1923 Star Brandon Sklenar Opens Up About 'Devastating' Season Finale — and What Season 2 Has in Store

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Warning: This post contains spoilers from Sunday's season finale of 1923.

Brandon Sklenar has some thoughts on that intense season finale of 1923.

Ahead of Sunday's final episode of the Yellowstone prequel entitled "Nothing Left To Lose," the actor — who portrays Spencer Dutton in the Paramount+ series — opened up to PEOPLE about the highly-anticipated season finale, his character's fate and what fans can expect for season 2.

As Spencer continued his journey to return to Montana with Alex (Julia Schlepper), the pair ran into trouble on the ship that led to a heartbreaking separation — and questionable future.

"It's devastating," Sklenar, who's character was thrown in jail after a fight with Alex's former flame, said of the episode's conclusion. "I remember reading, we read it for the first time, we read it on a plane and it was just brutal. As Spencer, he's in a place where he's not sure if he's lost [Alex] forever and if he's ever going to see his family again and if, by the time he gets back there, they're all going to be gone."

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"Time is so precious at that point with him," he continued. "Ultimately he puts it on himself that it went down the way it did, and he feels responsible for it. And the amount of guilt that he has, he already carries so much guilt with him from the war and not seeing his family. So it just compounded tenfold, and it changes him. At the end there, it changes him as a man. Definitely. And when we see him again in part two, I think he's a different version of him that we haven't seen before."

The series, following up on 1883, moves the Dutton saga forward by a decisive four decades. Speaking to his experience of playing Spencer thus far, Sklenar said it's been a treat.

"It's definitely the best character I've played and my favorite experience working thus far," he said. "It's kind of impossible to not have that experience when you're working with these people and with this material."

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"And as an actor, that's all you hope for, is great writing, because it means you just have to do way less and come up with way less extraneous things to make it work," he added. "It's been quite the journey and it's just the beginning."

When it comes to the series' future, Sklenar hinted there's still a lot of story to tell — and a lot to look forward to.

"It's still being written at this point," he shared. "Our director and I had lunch the other day and we were speculating and wondering and hoping it would go this way or that way. And it's hard to say. I can only hope that [Spencer] is going to finally fully realize his mission in terms of getting home and fighting for the family out of love and vengeance, and hopefully reunite with [Alex] somehow."

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Season 1 of 1923 can be streamed in full on Paramount+.