‘1883’: Sam Elliott’s Brennan Alive in Season 2?

1883 Creator Taylor Sheridan: The Powers That Be Wanted to Reverse [Spoiler]’s Death for the Yellowstone Prequel’s Potential Season 2

Aaron OzrovitzSeptember 13, 2023

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If your happy place is a version of 1883 in which Capt. Shea Brennan didn’t end his life while sitting on an Oregon beach… we’ve got something special for you.

In a new interview with our sister site Deadline, series creator Taylor Sheridan states that the Paramount+ Powers That Be wanted him to entertain the idea of Sam Elliott’s character surviving his suicide in the series’ finale in order to pave the way for the already-ordered Season 2.

“When they read the last episode of 1883, I don’t think they digested what had happened, even though I made it quite clear from the very beginning,” Sheridan says in the extensive Q&A, later adding: “I’m sitting here going, ‘Guys, everyone is dead.’” (Well, not everyone — Related: We had a few ideas on the subject.)

Sherid an also claims that the higher-ups wanted to meet to talk about how Brennan might not

have died after putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger in Episode 10 — an idea that didn’t sit well with the Yellowstone

mastermind. “By the very nature of the term, it’s not something survivable, and who would want to see that?” Sheridan says.

TVLine has reached out to Paramount+ for comment.

The upside to all of this? The conversation prompted Sheridan to take “another peek into the window” of the Dutton family saga, and that’s where the idea for 1923 — which premiered Sunday (read a full recap) — began.

“It’s the one great thing about the Dutton family,” he said. “You can skip generations and put them in all these unique situations, and it has nothing to do with Yellowstone, nothing to do with 1883 and yet it’s tethered completely to them, but they’re all standalones. That’s what I find so intriguing about it.”