Interview
‘1923’ Just Got Closer to Answering Dutton Family Tree’s Biggest Question
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for 1923 Season 2 Episode 1, “The Killing Season.”]
The Dutton family tree has one big missing piece: The identity of John Dutton II’s parents. John II is the father of Kevin Costner‘s John Dutton III in Yellowstone, and we know that he was born around the Prohibition Era. As Julia Schlaepfer told our sibling site, TV Insider, during 1923‘s first season, the prequel drama is likely “building towards” to the reveal of John II’s parents. The 1923 Season 2 premiere just took us one step closer to that discovery. As the episode reveals, Alexandra Dutton is pregnant. Here, Schlaepfer talks the possibility of this child being John II.
The episode came out on Sunday, February 23 on Paramount+. It starts around 4-5 months into Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alex’s separation, as Sklenar previously told us. Spencer is no longer in custody like he was in the Season 1 finale, and he’s now working on an Italian cargo ship to save up money for his travel back to Montana where he’ll reunite with Alex and his family on the Dutton ranch. Alex has been back in England, miserable to her core. She reveals to her best friend, Jennifer (Jo Ellen Pellman), that she’s pregnant and needs to get out of England before she starts to show.
Jennifer helps book her trans-Atlantic ticket on an ocean liner, and Alex is off to America to find her love and start anew. But it will be a long time before she can reunite with her husband, and neither of them has any way of getting in touch with their spouse. Hope and love are fueling their long journeys home, and it’s going to be a hard-won fight (and we don’t say that just because Spencer is now fighting for money on his ship).
John II’s parents could either be Spencer and Alex or Spencer’s nephew, Jack Dutton (Darren Mann), and his wife, Elizabeth Dutton (Michelle Randolph).
Paramount Network; Paramount+; TV Insider
Elizabeth experienced a miscarriage in Season 1 and also suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen. It’s still unclear whether she’s able to get pregnant after that injury. Alex is going to be under immense stress on her trek to Montana, which puts her pregnancy at risk. Schlaepfer “can’t say” much about the potential John II parents reveal this season (which is rumored to be the series’ last), but she loves the idea of Spencer and Alex being connected to John III’s Yellowstone legacy.
“I can’t say and truly, I don’t know. I don’t know what the lineage will be. There’s so many years between 1923 and 2025 or whatever,” she says. “I think it’s a beautiful thing to think that that could be a legacy and to be a part of a family that is so special in the Yellowstone universe. I think [the pregnancy] means so much to her, and she’s created this new family amongst the Duttons, and that’s her priority. And I think that’s so exciting for her.”
We’re putting our money on Spencer and Alex being John II’s parents. What do you think? Let us know in the comments, below.
1923, Sundays, Paramount+
