Brian Geraghty Talks Zane’s Brain Surgery & Dutton Battles to Come

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for 1923 Season 2 Episode 4, “Journey the Rivers of Iron.”]

The “Zane Brain Drain” was performed in 1923‘s fourth episode. That was the name Taylor Sheridan and the cast teasingly gave to the brain surgery Brian Geraghty‘s character underwent with only chloroform to put him under, the actor tells TV Insider. The procedure was performed to relieve the brain swelling and blood clot caused by an untreated concussion, the result of the attack from Donald Whitfield’s (Timothy Dalton) men in Season 1. Zane wasn’t out for revenge before he was healed; he could barely walk let alone fight. Now, Geraghty says he’s hellbent on “justice.”

1923 Season 2 Episode 4 debuted on Sunday, March 16, on Paramount+. It showed Zane, his wife Alice (Joy Osmanski), and their two children settling into the Dutton home, where Dr. Miller (Mark Daneri), who treated Elizabeth’s (Michelle Randolph) potential rabies infection, has been sheltering during the blizzard. Lack of access to the complete stock of his surgical tools meant that the only way to sedate Zane was with chloroform. As the doc explained to Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Jack (Darren Mann), the pain receptors of Zane’s brain may take over the effects of the sedative. That’s exactly what happened just a few minutes in to the surgeon drilling a hole into Zane’s skull.

This was filmed with the help of a prosthetic head that Geraghty says was matched “perfectly” to his hair and skin color even as the summer sun changed its shades. The prosthetic was made by Jason Hamer of Hamer FX.

“There’s this guy, Jason Hamer in Burbank [California] that is an incredible special effects guy and company. I went in there a couple times,” Geraghty shares. “It was summer and I was surfing a lot and I was in L.A., and they were able to make this head that was just incredible and matched all the weird different colors of my hair and my beard at the time. When we were on set, I couldn’t believe it. No one could. Everybody was like, who built this head? It’s so perfectly you. We were all taking pictures with it, dancing around it, having to good the time with it.”

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Geraghty holds his phone up to the Zoom call to show a picture of Ford giving the Zane prosthetic head a kiss on the forehead. “He was giving me a little good luck kiss,” Geraghty says with a proud smile.

“It took a full day, maybe a day and a half” to film the “Zane Brain Drain,” Geraghty shares. “We had a lot of pieces, and basically we [filmed] me as a practical [effect], and then we switched to the dummy head and they had the procedure. I think they even had a double in there and shaved the hole and added all this stuff. When they did the drain, they had the special effects there with the pump to have it look as authentic as possible.”

As Geraghty understood it, the chloroform could’ve knocked a person out for just a couple of minutes or half an hour or more. It was written in the script how long it would take for Zane to be startled awake by the horrific pain, but he did get to “surprise them with a full wake-up.” “I liked it,” the actor admits. “It had me go from zero to 60, which was great.”

Ford and Mann were great support for Geraghty when filming this big Zane scene. The actor says that Ford and Helen Mirren “are great leaders” for the cast who “still like to have fun” while filming.

“When I had all that work to do [and] I wanted to turn out a certain way, you have a lot of pressure, especially when you don’t have those kind of big scenes every episode. You want it to go a certain way,” he says. “Harrison was so supportive and there as an off-camera actor when it was my moments. A lot of actors don’t like to give other actors their moments, especially the more famous they are.”

Zane asked Jacob if they were “going after” Whitfield after his surgery was complete. They are, and it’s going to be an action-packed rest of the season. Zane wasn’t out for revenge before, but rather a peaceful life for his family after they were attacked. Now that he’s learned it was Whitfield who ordered the attack and the separation of his family that led to Alice’s arrest, everything has changed.

“He learned that they did this to him and his family, and now it’s personal,” Geraghty explains. “Before it was like, I’m doing my job and I want to protect these people, but now not only do I want to protect them, it is personal. Zane’s number one is loyalty. He’s not a vengeful guy. I think he just wants justice.”

Trae Patton / Paramount+

“He’ll do whatever it takes,” the Big Sky alum adds. “That’s the backbone of the guy. He’s selfless. He’ll do whatever he has to do to protect the Duttons, i.e. his family.” Alice doesn’t take part in much of the future action, Geraghty reveals. She’ll be seen “around the same” frequency as she has so far moving forward. But he loved getting to see Osmanski’s scene with Mirren’s Cara in Episode 4, when she explained why they have to fight to protect the land even when it scares them.

“I was grateful to see that she had a nice scene with Helen,” he says. “I thought it was great and lovely. I love when Helen’s character’s like, you can run, but you can’t hide. You just have to dig your heels in and figure it out.”

Geraghty says viewers will see a new side of Zane in the next episode, one that’s more determined than ever. And he warns that there’s another big showdown between the Duttons and the Whitfield army to come. He also teases the eventual reunion between Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer).

“There’s plenty of action to come still, and there’s the journey of the two star-crossed lovers trying to meet up, which has been amazing to watch,” the actor shares. “Watching Julia do such great work and Brandon, that’s been fun. Everything will finally come to a head. Reading it, I was satisfied and I think the viewers will be too.”

1923, Sundays, Paramount+