Note: This story contains spoilers from “1923” Season 2.

Over the course of “1923’s” two seasons, there has been one mystery that has been teased above all others – and it involves the Dutton family tree. Now that the show is over, we finally have the answer.

Or do we?

The mystery that has been hanging over all of “1923,” until the series finale, was – who will give birth to the grandfather of John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner in “Yellowstone”)? There were red herrings and misdirects throughout the series, but it came down to two characters who could potentially be John Dutton’s grandparents – Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar), the younger son of James and Margaret Dutton (Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in previous series “1883”) and his wife Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer); or Jack Dutton (Darren Mann), who is the great-nephew to Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford) and the son of John Dutton Sr. (James Badge Dale, who was killed off in Season 1) and his fiancée Liz Strafford (Michelle Randolph).

In the penultimate episode, it should be noted, Jack is shot down by the henchmen of the villainous Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn), working for Whitfield (Timothy Dalton), the powerful tycoon who wants the Duttons’ land to build a first-of-its-kind ski resort.

Taylor Sheridan shows

Before the finale, eagle-eyed “1923” viewers pointed to a moment in “Yellowstone” season 4 when John (Costner) tells Jimmy (Jefferson White) that his grandfather had lost his leg. Since Jack was dead, with both legs intact, does that mean that Spencer is 100% his grandfather?

These suspicions seem to be confirmed in the finale, when Alexandra gives birth to a baby boy before succumbing to frostbite (it’s a very emotional episode!). As she looks at the newborn baby, she decides that they should name him John. Mystery solved, right?

Not so fast.

Randolph tells TheWrap that, “I feel like I don’t know the answer. It’s still left to be a question.” She said that when she was doing press for “1923,” everyone would ask her the question. “I always said, ‘I really don’t know, even though you think I know.’”

Schlaepfer is also willing to embrace the ambiguity, saying, “We don’t fully know until Taylor Sheridan writes the next 50 installments. But I think we both would love to hope that baby John is [Kevin Costner’s father].” Sklenar chimed in and said, “There could be another John.”

“Would I love to be the grandmother of John Dutton? Absolutely. And in my brain do I feel I am? Yes,” said Schlaepfer. “We seem like maybe we’re being coy but we genuinely don’t know. They don’t tell us. We just get the scripts and then we make of it what we make of it.”

What Sklenar feels more sure about is another piece of “Yellowstone” lore that was seemingly cleared up in the finale.

In “Yellowstone,” when John would order somebody murdered, he’d instruct one of his guys to “take him to the train station.” This meant that they would take them to a lawless area where Wyoming and Montana meet and is a jurisdictional nightmare. (This spot is actually picked out by Whitfield in “1923,” unaware it would become a Dutton staple in the decades to come.) In the “1923” finale there is a particularly bloody shootout at the train station, which seems to be where the phraseology comes from.

“I can’t confirm it, but I’m pretty sure that it is. I brought this up to somebody a year ago when I first read the scripts, because we had them at home for months before we started filming,” Sklenar said. He ran the idea past a buddy of his who is “a big ‘Yellowstone’ guy,” who argued with him about whether or not that would be the origin of the phrase. “But I am pretty sure it would make sense,” Sklenar said.

All episodes of “1923” are now streaming on Paramount+.

Brandon Sklenar in “1923” (Credit: Paramount+)