Comment: For American Girl Doll Fans, '1923' is the show to watch

This article contains spoilers for season 2 of “1923”.

If you are an adult American doll fan, the show you should watch is “1923” on Paramount +.

In the event that the creator Taylor Sheridan and / or the star Harrison Ford feel the need to tighten their crowds and their bandolis, rest assured that I mean that as the highest compliment. Although “1923” has already increased his audience considerably during his second and last season, there should be no shame in reaching out to the stans of another very successful historical fiction series.

Former girls' former girls are wide and deeply committed group, And they should know, if they do not already do it, that there is a series in which a wonderful mixture of female characters deals with adult versions of historical adversities (and fashions!) Which constitute so many stories of dolls. (Think of “Saturday Night Live” American Girl Doll Sketch But with sex and weapons.)

As a fan of day 1 of the series, I have never been so irritated by a weekly outing. Given the opportunity, I would have put the second season, currently halfway, in one day while looking for “Cara Dutton Exterior” and “Mary Jane Pumps” on my phone.

As with the “Yellowstone” universe of Sheridan, the American founder of Girl Pleasant Rowland built a franchise on a series of characters whose adventures reflected the United States constantly evolving. Unlike Sheridan, she targeted her stories about young girls and offered appropriate costume dolls with each. (I'm not saying that Sheridan should consider this, but I don't exclude it either.)

His often stated goal was to empower girls by giving them a narrative alternative to the fashion plate (Barbie) or to Mom in training (cabbage patch and all other babydoll) while highlighting the importance of women through history.

All this could easily describe “1923”. A prequel to “Yellowstone” and a series of the Spinoff series “1883”, “1923” sees the Montana Ranch of the Dutton family under siege. The adversaries are typical of the American West – dryness, snow, arguments on pasture rights – but above all, the ignoble millionaire Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton), which has eyes only for wealth and power and no appreciation for the majesty of the earth or those who try to work it honestly. (If that was not enough, his contempt for women is pathological, not to mention the criminal.)

Whitfield wants Dutton Ranch, currently occupied by Jacob Dutton (Ford) and his wife, Cara (Helen Mirren), their great-nephew (Darren Mann) and his wife, Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph). During season 1, an attack by the banner of the man of Whitfield, Creighton (Jerome Flynn), left Jacob injured, and the fathers of Jack and Elizabeth died. In desperation, Cara summoned their nephew Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) from Africa, where he worked as a hunter and a great game guide.

Luckily, Spencer had just met and fell in love with Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer), a very chic Brit Brit for adventure. At the end of season 1 and halfway through their trip from Odyssean to America, the now married couple was separated and forced to go to Montana and the other.

In a parallel story, Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves) first endured, then escaped the horrors of a reserve school, killing several of his torturers in the process. Halfway through season 2, she is in Texas and on the LAM of a murderous American marshal (Jamie McShane) and an avenging French priest (Sebastian Roché). From episode 4, she had no contact with a Dutton, but with Spencer who made her way through Texas, we have the impression that it is only a matter of time.

The appearance of the American marshal Mamie Fossett is in front, not only for the spirit of an American girl (a marshal woman! Based on a true historical figure! And played by Jennifer Carpenter!) But also for a bridge between scenarios – she hunts men who hunt Teonna and Spencer, and two can go three feet without pretending to be law.

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1 and 1 Two hard women: Aminah Nieves like Teonna, who is on the LAM. (Lauren Smith / Paramount +) 2 Jennifer Carpenter as marshal Mamie Fossett, which is based on a real historical figure. (Lo Smith / Paramount +)

That said, a Westerner, there are a lot of folding and spitting of menfols, threats and fighting; Admittedly, Jacob and Spencer are heroes of traditional dye. But the river that crosses “1923” is a story of women.

Cara, an Irish immigrant, directs the Ranch, especially after the catastrophic injury of Jacob. She is also a follower of a rifle that she is with a frying frying pan (not to mention the jokes worthy of Rom-Com with Jacob), and no one delivers a spine “It's the earth, Katie Scarlett” Pep speak better. Her unadorned empathy shines in particular when she is dealing with Elizabeth, whose ranch life was a series of unfortunate events, in particular by subjecting a miscarriage. In season 2, she was almost immediately attacked by a wolf and forced to have rabies. Unsurprisingly, Lizzie claims that she finished with the Dutton Ranch and as soon as all these shots were administered, she arrives on the next train for Boston.

We all know that it will remain – on the one hand, it is winter in the West and there is no way that trains make it from Bozeman to Boston – but it is always satisfactory to see such a normal and natural reaction to the many trials it has endured. As every American girl knows, real resilience is to move forward when you honestly think you can't.

Teonna does not think much of America, and she has reasons. Although his crimes are brutal, the abuses that led them even more. However, even when pursued by a diabolical marshal, she is naturally kind, hardworking and open to romance. (Kaya'aton'my, the only Amerindian doll, lived too early to be threatened with boarding schools, but she was kidnapped by another tribe and her family suffered from smallpox.)

Although she is British, there is no “1923” character who is more American than Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer).

(Lauren Smith / Paramount +)

But there is no “1923” character who is more American than Alexandra, which is slightly irritating because she is British. Delighted to look and accustomed to the things that happen in his sense, Alex learns very quickly that life with a Dutton means an adventure and a non -stop calamity. After she is separated from Spencer, traumatic events continue to come. She must first navigate in England second -classThen browse Ellis Island, where people are treated like livestock and single women like sexual prey. Despite the Salaces advice of an Irish woman whom she will have to pay in one way or another, the grain of Alex and the reading of Walt Whitman, allow her to land in New York relatively unscathed (with her holding in neutral tones, with a light coat doubled with fleece and white embroidered stockings, miraculously without stain.))

Alas, despite many warnings on the dangers of New York, Alex walks in a room of central terminal women where she is stolen and beaten by a man whose face should appear alongside “Ruffian” in the dictionary. Always owning her ticket and not much else, she presents herself for the train only to find him, as the men of the ticket office warned, sharing his compartment with an Irishman and his children. (With the exception of Cara, the Irish take it a little on the chin in “1923”)

I will not spoil episode 5, but let's just say that its problems are just beginning.

With his can-do spirit and as much bad luck as the poor Lizzie, Alex is proof that the pioneering spirit presents itself in all forms and all sizes, including a woman who would choose to wear white embroidered stockings and a neutral velvet outfit in a transatlantic sea trip. (Honestly, no adult character on this side of “Downton Abbey” has no longer shouted for the merchant focused on fashion, and if someone will tell me where to get this coat, or his velvet skirt and his matching vest, I will be very grateful.)

In the direction of the back half of the season, I, like any spectator not made of stone, long so that Alex finds his beloved Spencer. But I can't wait even more the day she joined Cara and Lizzie, and maybe Teonna, at Dutton Ranch. Spencer may be good in a fight, but against such a formidable group of American women, not even the Whitfield silhouette has a chance.

And once the ranch is safe, they may all be opening a coffee.