1923 season 2 ending explained: what happens to the Duttons?

With 1923 season 2 episode 7, another chapter of the Dutton family’s history comes to an end. It did so in thrilling fashion, as we detail in our recap of the 1923 season 2 finale, which also serves as the series finale.

Everyone is waiting for Spencer’s (Brandon Sklenar) arrival, with violent gunfights a certainty at both the train station and the Dutton ranch. Meanwhile, Alex (Julia Schlaepfer) is stranded in the middle of nowhere, with the freezing temperatures having already killed her friends Hillary and Paul. If she doesn’t think of something fast, her as well.

It was a massive, nearly two-hour episode to conclude all the 1923 storylines. We break them all down right here with our 1923 season 2 ending explained.

The calm before the storm

Sitting on the porch in the early morning, Cara (Helen Mirren) believes Spencer will arrive today, likely bringing a fight with him. Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph) joins her, concerned that Jack hasn’t come home. Cara reveals Jack went to Livingston to help Jacob. Sadly, neither of them know Jack’s tragic fate.

Banner (Jerome Flynn), meanwhile, is hoping to avoid his own downfall. He tells his wife (Sarah Randall Hunt) Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) is evil, enjoying the suffering of others (as we see in another scene where he continues to physically abuse poor Mabel [Virginia Gardner]). Wanting to be able to look his son in the eye, Banner says they are leaving Montana.

At the train station, Clyde (Brian Konowal) arrives. Jacob (Harrison Ford) doesn’t know him, but Sheriff McDowell (Robert Patrick) says he and Cara hired him when Jacob was injured. Jacob’s suspicious, but his attention quickly shifts when Banner arrives with his family.

Jacob finds it strange Banner happens to be leaving the same day Spencer is expected to arrive, but he doesn’t plan to let Banner leave after he started this whole mess. Banner tries to be honest with Jacob, sharing with him that Whitfield is planning to do more than just kill Spencer at the station, hoping that will be enough to let Jacob at least let his wife and son leave. Jacob agrees to that.

When Spencer’s train is about 25 minutes away, more of Whitfield’s men arrive at the station, putting Jacob and McDowell on alert. Meanwhile, Banner was right, as cars of Whitfield’s men drive toward the Yellowstone.

Alex and Spencer reunited

Alex tries to prevent herself from freezing to death in the car, grabbing the gloves from Hillary’s frozen hands, rushing out into the cold to search Paul’s body and finding a lighter. Once back inside the car, she uses what she can to build a small fire.

However, she soon runs out of things to burn, with only Spencer’s letters from his family left. She apologizes to her husband as she burns one, then breaks down and asks what kind of God would put her through this torment. At that moment she hears a train whistle. She realizes the car is actually next to train tracks and there is a train approaching. She quickly dumps what’s left of Hillary’s flask onto her fire to set the car ablaze to signal the train, while she frantically waves it down.

The train passing is Spencer’s, who sees that this is Alex. He rushes to the back of the train and jumps off, running to his wife. They embrace, amazed and thankful for being reunited. Alex asks if he managed to tell the train to stop, but Spencer admits he forgot that part. But he’ll carry her to the nearest town (three miles away) if he has to. He jokes that Alex feels like she’s eaten well on her journey. She reveals she’s in fact pregnant. More good news, the train did stop after Spencer jumped, allowing them to catch up with it.

On the train a doctor examines Alex, revealing her hands and feet are suffering from frostbite. He also asks how far along Alex’s pregnancy is? Six months, she answers. He’s unsure if the baby will be able to survive, but the best chance is if they don’t get off at Livingstone, instead riding through to Bozeman where an ambulance will be waiting for Alex.

What happens to Teonna?

Before we get back to Spencer and the rest of the Duttons, let’s break down what happens with Teonna (Aminah Nieves).

Marshall Fossett (Jennifer Carpenter) and her deputies Patterson (Steve Luna) and Two Spears (Dougie Hall) discover Kent and Pete’s bodies. Two Spears suspects (correctly) Kent was killed by Renaud. They see smoke not far off in the distance and check it out.

There they find Runs His Horse and Renaud’s body. Two Spears again accurately surmises Renaud killed Runs His Horse but then Teonna killed Renaud before running off. Fossett is ready to leave this whole mess behind when she spots Teonna on a ridge not far away. Noticing that she is spotted, Teonna fires her rifle, missing the Marshals, and then takes off.

The Marshals give chase, with Patterson firing at Teonna despite Fossett telling him not to. He forces Teonna’s horse to fall, but Teonna shoots back and kills Patterson. Fossett and Two Spears are able to surround Teonna though, threatening to kill her. Teonna says she would rather be dead than going back to the prison she escaped from, but Fossett wants her to stand before a judge.

In court, the judge asks what witnesses the prosecution has against Teonna, but they don’t as all of them are dead; nor do they have any actual evidence. Because of that, they make a motion to dismiss, which the judge grants. Teonna is free to go.

However, she’s not sure where. Two Spears gives her a horse and tells her it’s time she finds a new home, suggesting California. As she departs, Two Spears tells her she was right to fight back. Teonna says it cost her everything, but solemnly he tells her it always does.

The Dutton-Whitfield war

At the Yellowstone, Whitfield’s men begin the attack. Cara and Zane (Brian Geraghty) prepare their defenses. Cara hands Elizabeth a shotgun and tells her to hide under a table in the main room and not to move. Meanwhile, Cara takes a sniper and gets in a position to give Zane and the cowboys cover. As the cars arrive outside the ranch house, the shooting begins.

The Yellowstone cowboys hold up well, with Cara proving to be quite the marksman. They manage to drive Whitfield’s men back. Zane expects they’ll attack again at night and try to burn them out of the house. He says they need to pray for clouds so the full moon will help them see better. Cara will pray for Jacob and Spencer to get back.

Speaking of, Spencer’s train is finally pulling into the station, and Jacob and Whitfield’s men ready themselves. Spencer eyes there are men with guns, leaving Alex with the doctor to check it out.

As passengers leave the train, Jacob and McDowell draw their weapons and order Whitfield’s men to drop theirs. They don’t, and all anxiously point their guns at each other, waiting for someone to make a move. That move comes from Clyde, who sees Spencer in the train and fires at him. Everyone starts shooting. Banner is in the mix, as his wife and son get on the train.

Clyde is working to get a clean shot at Jacob. When Jacob gets distracted from seeing Spencer for the first time, Clyde makes his move, but Banner kills him. However, McDowell, unsure of Banner’s allegiance, shoots Banner. With Banner dying, Jacob commends him for being a man of his word after all.

Jacob finds Spencer on the train and says they have to head back to the ranch. Spencer introduces Jacob and Alex, insisting he needs to get his wife to the hospital first. But Alex recognizes this is the war Spencer came home for, allowing him to go and fight while she and Jacob (whose old wounds are leaking) go to the hospital.

Night has fallen at the ranch, and Whitfield’s men attack. With one of them using a machine gun now, they are able to more easily advance and attempt to burn the house down. Zane is able to put out the fire, but some of Whitfield’s men get inside. Elizabeth, still under the table, kills one and then Zane handles the other, but more are still coming.

Thankfully, Spencer arrives just in time. He single-handidly kills the rest of Whitfield’s men. When the coast is clear, Spencer reunites with Cara, who tells him the man responsible for all of this is Whitfield. But before he can handle that he says they need to head to the hospital to see Alex and Jacob.

Elizabeth, however, is concerned Jack is not with Spencer. They send a couple of cowboys to go look for Jack, who find his body in the woods.

What happens to the Duttons?

At the hospital, Alex gives birth to her and Spencer’s son. The doctors assume the baby is going to die and want to prep Alex for surgery to amputate her frostbitten limbs or else she’ll die. But Alex refuses to give her life for her baby’s. She tells Jacob she is naming the baby John, after Spencer’s brother who died in season 1.

Cara and Spencer arrive at the hospital, with Spencer joining Alex and the baby. Alex weakly tells Spencer she knows she is going to die, but would not give up on what they made.

Sure enough, the next morning, Alex has died. Cara comes in and takes the baby, while Spencer tells Jacob he wants to go see the man who killed his wife, Whitfield.

Spencer and Jacob burst into Whitfield’s home as he has breakfast, shooting him, killing Lindy (Madison Elise Rogers) when she charges at them, but letting Mabel go. When Whitfield protests this goes against the oath Jacob took to uphold the law. Jacob says anyone who would want him to explain this is already dead, so now he plans to make such an example of Whitfield that no one like him will come into the valley for another 50 years. Spencer, meanwhile, wants to hear Whitfield say Alex’s name, blaming him for her death. Whitfield, confused, says “Alex?” and Spencer promptly shoots him in the head, killing him. Spencer and Jacob set Whitfield’s mansion on fire then leave.

After they lay Alex and Jack to rest, Elizabeth leaves the ranch, but tells Cara she will always remember Jack. Cara says she won’t, she’ll form new memories and eventually she’ll have enough that she won’t remember Jack at all. But that’s life she says, promising to remember Jack enough for the both of them.

Spencer takes over operations on the ranch, while Jacob has decided it’s time to retire. Sitting on the porch, Cara asks Jacob what Alex was like? He describes her as “if a shooting star could talk.”

Narration from Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) reveals Spencer never remarried, but he did father another son with a widow. Spencer died 45 years after Alex (which by the dates provided equates to 1969). As Elsa explains this we see Spencer lay down by Alex’s grave, then a shooting star flies across the night sky.

The final images of the series are of Spencer and Alex reunited in the afterlife, presented as a grand ballroom. Alex teases him, “took you long enough,” and the two dance.

Are Alex and Spencer John Dutton’s grandparents?

The big question many fans had for 1923 was who would end up being the grandparents to John Dutton (Kevin Costner) from the flagship Yellowstone series. As the series ends, Alex and Spencer are the likeliest pairing, as their son is named John, a name we know was passed down to Costner’s John Dutton by his father.

However, there are a couple of nuggets that still provide some possible alternatives. One is that bit of narration from Elsa that Spencer fathered another son with an unknown widow. Also, Elizabeth is still pregnant with her and Jack’s child, and there’s a non-zero chance that they could come back into the story in the expected next prequel series, 1944.

I talked with Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer about the theory, and they revealed that Taylor Sheridan hasn’t confirmed anything yet about how the Dutton family tree lines up with them. So, while the odds favor Spencer and Alex as John Dutton’s grandparents, 1944 may still have some secrets to reveal on that front.

All of 1923 is now available to stream exclusively on Paramount Plus.