Spencer Dutton’s 1923 Spinoff: Yellowstone Needs Taylor Sheridan’s Most Heroic Dutton To Come Back
Meanwhile, The Madison isn’t tied to the Duttons, but Taylor Sheridan’s newest hit Paramount+ series is Yellowstone adjacent. While Yellowstone was in its rebuilding stages, however, one spinoff kept the Duttons’ flame alive. In 2025, 1923 season 2 concluded the story of the Prohibition-era’s Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford), and left fans wanting more of its dashing main hero, Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar).
Spencer Dutton’s 1923 Yellowstone Spinoff Still Needs To Happen
Another Yellowstone prequel series, dubbed 1944, was announced as part of the franchise’s plans, but it has yet to materialize. 1944 would continue Spencer Dutton’s story 20 years later, although it would focus on younger Duttons, including John Dutton II, the son of Spencer and his late wife, Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer).
1944 still needs to happen so that Spencer Dutton can return. Spencer became a fan-favorite in the two seasons of 1923, as both a man of action and a romantic lead. Spencer’s doomed marriage to Alexandra was 1923‘s most crucial and tragic love story, and the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch would have been lost to Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) without the big game hunter coming to the rescue.
Unlike other Dutton men, especially in modern-day Yellowstone, Spencer is remarkably uncomplicated (perhaps to a fault). Spencer has a black and white sense of right and wrong, and he’s a genuine do-gooder hero in a classical sense. This, plus his unyielding devotion to Alexandra, made Spencer a pure-hearted hero who won over 1923′s viewers.
Although 1923 season 2’s finale concluded with Spencer’s death in an epilogue, this happens in 1969. Spencer lived and kept the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch safe for another 45 years after 1923 ended. 1944 would pick up Spencer’s story in his fifties, and this would be a compelling new take on an older and wiser Spencer leading the ranch in the latter days of World War II. Brandon Sklenar wants to return as an older Spencer Dutton in 1944, and he would even like Julia Schlaepfer back as Alex, perhaps as a memory or ghost haunting her husband. Skelnar is a star on the rise, with major Hollywood roles in hit films like It Ends With Us, Drop, and The Housemaid. This is all the more reason for the Yellowstone franchise to bring Brandon back as Spencer Dutton.
Kayce’s Marshals Proves Yellowstone Needs Heroic Duttons Now More Than Ever
Marshals didn’t wow critics by transplanting Yellowstone to network television, but the new format works for Kayce Dutton. The tormented youngest son of John Dutton III (Kevin Costner) is also the most noble member of his clan in the 21st century. Fighting off domestic terrorists and human traffickers as a U.S. Marshal is a role that Kayce is well suited for. Perhaps Kayce inherited Spencer Dutton’s core of decency. Spencer was a product of his violent era, but he also wasn’t as morally compromised as Kayce or his father were in Yellowstone. Kayce is trying to move past his family’s sins and make a difference in Marshals, but Spencer’s story in 1944 would be even more compelling as he carries the burden of protecting the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch.
Spencer has a bona fide heroic streak that Kayce also shares. Spencer may have to shed his shining armor to keep the Dutton Ranch safe in 1944, but he might also be a Dutton who doesn’t sink to the most reprehensible acts to protect his family’s legacy. Spencer has a bona fide heroic streak that Kayce also shares, though the two Duttons lived nearly a century apart. Beth and Rip in The Dutton Ranch are poised to continue the Duttons’ anything-goes style that made Yellowstone so compelling. In fact, The Dutton Ranch is described as essentially Yellowstone season 6. Marshals is a straightforward procedural version of Yellowstone honed for CBS’s audience.
If Spencer Dutton returns in 1944 – and he should – Brandon Sklenar’s mustachioed action hero can stand as something in between Beth and Kayce, his 21st-century descendants. Spencer would also continue to mourn Alex in 1944, just as Kayce in Marshals faces a new beginning after losing his wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), to cancer. Yellowstone struck gold when it introduced Spencer Dutton in 1923. Taylor Sheridan’s neo-Western franchise and its legions of fans need Spencer’s rugged determination and unbounded courage to return in 1944.