Recap of the Season 2 Finale of ‘1923’: “A Dream and a Memory”

Taylor Sheridan wrapped up the conclusion of “1923” in just one episode, making the Episode 7 finale intense and impactful. Despite being part of the Dutton family’s saga, spanning nearly 150 years, the question arises: is this the true end of the series? While Sheridan’s statements in 2022 suggest so, let’s focus on the immediate outcomes for the characters of “1923” in the Sheridan-O-Verse, especially considering the trials they have endured and the uncertain fate that awaits some of them.

Cara, who initially stood up for the land in “1923,” showcases her marksmanship skills by taking down Whitfield’s gunmen from her strategic overwatch position at the house. Her internal monologue highlights the sacrifices she has made for the ranch, emphasizing the gravity of the situation as she prepares to defend what she holds dear.

The climactic battle of the Dutton-Whitfield War unfolds on two fronts: a siege on the ranch by Whitfield’s forces and a violent showdown at the station. However, the revelation of who is aboard a particular train adds a twist to the narrative. Spencer and Alexandra are together on the train, with Alexandra’s survival story taking a harrowing turn. Alone in her snow-covered vehicle, she combats the cold using the belongings of her deceased companions before resorting to burning Spencer’s letters. Her desperate plea to a higher power is met with the unexpected arrival of her husband, leaping from the moving train to save her from the brink of death once again. Their reunion is bittersweet, marred by Alexandra’s frostbitten extremities, a grim reminder of the brutal cold she endured.

In the Sheridan-O-Verse, those who are noble and determined see their way through. But they don’t always keep living outside of memory. After the ordeals of her journey, after she made it from Oxfordshire to Montana despite everything, after she and Spencer finally embraced for the first time in months, and their baby boy – “I’ll name him John,” she said – was born three months premature in a Bozeman hospital, Alexadra Dutton died from her injuries. In their final hours together, Alex told Spencer she could not have lived as a mother who chose her own life over a child’s. She was never a dreamer, she was a doer. And she would rather their son lived to create reality from his own dreams than for her to survive in some broken, permanently abbreviated form. Spencer stayed with his wife overnight, as John Dutton II slept on her chest. And in the morning, he felt her lifeless form in the same moment he sensed their son’s living breath.

Was the romantic sweep of their just-in-time reunion and the brief reestablishment of Julia Schlaepfer and Brandon Sklenar’s winning chemistry as Alex and Spencer worth it? Some will certainly see Alexandra’s death as the biggest loss, a sellout of the series faithful. But if we’re talking Taylor Sheridan’s writing, doesn’t it also feel natural? In Texas, after Marshal Mamie Fossett catches up with Teonna Rainwater and learns about the ghastly Indian School conditions that forced her to kill, a court magistrate dismisses the murder charges against the young woman. No witnesses to any of it are alive. Teonna fought back, at the cost of her dignity, her family, and her love for Pete Plenty Clouds. And though she leaves Texas free, with a horse and a hat and a rifle, otherwise, the price was nearly everything. But to fight was Teonna’s only option, just like fighting to a righteous sacrifice was for Alexandra. “War isn’t a metaphor for this family,” Alex told Spencer after the gunfight on the train platform in Livingston. The fighting spirit in the heart of Taylor Sheridan’s characters lives on, even if their own lives and a happy ending aren’t guaranteed.

After Alex passed, Spencer placed his infant son in Cara’s arms and turned to Jacob. “I wanna meet the man who killed my wife,” he said, and Donald Whitfield soon answered for all of his Dutton murdering, sadistic rich guy sex-having, and planning to violate Paradise Valley land for generations with a bullet in the head from Spencer’s gun. (Spencer also killed Lindy, Whitfield’s sadist-in-training, when she came at him with a kitchen knife.) The culmination of the Dutton-Whitfield War was the wealthy instigator’s payment upon death and the burning of his mansion to the ground, a show of force from the locals designed to deter any more Whitfield-like robber barons from coming around, at least for a decade or ten.   

While Jacob and Sheriff McDowell handled the roustabouts sent to Livingston, including Banner Crieghton, who was killed in the battle despite a late-in-the-game realization of Whitfield’s pure evil, Cara and Zane and the 1920s Bunkhouse Boys successfully held off their attackers until Spencer arrived at the ranch. And with his .416-caliber double rifle, which traveled all the way from the grasslands of Africa to the grasslands of Montana, he shot through three bad guys at once and rendered a Thompson gunner headless. During the battle, the ranch almost got knocked over. It almost burned to the ground. But like most trouble that comes the Dutton fam’s way, they were able to save it by fighting together to overcome.

So what’s left? Jacob and Cara, helping to raise another Dutton in their (finally) peaceful golden years, as Spencer builds a new herd from wild cattle he gathered in the shadows and crags of the Crazy Mountains. Elizabeth departs the ranch to rejoin her family Back East. With the slaying of Jack Dutton, her prophecy – “Death is the only thing you can catch out here” – scared her away permanently from a life she never truly took to, even if she did grab a shotgun and help defend the ranch. And Elizabeth is technically still pregnant, even if that is not mentioned in her somewhat cold farewell with Cara.

It feels fitting that the ultimate final word on 1923 comes from the ageless narration of Elsa Dutton, who fills in the resulting lore. According to her, “Spencer never remarried.” And 45 years after he interred Alexandra in the soil of the Paradise Valley, “my young brother joined her.” Baby John Dutton II, we can assume, lived to become the father of John Dutton III, aka Kevin Coster’s character in Yellowstone. And though he didn’t remarry, Elsa does also mention Spencer “took the comfort of a widow and made another boy,” which feels like a purposeful loose end, in case the Duttons’ television genealogy ever requires a bit of genetic finesse. After everything, all of the ordeals and all of the fighting, 1923 ends with the memory of Alexandra, the shooting star who captured the hunter-warrior’s heart. Her death created the dream of generations of new life. 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.