During the season-three premiere, Elora’s auntie Teenie dropped the bomb that Elora’s father didn’t actually die in a motorcycle accident with her mother. Nope, he’s some white guy who’s been hanging around Tulsa (like they do). And now, Elora is finally compelled to reestablish contact with her absentee father … because she needs to fill out a FAFSA. As someone who nearly got married so I could ensure my partner retained decent health insurance (is this already the plot of a wacky rom-com? If not, it should be), I think this is a very relatable millennial problem plotline, especially since the U.S. government is about to end student-loan deferral for millions of borrowers. Like, it’s too real. My disbelief is suspended.
The penultimate episode of Rez Dogs’ final season opens on the campus of the College of the Muscogee Nation, where Elora is meeting with a counselor to discuss enrolling as a student. The Rez Dogs crew tags along for the visit, musing about whether they’d like to go to school someday too.
First, a quick tangent. As I’ve noted before, I have a more than sneaking suspicion that some kind of romance is brewing between Bear and Jackie, what with their secret texting during the crew’s trip to Los Angeles and the two sitting next to each other on the heist bus. This episode seems to drop another hint when Jackie makes a joke about “going on a snagging spree†when she goes to college, only for Bear to suddenly get really serious and morose and ask her if she’s really thinking about leaving to go to school. Jackie assures him that she’s just joking, which seems to assuage Bear, but his reaction makes me think there’s something deeper going on between them.
Okay, now that that’s out of my system, back to Elora, who has to put off her big plans to become a mental-health advocate (a life decision influenced by her experience with Daniel) until she can secure some financial information about her dad. Willie Jack and Jackie offer to help out, but Elora determines that she’s best off going this one alone. As Cheese puts it, this episode will be like “Luke when he went to Dagobah!†Also, given that each of the other Rez Dogs has been featured in a spotlight episode this season, Elora’s due for some solo time in the sun.
Cut to the next day and Elora has located her stoner housepainter dad (played by Ethan Hawke) and is following him around town. Although Elora does her best to be sneaky about it, her dad quickly catches on that he’s being tailed and confronts his would-be prowler in a gas-station parking lot. As soon as he sets his eyes on Elora, Rick realizes he’s looking at his own kin and quickly calms down.
Okay, I have to go off on another quick tangent: Several folks pointed out how episode five of this season included several allusions to Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused. Now I’m wondering how much of this episode has been influenced by Linklater’s other works, most notably his Before trilogy of films, which feature Hawke in a starring role. Before Sunrise, the first of the trilogy, was inspired by Linklater’s real-life chance encounter with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt, whom Linklater has said died in a motorcycle accident before the film’s release. Before Sunrise is also filled with many long takes of Hawke and co-star Julie Delpy engaged in personal and philosophical chatter as they wander through Vienna. I’m seeing a similar approach to the dialogue and shooting style in “Elora’s Dad,†and the factoid about Before Sunrise’s origin seems to cement the second theory I want to propose in this recap: Sterlin Harjo is a major Linklater fanboy. (Which, if he is, congratulations on the successful proselytizing; you finally got me to sit down and watch Before Sunrise just so I could talk about it in this recap.)
Elora and Rick sit down to talk over coffee, and we quickly realize that Rick is a sweet guy, albeit a bit nervous and awkward. He admits to Elora that he has thought a lot about reconnecting with her and that he would like them to get to know each other better now that they’re finally back in touch. Conversely, Elora seems deeply uninterested throughout their initial meeting — or at least she’s putting on a better front than Rick is. She’s all business. In the midst of Rick’s scattered heartfelt apologies, Elora calmly removes her financial-aid paperwork from her backpack and hands the folder to Rick like she’s a process server. And while their contrasting attitudes may initially appear shocking, Elora’s aloofness does make sense. Up until this point in the series, Elora’s character has been fundamentally shaped by events of her past that she had little control over, such as her mother’s and grandmother’s deaths and Daniel’s suicide. Now, at the very moment Elora is finally able to start thinking about the future (college, a life outside of Okern) and exert some agency, she’s once again being dragged back into her past to abide by the convoluted rules of student financial aid. It makes sense that she wants to push past this forced reunification and get back to the part of her life where she’s the one in control; it’s just manifesting as some fairly callous behavior toward her biological father.
What follows is a scene carried by the expert physical acting of Hawke and Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, who also has the writing credit on this episode. Rick tells Elora he’s sorry for abandoning her and starts to jump into some of his own story, but she quickly cuts him off, saying, “Everything I need from you fits on that piece of paper.†But Elora’s tough façade starts to crack as she watches her dad fill out the paperwork. She’s curious about him even if she’s not invested in reconciliation. Elora seems to shake off this moment of weakness, however, and after giving her dad a handshake, makes a quick exit toward her car. In a final desperate attempt to grab the attention of his daughter, Rick chases after Elora and tells her he has something to give her and she’ll need to come with him to his place to get it. Elora finally gives in and agrees to go with him.
When the two arrive at Rick’s home, Elora notices kids’ toys in the yard, and her father reveals that she has three half-siblings. This news causes Elora to hesitate. She asks if the other kids are at home, now seemingly terrified at the thought of meeting her relatives (and perhaps repeating the kind of meeting Bear had with his dad’s wife and kids back in California), but Rick pacifies Elora by telling her they’re still at school. He then goes on to explain that he has been raising the kids himself for the past several years because the children’s mother has been struggling with opiate addiction. Elora sympathizes, but she has something else on her mind. The first thing out of her mouth after hearing Rick’s story is “Are you, like, full white?†Rick is, in fact, as white as a person can be and descended from Quakers, no less.
Rick’s gift to Elora is a photograph of herself as a baby with her mother, Cookie, but his real gift is a story. He and Cookie had a rocky relationship, and by the time Elora was a year old, the two were fully separated. Rick had held out hope that they would get back together but now admits that he was too young, messed up, and prone to running “whenever anything gets hard.†Elora replies, “So that’s where I get it from,†and immediately tries to run before things get hard and she has to meet her half-siblings, but Rick manages to talk her into it.
The two share a joint during the walk to the bus stop, and Elora uses the opportunity to get more information about Rick and Cookie’s past. Rick says the two met because they both enjoyed partying and confirms Elora’s suspicions that she wasn’t planned. Rick had tried his best to stick around, but in the end, he couldn’t cope with all the responsibilities of being a young father. He has since had a change of heart, having stuck around to raise his second-chance family. The crushing line that sticks out from the exchange is when Rick tells Elora, “You never get the first pancake right, eh?â€
The scene’s final pieces of dialogue start to tie together with previous events of the season. Rick tells Elora he knows she has been in Okern this whole time but has felt unable to summon up the courage to visit her. This line of thinking shares similarities with the conversation a couple of episodes back when Cookie lectures Rita about not checking in on Elora more often. Perhaps Cookie has been trying to reach out to Rick, too.
Now, it’s Elora’s turn to open up as she and Rick talk about her plans for school and their shared interest in basketball. When Rick asks Elora where she’s been living, she tells him she has been staying in Mabel’s house since her grandmother’s passing. Mabel’s death is news to Rick, and it sends him spiraling into his own guilt again. Rick adds that one of the reasons he felt conflicted about raising Elora is that he knew it might mean separating her from her community and her people, a line that invokes the thorny history of Indigenous adoption and laws surrounding Indigenous youth, such as the recently upheld Indian Child Welfare Act. Whether this justification is a cop-out or not, it shows that Rick is aware of how complicated things are for Native kids. The episode concludes with Rick, Elora, and her siblings sharing a dinner together for the first time before Elora heads back to Okern. And she finally agrees to hug her dad.
A major theme of this season has been the reunification of families: First Fixico and Maximus, now Elora and her father. These opportunities for reconciliation contrast with this season’s earlier, less ideal family moments, such as Bear’s rejection of his father. Perhaps the problem there was that both parties needed to come together with open hearts and that Punkin is still in his shitass phase, whereas Rick has grown out of it.
Now there’s only one more episode of the series left, and I’m feeling sad and nervous and excited about it, as many of you probably are. What final lesson will the series depart with? Are there any last-minute reunions in the works? We get one more visit before this is all over, so let’s hope it’s a good one.