Here is some advice for 1923 fans hoping the Season 2 finale reveals who Yellowstone patriarch John Dutton’s grandfather is: look for the man with one leg.

And if there isn’t one? Well, that’s pretty telling too.

• The final episode of Yellowstone prequel 1923 streams this Sunday (April 6) on Paramount+.
• Ep. 6 brought seven important deaths and left Alex’s future with Spencer in doubt.
• Each week, the Dutton Rules Podcast team breaks down the previous week’s episode and theorizes about what’s to come.

Keeping up with how all the Duttons are related is a full-time job. Once Taylor Sheridan introduced James and Margaret Dutton in 1883, fans began to wonder how the family tree pieces together. There have been a half-dozen drips of information since, but the problem is, not everything revealed locks into place in a neat and tidy way.

The result is competing theories about how we get from James (Tim McGraw in 1883) to John (Kevin Costner). I tend to lean heavy on the 7 Generations Theory and allow for the possibility that Sheridan didn’t necessarily have it all mapped out when he started writing Season 1 of Yellowstone, or even Season 1 of 1883.

The cost of series expansion may be some inconsistencies. It’s an acceptable trade-off.

I have to give credit to Feisty Old Gal 8257, who follows our videos on YouTube. She first brought an important scene from Season 4 of Yellowstone to my attention. Keep reading for a full description, or skip ahead to 8:30 in this week’s 1923 finale preview video (below). The topic is also a big part of the latest episode of the Dutton Rules podcast.

During S4E2, “Phantom Pain,” John Dutton is talking to Jimmy, who was in a neck brace after another horse-riding accident. He describes have a grandfather who understood what the ranch hand was feeling.

“My grandfather lost his leg,” John Duttons says. “(He) said the worst pain he ever felt was in his toes after his leg was gone. Phantom pain they call it.”

You can see where this is headed. Unless John Dutton was describing his grandfather from his mother’s side, then this current series should give us a one-legged man soon.

If it’s a paternal grandfather, then the family tree runs through Spencer Dutton, except Spencer wouldn’t be his grandfather if our understanding of the 7 Generations Theory is correct. There would need to be an extra generation between Spencer and Dabney Coleman’s John Dutton. Fans don’t love this theory, but it’s the only one that maths.

The other option, of course, is that Jack Dutton is John Dutton’s grandfather. Because of what happened in Ep. 6, this would mean Costner’s John Dutton was indeed describing his mom’s dad. Here is a graphic that describes the two possibilities:

There is a third option. Future Yellowstone prequels could shift the tree to another unknown set of family members, in which case we’re all wrong. The odds of James, the OG John Dutton (James Badge Dale in 1923) or Jack having a paramour seem slim, however.