‘1923’: Brandon Sklenar & Julia Schlaepfer Break Down Tragic Finale (VIDEO)

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the 1923 Season 2 finale, “A Dream and a Memory.”]

Well, that happened. After grueling journeys home that stretched across the entire second season, Taylor Sheridan ended 1923 Season 2 (and presumably the series at large) with tragedy. Like the final season of Yellowstone before it, the western drama was riddled with shocking deaths for its characters in Season 2. The most shocking was saved for the very end. Here, Sklenar and Schlaepfer react to 1923‘s ending with TV Insider, revealing why they expected this conclusion to the Yellowstone origin story.

Spencer and Alex finally reunited about halfway through the nearly two-hour episode that dropped on Sunday, April 6 on Paramount+. They didn’t reunite at Spencer’s home in Montana as originally planned. Their reunion was more miraculous than that, but the miracles would end soon after.

Season 2’s penultimate episode ended with Alex stranded in a snow drift with no means of escape. In the finale, the frostbitten Alex kept herself alive by building a small fire inside the car where Hillary’s (Janet Montgomery) body still sat completely frozen. While her exact location is unknown, her group was headed to Buffalo, Wyoming before the car ran out of gas and Hillary and Paul (Augustus Prew) died. After switching trains in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Spencer was headed for Livingston, Montana, where Uncle Jacob (Harrison Ford) and his men — along with the rivaling men hired by Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) — were awaiting his arrival. The biggest stroke of luck ever came when Spencer’s train passed right by Alex’s car. The snow was piled up so high, she didn’t realize she was by a train track. But she built the car fire higher to get the train’s attention. Spencer saw her from the window and jumped off the back of the train to run to her.

Their reunion doubled as Alex’s rescue, and there was a doctor on board the train to treat her severe frostbite that had made her fingers and toes go black. She revealed she was 6 months pregnant. After Spencer and Jacob survived the shootout in Livingston, Spencer and Alex separated again. Spencer went to the Dutton ranch to finish the other gun fight. Jacob accompanied Alex to the Bozeman, Montana hospital so she could get emergency medical care. Before Spencer arrived at the hospital, Alex gave birth to John Dutton II, confirming the long-held fan theory that Spencer and Alex’s line would be the future of the Dutton legacy. What we couldn’t have predicted was Alex not living to see her son grown.

Alex’s legs and one hand had gone completely necrotic. The limbs needed to be amputated to save her life. The doctors argued that the preemie baby was too underdeveloped to survive outside the womb. They advised to abort and get Alex to surgery. She refused both, and the baby miraculously lived. Spencer soon arrived at the hospital, Alex informed him of her choice to die rather than lose her limbs, and they spent one night together as a family. Alex died in her sleep with Spencer laying next to her, their son on her chest. Spencer and Alex spent 6 months trying to reunite only to have one day together upon reunion, and even then it wasn’t even a full day.

After only seconds of Alex and Jack’s (Darren Mann, whose character had died the episode prior) funeral was shown, there’s a time jump narrated by Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) that reveals that Spencer lived for 45 more years, never fell in love again but had a second son with a widow who later disappeared, and died lying next to Alex’s grave. The season ends with Spencer and Alex’s younger selves reuniting on a dance floor in the afterlife like Jack and Rose’s ending in Titanic.

It’s a shocking ending to say the least. Spencer and Alex both had difficult and dangerous journeys back to Montana, but Alex’s journey was much more traumatizing. She was beaten and robbed in New York, sexually assaulted on the train to Chicago, arrested for defending herself, and then nearly froze to death. All of this just for her to choose death in the end. Alex’s fiery spirit made her live a bold and adventurous life — and a brave one at that. While you can’t downplay the devastation that losing both legs and a hand would bring, it’s uncharacteristic of Alex not to boldly face adversity, especially not when she fought so hard to reunite with Spencer and raise their baby together.

Schlaepfer tells TV Insider that she “always had a feeling Alexandra would die.”

“I said it a lot to Brandon and Taylor in Season 1,” she says in the video interview above, adding, “I think I’ve read enough scripts and seen enough Taylor Sheridan where I was just like, I think that’s probably going to happen. It doesn’t make it any less devastating to read or to act, but I think we didn’t know how anything would happen.”

Sklenar says he “couldn’t even read that script. I still get emotional thinking about it. It’s so beautifully written.”

“You feel so tied to these characters and their stories,” he adds. “I spent three years with Spencer, so it’s really painful. I can still feel it the way that those scenes played out. I kind of knew that something tragic would happen, and we just didn’t know who.”

To viewers who might be upset about Alex’s ending, Schlaepfer says, “Alex goes through so much this season, and I think it was so important to tell not only the story of her own resilience and how deep she can dig to keep going, and how much a mother’s love can endure, but also so much of it is she faces so much violence because she was a woman alone in the 1920s. She was vulnerable. So many women live with so much fear just inside their bodies at all times. They know what that feels like…I think we all wish that they could live happily ever after. She dies in the most Alexandra way possible. It’s the biggest sacrifice for her family and for her baby. It’s all born out of love. And she still goes out cracking jokes. So I think she’s made peace with that decision and facing the reality of her situation. And I think she knows that Spencer and her will live on so much bigger than just this moment in time that they had together.”

What is the show trying to say with this story of love found and fought for just to be lost so tragically? The stars say it’s meant to be a profound love story.

“[Alex] doesn’t stop living for one second. If she finds something that brings her happiness, she tastes it,” Schlaepfer explains. “When she finds this love in Spencer, she doesn’t look back. And while yes, it did cost her so much, the ultimate sacrifice, I think really at the end of the day for these two people, it was worth it because they did have each other. And I think Spencer, it says in the voiceover at the end, he lives the rest of his life and her memory never fades. They were two people who were meant for each other, and they weren’t going to let anything stop them. And that’s why they find each other at the end in that heaven sequence.”

The stars further explain Spencer and Alex’s ending in the full video interview above.

1923, Seasons 1 & 2 Available Now, Paramount+