‘1923’ heads back to the ranch. This time, ‘it really is about survival for everyone.’

Time to head back to the ranch. Paramount+’s Yellowstone prequel series 1923 returns on Feb. 23, after a two-year hiatus. In a darker second season, the Dutton family saddles up for a looming war in the Montana countryside — their legacy and territory on the line.

Led by Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren), the Western drama from creator Taylor Sheridan serves as a prequel to Yellowstone, which ended its five-season run in December 2024, and a sequel to 1883. Season 2 of 1923, which consists of eight episodes, won’t be an easy journey as the Duttons — and those in their orbit — are presented with new challenges and must tend to unfinished business against the backdrop of a harsh winter.

“It really is about survival for everyone,” the actress Julia Schlaepfer, who plays Alex, told Yahoo Entertainment. “Taylor Sheridan wrote such a beautiful story for everyone, and I think people are really going to love it.”

The actors’ and writers’ strikes in 2023 pushed Season 2 production back one year to June 2024. The yearlong postponement also forced a change in filming location — from Butte, Mont., which was the main hub for Season 1, to Austin, Texas.

The extended break was a “blessing in disguise,” 1923 star Brandon Sklenar, who plays Jacob and Cara’s nephew Spencer, told Yahoo Entertainment.

“I’m a different person than I was two and a half years ago — two and a half years older and [having lived] two and a half years of life,” the actor said, adding that the jobs he took between seasons, including Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us, colored his performance in 1923. “Everything puts an imprint on you.”

“But that guy’s so deep in my bones that it’s like second nature now,” Sklenar said of Spencer, who begins the new season while on an arduous journey home. “It was interesting to see how he felt in me now, versus me two years ago, because it’s definitely different in the best way.”

For his co-star Aminah Nieves, who portrays the Indigenous teen Teonna Rainwater, being back on set held a deeper meaning after the death of their co-star Cole Brings Plenty. The actor, who played Teonna’s friend Pete Plenty Clouds, a sheep herder, in Season 1, was found dead in Kansas in April 2024.

Nieves told Yahoo Entertainment she wanted to “honor Coco, Cole Brings Plenty, this season,” and “to be back with the family.”

It took an entire season for Spencer and Alex’s love story to blossom on 1923, but by the end of the first season, the couple was literally oceans apart. Their only ounce of hope was the desperate promise they made to each other that they would somehow reunite at Yellowstone — no matter how long their respective odysseys would take.

“He’s never been more sure of why he’s doing what he’s doing — his convictions, his mission and his purpose,” Sklenar said of Spencer’s motivation for Season 2. Adding urgency to his mission is the threat to his family’s homestead from those who are circling it.

“He’s dead set on getting home, and he’s gonna get there,” he said. “He doesn’t care what stands in his way or what he has to do. He’ll do whatever he has to do and sleep well at night, because he knows he’s doing it for the ultimate reason, which is to save his family and to build a life with his wife.”

Whether that means finally sharing a scene with Ford and Mirren, Sklenar played coy. “If I were to work with them, I’m sure it would be [great],” he said with a laugh. “They’re everything you want them to be and more. I’m not blowing any smoke there. There’s a reason they have the careers they have and they’ve lasted as long as they’ve had and continue to be loved by so many people and come up with interesting performances.”

Don’t be surprised, then, if Spencer finds himself in less savory situations in Season 2. In the first episode, he takes part in underground fighting to earn more money. “There’s no greater reason to do anything outside your own moral lines than the love of your family,” Sklenar said.

On the other side of the world, Alex begins the season wilting away in London after being separated from Spencer. It’s only when she discovers a life-altering development that changes the course of her (and Spencer’s) life that she decides to embark on a solo journey to America.

The “seasickness” Alex endured aboard the ship last season led fans to speculate whether she was pregnant. “It would add more fuel to his fire,” Sklenar said of the possibility. Schlaepfer added that it would “completely raise the stakes for her journey — it’s not just about her anymore.”

“Everything that fuels her from this point on is her love for Spencer and her commitment that she made to the two of them being together,” Schlaepfer said, promising that her character matures quite a bit. “She was naive to the world [in Season 1] and she’s always been strong, feisty and fiery, but she always had Spencer there to take care of her. This season, she’s a woman moving through the world on her own and she’s very determined.”

It was vital to Schlaepfer that Alex experience hardship on her own this time. “She’s not a damsel in distress — and I never wanted her to be one,” the actress said. “It’s a much more tumultuous, brutal journey for her.”

Should Alex reunite with Spencer in due time, Sklenar said, “it’d probably be a beautiful scene.” Schlaepfer agreed, saying she’d want the moment — if it ends up happening — to be “peaceful” and “romantic.”

“I want them to reunite sooner rather than later, too,” the actress admitted, acknowledging that fans were “upset” over their prolonged time apart. “I’m right there with y’all.”

Their characters may eventually cross paths with a powerful new character. Jennifer Carpenter, best known for her role as Debra on Dexter, plays U.S. Deputy Marshal Mamie Fossett in 1923. In doing research on the real-life persona, Carpenter told Yahoo Entertainment she found “maybe 10 sentences on her.”

“She is someone who monitors the scales of justice, but she’s private, and she’s tethered to something that holds her still when things are chaotic around her,” Carpenter said, comparing her character to a slug in a rifle, always ready to stand her ground. “She basically intersects the orbit of all the other characters’ planets.”

A fan of the first season, Carpenter described 1923 as a panacea — “a missing piece” in her creative life. She said the series had “a simplistic, delicate way of telling a story” that held a mirror up to her.

“It changed your trajectory to how you want to play your ticket to this life,” she said.

1923 Season 2 returns Feb. 23 on Paramount+.

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