‘1923’: Aminah Nieves & Michelle Randolph React to Lack of ‘Closure’ in Finale

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

Even the 1923 cast was shocked by the show’s ending. Season 2, which is presumed to be the final season, came to a close on Sunday, April 6 on Paramount+. After killing off seven characters in the penultimate episode, the Yellowstone prequel delivered a death that was somehow even more shocking than that killing spree (and the killing spree in the finale itself). Even stars whose characters did survive the finale were surprised by their final arcs. Here, stars Aminah Nieves (Teonna Rainwater) and Michelle Randolph (Elizabeth Dutton) open up about the finale with TV Insider.

Teonna ended the series a free woman at last after Marshal Mamie Fossett (Jennifer Carpenter) showed mercy upon hearing Teonna’s story of survival in their almost fatal run-in. Mamie and her crew arrived at the scene of Runs His Horse (Michael Spears), Pete (Jeremy Gauna), and Father Renaud’s (Sebastian Roché) deaths to find Teonna aiming her rifle at them from a distance in self-defense. She was arrested and taken to court, and in the absence of any witnesses or evidence that Teonna killed the priest, she was set free. She ended the series considering a move to California and weighed down by the fact that gaining her freedom cost her everything on the way.

Nieves tells TV Insider that Runs His Horse and Pete dying so quickly and suddenly, and the speed at which Teonna was forced to move on from this, was the biggest shock for her.

“Episode 7 was just a complete cluster,” Nieves explains. “What shocked me the most was just what it took to get her to that moment, and for it to be dismissed so easily, which if you want to really think about it in a more political way is so much of what is still happening to this day. You go through so much and sometimes things are just dismissed so easily, or even people are dismissed so easily themselves. So all of it was wild for me.”

Teonna walked away free, but there was no justice for her father and lover’s murders. Being robbed of a proper burial and goodbye, Nieves says, is a sign of the times in this time period, especially when juxtaposed by the Duttons having the chance to bury their loved ones.

“[Runs His Horse and Pete] were left in a state that was completely not a part of their own territory, of the territory that they learned from,” Nieves says. “For them to not be able to have that closure and that ceremony with their family and their people, and then for the others to have that proper goodbye is a very interesting little dance within that last season.”

Following Jack’s (Darren Mann) death in the episode prior, Elizabeth had no reason to stay in Montana. She wanted to leave earlier, but her pregnancy prompted a change of heart. Alex (Julia Schlaepfer) gave birth to her and Spencer’s (Brandon Sklenar) son, John Dutton II, prematurely, but the baby survived. Alex decided against having her necrotic legs and hand amputated and thus succumbed to the injuries. After Alex and Jack’s joint funeral, Elizabeth’s final scene was with Cara (Helen Mirren) on the porch of the Dutton home. She chose to go back to the East Coast, and Cara said Elizabeth would one day forget all about Jack but that she would remember him enough for the both of them. It’s hard to imagine Elizabeth forgetting about her first love, and assuming her pregnancy goes to term, that child would certainly serve as a reminder.

Does Elizabeth agree with Cara’s statement? “Absolutely not,” Randolph tells TV Insider. “I think that that is Cara’s way of trying to comfort her, and it’s a tough love kind of conversation, but in no way is Cara or Elizabeth under the impression that she’s going to move on and get swept off her feet. I mean, she just experienced so much and she has his child and it was the love of her life. It was her husband, it was everything. She gave up her whole life for him. So that ending scene was emotional to film.”

Randolph imagines a world where Elizabeth one day returns to the Dutton ranch with her child to feel connected to Jack.

“That’s totally something that is a possibility because she has become such a changed person and she’s really just come into the Dutton family and she’s now a Dutton herself,” Randolph says of this hypothetical scenario. “I don’t see it out of the question that she would eventually come back. I think she needs a moment to feel safety in Boston and have a breather, and then potentially wanting to show her child where her dad grew up and what his life was like.”

Randolph admits that “there wasn’t a whole lot of closure” in the finale. “Going back to the East Coast and stuff, [Elizabeth is] such a changed person. And just to leave everything, it’s like she came into the ranch, experienced utter chaos in every single way, and is just leaving like nothing happened. I would’ve loved for there to be a 5-minute scene [showing] where she ends in the future. I’ve created that in my own head.”

Looking ahead, the 1944 spinoff is reportedly still in development. Nieves says she “would love to play an older Teonna, as I’m sure Michelle would love to play an older Liz, but I have no clue if that’s even in the cards of the Taylor [Sheridan] Universe.”

“I would hope so,” Nieves adds. “I think [Teonna] has so much more life to give and so much more of her story to offer up to the viewers, and honestly for the rest of her generations that come after her to really inform this full-bodied life of what it took to become the Rainwater that everyone loves so much from Yellowstone.”

1923, Seasons 1 & 2 Available Now, Paramount+