S02.E07: A Dream And A Memory

[Snazzy Daisy]

♦️ 2-Hour Finale Event ♦️

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Jacob and his crew eagerly await Spencer's return at the train station.

Teonna has a fateful run-in.

Alexandra braves the cold.

Air Date: Apr 06, 2025

[RedHawk]

Two hours! Well, maybe Spencer and Alex will have 5 minutes together. 😉

[mythoughtis]

2 hours ago, RedHawk said:

Two hours! Well, maybe Spencer and Alex will have 5 minutes together. 😉

In town, and they still won’t arrive at the ranch by the end of the episode

[Snazzy Daisy]

PROMO IMAGES:

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[Affogato]

Spoiler

Is it telling there is no Alex in the pictures? 

 

[Snazzy Daisy]

1923 season 2 has been a disappointment for me. And the 2-hour finale feels excessive.

Taylor Sheridan has obviously wasted viewers’ time and taking us for fools. We have been robbed of Alex/Spencer happy reunion that we have waited for 6 episodes. That’s cruel. The “meeting in another life” ending is rather distasteful.

Being described by Jacob as a “shooting star”, I would’ve expected Alex to be the next Cara. But TS wants her dead. 🙄

If Alex hadn’t read Aunt Cara’s letters, we would have a different ending, a happy one, perhaps.

RIP Alexandra Dutton…💔

[Thalia]

Yeah, I've seen Somewhere in Time and Titanic, and didn't need to see it on my TV last night when I couldn't sleep and fast forwarded to the end.  I'll watch it all today but don't know if I can watch the Alex scenes.   I had expected frostbite, because Sheridan couldn't let her off without more trauma, but hoped that she would ultimately survive.  

Actually, I may rewatch season 1 when Alexandra was whole and happy and hadn't been tortured for an entire season.  

I grudgingly acknowledge that the sight of Old Spencer by her grave was gorgeous.   But we could have had the same shot if he was visiting her grave after a 50 year marriage.  

[NeenerNeener]

So Duttons are so tough they can survive being born 3 months premature.

Glad to see Teona wasn't prosecuted.

Part of the online Dutton family trees can be updated for Spencer and Alex.

And, of course,  there are some things left unresolved:

What happened with the baby that Jack's wife Elizabeth was carrying when she left Montana?

Where is Spencer's illegitimate son?

Whitfield said "Alex" like he was familiar with a woman called Alex. Why?

 

Edited April 6 by NeenerNeener

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, NeenerNeener said:

Whitfield said "Alex" like he was familiar with a woman called Alex. Why?

Spencer made him say her name before he shot him.  He said it questioningly.  

1 hour ago, Thalia said:

 I had expected frostbite, because Sheridan couldn't let her off without more trauma, but hoped that she would ultimately survive.  

Yeah, it sucked for her.  I'm disappointed in the ending with Spencer & Alex, and the others from the ranch who died.  Oh well, at least Whitfield got what was coming to him.  Burning his house down was an added bonus! 

[NeenerNeener]

29 minutes ago, Chit Chat said:

Spencer made him say her name before he shot him.  He said it questioningly.  

It didn't sound that way to me. Like he recognized it and may have known her family back in England.

On the other hand, he didn't know Spencer has married an Englishwoman so I guess it was just a weird line reading.

Edited April 6 by NeenerNeener

[Chit Chat]

Shouldn't Teona have been held responsible for the guy (was he a Deputy?) she killed right in front of the Marshall?  She was a fugitive and shot at the Marshall & her group first.  I'm glad she was set free, but that incident was glossed over in the courtroom.  Maybe the Marshall was going to address it during her testimony, but the judge dismissed the other charges before she got on the stand. Oh well, there are a lot of things about this show that we have to take with a grain of salt!!

 

Edited April 6 by Chit Chat

[Thalia]

I'm about halfway through watching more carefully, this is probably where episode 7 would have ended if they had divided the episode into two parts. 

TPTB (I guess Sheridan, who is the television equivalent of John Dutton), really messed up by keeping Alex and Spencer apart for an entire season.   They generate so much chemistry and heat that I'm surprised the snow didn't melt around them when they were together.   And I would have loved to have seen more interaction between Spencer and Jacob and Cara.  

YES, ALEX, he would have found you.  You had no need to risk your life, your body, and no seeing "him one last time," was not enough.   I understood why she was desperate to get to the US, but once she was safe in Illinois with the couple she more or less caused to die, there was NO RUSH.  she knew how to find him eventually.

Damn, if I don't feel sorry for Banner.  He was showing some real remorse.   He'd have made a great number two for the Duttons if they hadn't been at cross purposes. 

[sadie]

F u Taylor Sheridan for killing off Alex that way. Her and Spencer deserved a happy ending and all she got was more trauma before she died. And the fact we waited 2 seasons for Spencer to get home and he took the bad guys out in under 2 minutes sucked too. I did enjoy watching that horrible prostitute get shot and glad to watch Whitfield squirm before he died but the rest of it, meh. I guess it’s good it’s over, what’s next for the Dutton saga: 1973, maybe we can see the Duttons survive disco and polyester? 

[Chit Chat]

One thing that bugged me about Teona's storyline was the way she murdered the nuns. Wouldn't that be considered pre-meditated?  She didn't kill them in self- defense in that moment.  Since she escaped unnoticed after killing them, why didn't she just sneak out and leave in the first place?  They probably wouldn't have bothered to go looking for her if that were the case.  That would've been more interesting to me.  We could've followed her journey to freedom without all of the blood and gore.  That's not the Sheridan way though.  😜

[NeenerNeener]

2 hours ago, sadie said:

glad to watch Whitfield squirm before he died

I never thought I'd be glad to see Timothy Dalton shot dead, but this was it.

[anniebird]

Why couldn't Alex have had the amputation after she gave birth? Then she and the baby could have both lived.

[Thalia]

30 minutes ago, anniebird said:

Why couldn't Alex have had the amputation after she gave birth? Then she and the baby could have both lived.

I think she said she wanted to spend what time she had left with her child.  Well, maybe she could have spent more time with him if she'd had the surgery.   I would not want to be a triple amputee, and for a free spirit like Alexandra I can see why she didn't want to live that way.    But given everything else she'd been through since she and Spencer were last together, in the end it was she herself who kept her from being with him for more than 24 hours.   The Duttons could have accommodated her disability better than most in Montana at that time.  

Of course, the more I think about it the angrier I get about her poor decision making since leaving the train.   I suppose everything had been so horrific up to that point that her heart and sense of urgency overcame the fact that by this time she had absolutely no good reason to put her life and that of Paul and Hillary in danger.  

I thought the last discussion between Cara and Elizabeth was strained, like they were angry with each other.   I'm sure Elizabeth was jealous of the hold the Duttons and the ranch had on Jack.  But Cara seemed curt with Elizabeth as well.   

I teared up again when Jacob compared Alex and Cara to shooting stars.  And I'm happy that Zane and the other ranch hand were alive at the end.  

Oh well, I plan to live in an alternate world where Alex maybe lost a thumb and a toe to frostbite and spends her days butting head with Cara over what to fix the men for the noon meal. 

[mythoughtis]

12 hours ago, NeenerNeener said:

So Duttons are so tough they can survive being born 3 months premature.

We don’t know that.  John III said in Yellowstone that he’s had a brother that lived ‘ about 18 hours’.   John could be Spencer’s illegitimate son that the widow left behind when she left.  
 

I understand Alex’s reasoning for not having the surgery.   She was an extremely free spirit.  She wouldn’t want to live as a triple amputee in Montana in 1924.    She would have been confined to the first floor and the porch.   It’s difficult enough now in 2025 for triple amputees-not that I’m implying they should make the same  decision she did.    
 

Glad to see Wakefield die.  Sorry to see Banner die- but glad he picked the right side at the end.   Although the Duttons of present day Yellowstone didn’t turn out to be ‘good’ people.  

Edited April 7 by mythoughtis

[NeenerNeener]

26 minutes ago, mythoughtis said:

We don’t know that.  John III said in Yellowstone that he’s had a brother that lived ‘ about 18 hours’.  

Helen Mirren was feeding the "baby" on the front porch of the house with bottles of goats milk and saying they were going to need a third goat. That was Alex's baby and it was longer than 18 hours since he'd been born. And Alex named that baby John, so he was John II.

[Chit Chat]

7 hours ago, Thalia said:

And I would have loved to have seen more interaction between Spencer and Jacob and Cara.  

This is what I was looking forward to all season.  I was expecting several episodes of Spencer & the guys from the ranch duking it out with the bad guys, so the shootout at the train station was a bit underwhelming to me. Then he goes to the ranch and kills everyone in 5 minutes.  There was a lot of buildup of him coming to save the ranch.  I wanted to see more of that rather than his ill-fated journey across the country.

41 minutes ago, Thalia said:

I think she said she wanted to spend what time she had left with her child. 

I hated that the doctor didn't even want her to hold her baby.  That was the very old-school way of thinking, 'don't let her get attached to a dying baby.'  Ugh. I'm glad that Jacob stepped in and made sure they honored her wishes.  She didn't want the surgery, and she wanted to hold her child.  If no one had been there to advocate for her, the doctor might've done what he thought was best, which was amputation and do nothing for the baby.  That's a scary thought!  

 

[mythoughtis]

23 minutes ago, NeenerNeener said:

Helen Mirren was feeding the "baby" on the front porch of the house with bottles of goats milk and saying they were going to need a third goat. That was Alex's baby and it was longer than 18 hours since he'd been born. And Alex named that baby John, so he was John II.

I missed the part about the name.  But what is worse …. I mixed up  two different generations.  John III is the one with the short lived brother.    So everyone ignore my original comment.   I won’t delete it since it’s been quoted. 
 

So we have an unnamed illegitimate brother to John II somewhere…and an unnamed offspring of Jack and Elizabeth somewhere too.    We also don’t know when Teonna has children.  
 

 

 

 

Edited April 7 by mythoughtis

[Snazzy Daisy]

13 hours ago, NeenerNeener said:

What happened with the baby that Jack's wife Elizabeth was carrying when she left Montana?

Maybe we will hear about him OR see his family in "The Madison".

[RedHawk]

13 hours ago, anniebird said:

Why couldn't Alex have had the amputation after she gave birth? Then she and the baby could have both lived.

She told Spencer she couldn't be a mother with "stumps for legs and stubs for hands". She knew what her life would be like even if they saved one hand. And the doctors were presenting it as the baby would die anyway because he was too premature, so they had to choose to save her. She wanted them to focus on delivering her baby.

Children died so often in those days that doctors focused on saving the adult. The doctor even told Jacob, "She can have more children." Thank God for vaccines, modern medicine, etc.

Although I disliked how the whole story unfolded, it was beautiful when she said, "Give me the hour!". In a couple of scenes this season Julia Schlaepfer got to shine as an actress.

I'm also hugely annoyed and frustrated with the (even more!) outlandish turn her story took when foolish Paul and Hillary chose to drive her through the frigid, snowy West to Montana. It was one thing to see them unprepared for the cold, but Alex didn't even have gloves! A couple who had lived in Illinois would have known more about dressing for the weather, not to mention understanding how idiotic the idea of driving like that in winter was.

People with functioning brain cells would have said, "Stay here with us until spring in the mountains. Write to Cara in Bozeman, tell her who you are and where you are, then sit back with us and grow your baby in comfort."

Whitfield did not "kill Alex" -- stupid writing did.

Edited Monday at 03:07 PM by RedHawk
Clarification

[RedHawk]

11 hours ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

Maybe we will hear about him OR see his family in "The Madison".

I won't. Sheridan wrecked this show through bad writing. "Yellowstone" got so bad I still haven't watched the final 6 episodes because I just don't care. There are no people left in the "Yellowstone Universe" that I care about.

"1923" season 1, despite (and sometimes because of -- the ghost ship!) outlandish events and unlikely coincidences, was thrilling and enjoyable to watch (especially Alex and Spencer, Jacob and Cara). S2 has been a slog with only a few highlights and way too many dumb plot events.

I get what Sheridan thought he was doing. Episodic, thrilling TV that gripped the viewer and kept them coming back every week. Similar to old-time newspaper serials, full of heightened, sometimes unbelievable events and larger-than-life characters. He just didn't do it well.

Teonna's story was interesting but could/should have been its own spinoff. I'd have given that one a chance.

I hated the S&M storyline with Whitfield. What it showed about him and why Banner turned against him could have been accomplished in a few short scenes rather than a too many prolonged ones. I think the overall Banner story arc was good and well-written, and acted. Would have appreciated more of that for all the characters.

I saw "Hell or High Water" in the theater years ago and loved Sheridan's writing. He has talent but is stretching it too thin. I have no interest in any other Sheridan shows. Done.

[mythoughtis]

2 hours ago, RedHawk said:

People with functioning brain cells would have said, "Stay here with us until spring in the mountains. Write to Cara in Bozeman, tell her who you are and where you are, then sit back with us and grow your baby in comfort."

Whitfield did not "kill Alex" -- stupid writing did.

They thought they knew better than the clueless Americans.  Remember how they acted toward Alex on the train when they thought she was an American.    They wanted the adventure.  All they had to do was wait a day or two, give Alex some money and put her back on the train in Chicago once it resumed its schedule.  Money would have allowed Alex to have a private sleeper car and meals.  All she needed for just a few days.   The letters would have been enough for Cara to take her in even if Spencer hadn’t shown up too.  
 

Spencer blamed Wakefield  because he would not have come home except for Wakefield’s war.  Alex supposedly would have been alive.  But she would have been alive if she had just listened to the shopkeeper.   She died because of her own fear, arrogance, stupidity, some  combination there-of.    
 

It’s also unrealistic to think that Spencer wouldn’t  remarry over the course of 45 years because of a 1 year romance.      Cara firmly expected Elizabeth to remarry - and her and Jack were together just as long.  In addition, I really don’t see Spencer wanting child number 2 to be illegitimate.  Legitimizing him wouldn’t have necessarily meant that the ranch wouldn’t go to John II.  They had wills back then. 

[RedHawk]

It's true that the rich couple were ignorantly arrogant. Like Alex saying "Montana can't be colder than this!" when she was in England. Haha, she sure learned. Bored and indolent Paul with the "romantic" idea of reuniting the separated lovers, yeah, I get it. But somewhere along the way self-preservation should have taken over from romantic idiocy.

There was no deadline to get Alex to Bozeman. She was well and the baby wasn't due for a few more months. I willingly bought a lot in this series but just could not buy this whole driving to Montana foolishness. 

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, RedHawk said:

It's true that the rich couple were ignorantly arrogant.

If they'd never been through such a snowstorm before, I can see where their naivety & ignorance of such occurrences came into play.  Sometimes people can put blinders on and press forward into the unknown thinking that "it can't be that bad!" 

I had a friend who was picking up her kids from school one day when the tornado sirens went off and a fellow mom, who was a transplant from another state that doesn't deal with tornadoes looked at her and said, "is that siren for real?" That's the kind of mentality I liken to this situation with the couple confidently driving into the snowstorm because it can't possibly be real.  That was a terrible way to learn that lesson.  

Of course, nowadays we have the advantage of 24/7 coverage of weather events, so we can plan ahead when traveling through areas we aren't familiar with.  Although that couple was warned about the snowstorm, they were probably in denial that the storekeeper could know such things.  

[Affogato]

I don’t think it is the lack of weather reports,  I think it is the sheer amount of distance and the emptiness. It still was dumb, since they could have put her on a train in a little while and it would have been fine. I really liked the end, and I didn’t mind Alexandra dying (as it turned out) but I wish something else had happened. I also wish the baby had been older, and I worry about the developmental difficulties. Still, I thought this was better than the rest of the episodes and I wish we had more. The meeting somwhere when the second spouse died trope needs to not be a frequent thing, though. 

I was a little surprised people in this forum were that invested in the ship, though. 

Harrison Ford deciding to stay behind and the look when they rode off was excellent acting and probably the piece I will take with me.

I have said before that I think Sheridan is trying to show us the contrasts between the worlds, and we did cover a lot of ground. Continents, bloodshed. We could have done with less of Dalton’s women, since it wasn’t even a huge plot point, except that he was cruel. 

I think this show and the previous one has made an effort to show what women went through at the time, but it is a male gaze, nontheless. I’d call it old fashioned, but in our current world people are fighting to go back to ‘the gilded age’. 

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

It still was dumb, since they could have put her on a train in a little while and it would have been fine.

Yes, it was stupid!  It was their hubris in thinking that they knew better than the storekeepers when they were warned about there being no more gas stations and how everything was shut down due to the weather.   They ran off on a whim and left their brains at home.  😜

[LoveLeigh]

10 hours ago, RedHawk said:

People with functioning brain cells would have said, "Stay here with us until spring in the mountains. Write to Cara in Bozeman, tell her who you are and where you are, then sit back with us and grow your baby in comfort."

 

Then, there would be no melodramatic tear jerker story. 

I was sobbing at the end when old Spencer walked to Alex's grave. Maybe because this 1923 story speaks to the truth of life. A visit to any cemetery shows all those who lived and died and had their own layered stories. This is a universal theme and Carmela Soprano said it well: 

 

[SeanBug]

I quit watching I think after Episode 3, Alex was leaving NY and Spencer was trying to get out of TX. 

I CANNOT believe Sheridan played us this way with the death of Alex. The only thing I liked in S1 was their relationship. 

Apparently Sheridan isn't the genius Paramount Plus thought he was.  They cancelled Evil for some reason, a very popular and well written show, and give this hack free rein to write shitty shows that viewers give up on because they're so ridiculous. 

 

[Affogato]

I haven’t watched Yellowstone. Are there callbacks to these shows?

[mythoughtis]

2 hours ago, Affogato said:

I haven’t watched Yellowstone. Are there callbacks to these shows?

A few historical scenes appear in Yellowstone, but they are there to mostly explain situations  in  Yellowstone episodes. We learn just a little bit about what happened between 1883 and 1923.    And see Spencer ( briefly) as a child.  

Edited Tuesday at 04:44 PM by mythoughtis

[SeanBug]

3 hours ago, Affogato said:

I haven’t watched Yellowstone. Are there callbacks to these shows?

No. Yellowstone was before he created 1883 and 1923. Unless there's some mention in the most recent episodes of Yellowstone. They mention John Dutton's father, who was played by Dabney Coleman in a flashback I think, in an early episode. 

I think they are using the same footage of the house from Yellowstone, the sets and the exteriors. 

I haven't watched Yellowstone for quite some time. It just got so ridiculous, and I couldn't figure out how Beth hadn't been charged as a menace to society, or why some women think of her as a role model.   I saw a teeshirt online that reads "In a world full of princesses, be a Beth Dutton". 

Yes we need more sociopaths. 

Edited Tuesday at 05:26 PM by SeanBug

[LoveLeigh]

13 hours ago, SeanBug said:

I couldn't figure out how Beth hadn't been charged as a menace to society, or why some women think of her as a role model.   

Thank-you for this. Beth is horrible, an angry sarcastic confrontational person addicted to conflict. She alway says an insult and then walks out of the room. I could not stand her or the actor who played her. 

[SeanBug]

6 hours ago, LoveLeigh said:

Thank-you for this. Beth is horrible, an angry sarcastic confrontational person addicted to conflict. She alway says an insult and then walks out of the room. I could not stand her or the actor who played her. 

I've never understood Sheridan's penchant for writing such terrible characters and presenting them as the good guy.  He does have the ability to write strong female characters. I've said this before, but Elizabeth Olsen's character in Wind River is a prime example. She comes in as a fish out of water, and then everyone realizes she's a pretty tough cookie. Yes she hasn't been on a reservation before and isn't familiar with tribal customs, but her courage and compassion show the locals she's not just a white person coming in to take over, she wants to help.  

But even as far as male characters, what a bunch of assholes on Yellowstone. Someone does something you don't like, so you tell them you'll drive them to town but instead you kill them and dump them off a cliff on the state line. How are we supposed to root for these people.  Sheridan thinks he's writing the western version of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. Problem is, he's no David Chase or Vince Gilligan. 

[Affogato]

29 minutes ago, SeanBug said:

I've never understood Sheridan's penchant for writing such terrible characters and presenting them as the good guy.  He does have the ability to write strong female characters. I've said this before, but Elizabeth Olsen's character in Wind River is a prime example. She comes in as a fish out of water, and then everyone realizes she's a pretty tough cookie. Yes she hasn't been on a reservation before and isn't familiar with tribal customs, but her courage and compassion show the locals she's not just a white person coming in to take over, she wants to help.  

But even as far as male characters, what a bunch of assholes on Yellowstone. Someone does something you don't like, so you tell them you'll drive them to town but instead you kill them and dump them off a cliff on the state line. How are we supposed to root for these people.  Sheridan thinks he's writing the western version of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. Problem is, he's no David Chase or Vince Gilligan. 

We love HF but Whittaker (is that it?)points out he’s a taker. Spencer too probably.  ijust not sadists. 

[Marley]

If they didn't waste a million episodes on getting to Montana I could accept Alex dying. Why couldn't Spencer & Alex have gotten to the ranch in like EP 2 or 3 like get some story of them at the ranch trying to save it then if they wanna kill off Alex then fine. 

Instead we get Taylor Sheridan's torture porn for like a season. Fuck him I can't put myself through anymore of his shows lol.