The 1923 series finale left many fans disappointed as it killed off one of their favourite characters.
The Heartbreak That Echoed Across Montana
On April 6, 2025, Paramount+ dropped the final episode of 1923 Season 2, and millions of Yellowstone fans watched their screens through tears that could have thawed the Arctic. After two seasons of oceans crossed, lions hunted, and letters written in blood, Spencer Dutton finally held Alex in his arms—only to lose her forever on a hospital gurney minutes later. The premature baby lived, but Alex’s body, battered by ice, shipwrecks, and sheer will, gave out just when the ranch was in sight. What should have been the happiest reunion in Dutton history became the cruelest gut-punch Taylor Sheridan has ever delivered.
A Death That Felt Like Betrayal
Julia Schlaepfer’s Alex had fought harder than any character in the franchise. She jumped off moving trains, survived tugboat explosions, and crossed the Atlantic in steerage with nothing but Spencer’s photograph and a promise. Fans invested years in that promise. When the screen faded to black on her pale face and Spencer’s broken scream, the internet didn’t just grieve—it revolted.
Reddit threads exploded within minutes. “We waited two seasons for THAT?” one user titled a post that reached the front page in an hour. Another wrote, “I’ve never turned off a show faster. My wife threw the remote.” The rage wasn’t just about sadness; it was about narrative theft. Viewers felt robbed of the payoff they’d been chasing since 2022’s “I will find you if it takes fifty years.”
The Fan Who Fixed What Sheridan Broke
Then Zestyclose-Rhubarb55 dropped a 1,200-word alternate ending that spread faster than a Montana wildfire. In their version, Alex never boards that empty-handed. She jumps from the train straight into a chain of events that ties every loose thread into a bow made of vengeance and hope. The post currently sits at 28k upvotes and a 98% upvote ratio—numbers that dwarf most official Paramount announcements.
Every Detail the Fans Deserved
Picture this: Spencer stumbles across Pete Plenty Clouds in the snow, leading him to Teonna and Runs His Horse. Meanwhile, Alex, half-frozen but alive, takes a job on the Billings dining car to earn passage home. There she meets Lindy, the prostitute from Season 1, who introduces her to none other than Donald Whitfield—Timothy Dalton’s silver-tongued devil with a ledger full of evil.
Whitfield smells opportunity. He offers to “help” Alex find Spencer, planning to use her as leverage against the Duttons. Instead, Mabel the sheepherder tips off Cara, who rides into town like an avenging angel. What follows is twenty minutes of pure Sheridan-style justice: Spencer storming Whitfield’s mansion, Cara turning investors with a single speech, and a knife fight that leaves Alex wounded but breathing.
The Train Station Gets Its Due
In the fan rewrite, Whitfield doesn’t die cleanly. Spencer and Cara drag him—still spitting threats—to the infamous Train Station. The camera lingers on his terror as the canyon yawns below. It’s the poetic justice fans screamed for when the actual finale let him slink away off-screen. One commenter wrote, “I felt the drop in my soul. That’s how you end a villain.”
Three Years Later, the Epilogue We Needed
The final scene flashes forward to 1928. Elizabeth and Alex—both alive, both radiant—trade fashion tips on the porch while Cara watches with amused exasperation. Jacob chases two toddling Dutton heirs who’ve inherited their fathers’ stubborn streaks. Spencer and Jack ride in with a sea of cattle, dust swirling like gold in the sunset.
Elsa’s narration returns, softer than ever: “They would lose calves to wolves, money to the Crash, and friends to the bottle. But every sunrise found them richer than the day before, because they had this.” The camera pulls back on laughter, horses, and a ranch that finally feels like home. Credits roll to a standing ovation in living rooms worldwide.
The Comments That Became a Movement
Within 48 hours, “I’m going to pretend this is canon” became the top reply on every 1923 discussion board. Camperfan246 printed the alternate ending and taped it over their TV guide. EllieJamesYA turned it into a 40-page script PDF that’s been downloaded 60,000 times. Someone even edited the final five minutes using AI deepfakes—Alex waking up, Spencer smiling, Whitfield falling—and the video hit 3 million views before Paramount’s lawyers noticed.
A Love Letter That Outshone the Original
What makes Zestyclose-Rhubarb55’s version genius isn’t just that it saves Alex. It’s that it honors every character’s journey. Teonna gets California sunshine instead of tragedy. Pete Plenty Clouds becomes a husband, not a ghost. Jacob and Cara earn their happy ending without sacrificing grit. Even Elizabeth’s miscarriage finds healing in mentoring Alex through recovery.
One fan summed it up perfectly: “This isn’t fanfiction. It’s the director’s cut we were supposed to get.” Another added, “Taylor Sheridan wrote the tragedy. Rhubarb wrote the legend.”
The Ending That Will Live Forever
Paramount+ may never acknowledge the alternate finale, but that doesn’t matter anymore. On TikTok, teenagers who weren’t alive when 1883 premiered act out the porch scene with cowboy hats and fake toddlers. Etsy sellers can’t keep “Alex & Spencer 1928” embroidery hoops in stock. Facebook groups have declared April 6 “Rhubarb Day,” complete with annual re-readings at 9 PM sharp.
The official ending broke hearts. The fan ending mended them—and built something stronger. Somewhere in Montana, a ranch stands taller because a stranger on Reddit refused to let love die in a hospital bed. Spencer and Alex didn’t just survive in imagination. They rode into legend on a wave of 28,000 upvotes and one perfect sentence: “All the hardships were worth what they had in that current moment.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real final episode of 1923. Everything else was just a rough draft.