and she is happy with her choice, making another one that she is ready to marry Ennis, and he her (even after Dutton gets a few good licks in on him).

Need to take a minute to praise Isabel May and particularly Faith Hill. While the entire ensemble has been strong, 1883’s two leading ladies have been the early standouts and emotional centers of the show. Hill, in particular, was great in the scene the morning after Elsa and Ennis sleep together, telling her daughter she wishes that she could see the world through Elsa’s eyes, but warns that one day she will see it through hers.

Because one of the first rules of storytelling is you can’t introduce something and not pay it off, the bandits Wade and the others were worried about at the start of the episode make their way to the wagon train for the climactic moments. Spotting smoke in the distance from the bandits attacking the people left behind, Shea, Dutton, Thomas and Wade decide to make a stand to stop the bandits then and there, using Josef and his wife as bait.

This is my only real quibble with this episode. Shea tells Josef early on that he has to be the leader for his people. Putting himself and his wife in danger to protect others is a good opportunity to show what he is willing to do, but we don’t get to see him make that choice, it just happens. That could have been a crucial moment of character development for Josef, but it disappointingly happens off-screen.

Besides that though, the plan does work, as the wagon train is able to rally together and kill the bandits, but not before one of them shoots and kills Ennis. Elsa becomes distraught and takes her gun to kill the bandit that shot Ennis. While the narration has Elsa say that she now sees the world through her mother’s eyes as she warned, the amazing thing is that Isabel May does a great job showing that change in a close-up of her eyes; a fantastic bit of acting.

As 1883 hits its halfway point for season 1, this was a great episode to mark that with. The loss of Ennis not only sets up Elsa for a much different journey as a character than the wide-eyed, hopeful child we were first introduced to but tells the audience that no character (OK, little John Dutton is probably fine; someone has to start the Yellowstone ranch) is immune to the dangers of this trip. It’s not Sean Bean dying in Game of Thrones, but it gets the message across. And there’s still plenty to come, as Shea tells the wagon train, “this trip hasn’t even got hard yet. But hard’s coming.”

All episodes of 1883 are now available to stream on Paramount Plus.