Over the past nine weeks, the Reservation Dogs have been through it. This season, we’ve seen folks lose their close relatives, watched innocent people face unfair punishments, and witnessed the collapse of close relationships. Across each of this season’s episodes, the writers have asked important questions about what we should do when our closest bonds get broken by our complicated and messy feelings. It’s a question many Indigenous people deal with on the daily — yes, you can be annoyed at a relative if they’re being mean to you or if they’re not doing what they’re supposed to, but these feelings of frustration need to be counterbalanced with the reality that this world is hard on Indigenous people. My mentor, Dr. Larry Gross (White Earth Anishinaabe), argues that many, if not all, Indigenous peoples are living with what he calls “postapocalyptic stress syndrome.†Indigenous peoples have “seen the end of their respective worlds,†and our destinies continue to be largely controlled by colonial governments.
It’s exactly what we see in Reservation Dogs. Many Indigenous people live cooped up on reservations, erased and abandoned by a state that benefits from keeping us disconnected from our lands. For generations, we’ve been living according to foreign social, familial, and governmental rules that have been imposed on our communities, and these coercive structures have had nasty results on our personal and collective psyches. Perhaps postapocalyptic stress syndrome is one way to understand what’s been going on with the Rez Dogs these past two seasons: Not only are these youths collectively impacted by high rates of incarceration, suicide, and poverty in their broader community but also, on an individual level, deeply shaped by highly personal experiences of traumatic violence and loss. It’s easy to feel as though there’s no hope when the world keeps telling Indigenous people we’re hopeless.
As we’ve gotten further glimpses into the broader community of the Dogs’ village, we can see that this feeling of disconnection isn’t just something that Bear, Elora, Cheese, and Willie Jack are dealing with — everyone, it seems, is struggling to find a way to feel a sense of belonging not only in the community but within themselves. Even the folks who seem to have found their niche — Big, for example — can still be overcome with feelings of guilt and self-doubt when they reflect on the difficult decisions they’ve had to make. Similarly, Elders like Hotki, Uncle Brownie, and Rita are still on their own personal journeys of self-fulfillment. Ultimately, the reality that these feelings of uncertainty may not ever go away can be terrifying to young people, especially those who might have lived with the illusion that adulthood means you get everything figured out. If the Elders who seem to know everything are still struggling, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Yet despite all this, Indigenous folks still find ways to love and care for one another, no matter how hard it can be. In Ojibwe, the phrase is Manaaji’idiwin (sorry to Larry and all my other Anishinaabe buddies if I butcher this; just blame it on my being Lakota), which roughly translates to “respecting one another.†And in Lakota, there’s a saying, Mitakuye oyasin, “all my relations†or “we are all related,†which conveys the idea that we are all entangled within one another’s lives, with the land, and with this whole big dang world. Most important, this deep interconnection goes both ways: When one of us wins, we all win, but this also means the loss or suffering of one person can ripple through the whole community. When one person feels sick or sad, we are all impacted by it. And so while it can be hard to live together sometimes, we’ve all got to work to show up for one another and do our best to find the way forward. Because when it comes down to it, all we have is each other.
After nine weeks of falling apart, the Rez Dogs are finally ready to come back together. Emboldened by reading Daniel’s letter, the group decides to honor their friend’s wishes and give one another one more shot at reconciliation. Up to this point, the contents of Daniel’s letter to himself have been kept a secret, but in this week’s opening voice-over, we finally discover what the Rez Dogs saw at the conclusion of last week’s episode. First, we learn that Daniel wanted to visit California for spring break and that he couldn’t wait to drive a car. But there’s another important revelation: The letter confirms that Daniel harbored romantic feelings for Elora, something that has been hinted at throughout the series but was never fully confirmed until now. This admission adds another layer to Elora’s character, perhaps providing an explanation as to why she felt especially impacted by Daniel’s loss. They didn’t ever get a chance to express whatever feelings they had for each other. Perhaps Elora wonders if addressing those feelings could have made a difference in how Daniel’s story played out, which is why she has had an especially hard time letting go of her grief.
Before the group can get to Cali, they need to rustle Elora’s grandmother’s car out of the junkyard. Although they set out to steal the car in secret, Kenny Boy catches them in the act only to graciously let them take the car for free. “It’s been a weird last few days,†Kenny Boy reflects, definitely in reference to the wild acid trip he and Big went on. In exchange for the car, Kenny Boy asks the Rez Dogs to pay it forward, although because it’s Kenny Boy, of course, the wholesome life lesson is capped off with some goofy banter: If he’s ever reincarnated as a cow, Kenny Boy asks that he be “gently milked†in reciprocity, a comment that, though meant in earnest, appropriately earns a baffled look from Elora and her “elvish friend,†Jackie.
Out and about in their newly liberated jalopy, Elora, Bear, Willie Jack, and Cheese hit the road for Los Angeles together. Interestingly, the group decides to leave Jackie behind despite her having played a role in many of the gang’s schemes this season, even participating in helping them get the car out of impound. It’s one of those moments that rhymes (appropriate, since the episode’s lead writing credit is Kumeyaay poet Tommy Pico), as the season-one finale ended with Bear and the rest of the Dogs being left behind for Jackie. Perhaps she knows this visit to L.A. is a kind of ceremony for the other Rez Dogs, so Jackie opts to hang back in order to let the four kids work out their lingering beefs.
In another of those rhyming moments, we see Bear is using his savings from his various jobs to fund the L.A. trip. This is another subtle character moment that shows Bear has changed for the better. Last season, his frivolous spending of their heist money drove a big wedge between him and Elora. It also seems like a good omen for the journey — they’ve funded the trip using money that was earned with hard work, rather than trickery that could curse them. And most important, the money isn’t coming at the cost of the other villagers’ security and well-being. But since Bear is Bear, he of course still has more to learn. A visit to the mystical gas-station coin-operated fortune-teller machine ominously warns him that he needs to “pave new ways, or you’ll probably die,†a prophetic message that he shrugs off a bit too quickly.
This bad omen comes to fruition when, shortly after arriving in L.A., the gang’s car gets jacked along with all of their money, clothes, precious snacks, and Daniel’s letter. With Bear’s dad out of contact, the Rez Dogs are left to rely on a new, mysterious guide … Brandon Boyd from Incubus! It’s a pretty ridiculous bit and especially mind-blowing if you’re a kid who grew up on the West Coast in the 1990s.
Forced to spend the night on the streets (albeit sort of protected by their guide), the Rez Dogs end up reminiscing about Daniel while they wait for morning. In a tender scene, Cheese opens up to Elora about Daniel, sharing that he also looks up to Elora as a kind of hero figure. She responds that she’s feeling just as unmoored as the rest of them, but Cheese assures her that she out of any of them has what it takes to make it through. The crew’s peaceful respite is cut short when the cops arrive, and the kids also discover that their guide has mysteriously disappeared. Their only choice now is to walk the last five miles to the beach. And just when the Rez Dogs are about to lose hope, they suddenly find themselves at their destination.
There’s one more stanza in this poem. While on their way to Cali, the kids decide that they’re going to let Daniel’s letter wash away into the ocean, an act they hope will also wash away the pain and grief that each of them has been holding on to since their friend’s death. Now, standing on the shore without the letter, they begin to hesitate over what to do next — but the ceremony will be found. Willie Jack launches into Tom Petty, recalling Uncle Brownie and Bucky’s curse-breaking song. But they don’t know the words to this honor song, so Cheese joins in with some prayers (which are, in classic Cheese style, interspersed with ’80s movie references). After some faltering, Cheese finds his voice and delivers an earnest, heartbreaking eulogy to his lost friend … cousin … brother. We all know that quiet Cheese sees all, and he accurately and succinctly explains what bigger things Daniel represented to each of them (family, hope) and how all of them have been suffering since their collective loss. As the four Rez Dogs embrace in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they’re briefly reunited with Daniel, who appears again as a sign that hopefully the pain they’ve been carrying around for so long is being washed away in the salt, sand, and surf. All the while, another beautiful song by Black Belt Eagle Scout closes out the season (its song “Soft Stud†opened the first episode). Now healing, the Rez Dogs are no longer stuck living out the same painful day over and over, locked in perpetual motion. With hearts full of hope, they’re finally back on the same path.
And so the circle closes.
Aho! I’m excited to end this season’s recaps with some excellent news, young warriors and cousins, aunties and uncles! As many of you may have seen already, Reservation Dogs has been renewed for a third season ahead of the release of its finale. This is amazing news. To be honest, this season’s finale does read as if it were written with the possibility of cancellation in mind, though I mean that in the best way possible — it ends with the Rez Dogs hopefully reunited and with the story line regarding Daniel’s suicide and the gang’s subsequent disconnection pretty well resolved. Had the show not been picked up again, this episode would have been a pretty satisfying series conclusion. Now, with a new season coming next year, we have plenty of time to theorize what the writers will make out of Bear’s final cryptic line, “We’re not going back.†Does this mean they are literally physically staying in L.A., or is this more of a philosophical statement gesturing to the idea that the group has now collectively moved to a new place in life from which they won’t return?
There’s a third resonance to Bear’s statement, which speaks to the broader context of the show itself: Reservation Dogs opened up a new chapter in the history of Indigenous representation, and now that we’ve paved this space, there’s no way we’re going back. With this point in mind, I ask viewers to please continue to seek out Indigenous media over the next year. While Indigenous content creators have gained so much ground over the past couple of years — itself the result of decades of work by countless media elders, many of whom have been featured in this show — the news of the cancellation of another major Native-led series, Rutherford Falls, means our battles are not yet over.
Oftentimes when I speak to folks about the importance of Indigenous visual sovereignty and self-determination (the right to tell our own stories, to represent our own histories and futures), I sometimes get pushback from those who claim that because Indigenous peoples are a minority, they don’t constitute enough of an audience to justify their own storytelling space. I hope fans of shows like Reservation Dogs will see this as total BS deflection — Indigenous stories come from specific places, but you don’t have to be Indigenous to enjoy them and to learn the lessons they offer. So while you’re waiting for more Rez Dogs, do your part to hold up Indigenous media-makers by checking out content produced by Indigenous people whenever you can, especially from the communities whose homelands you reside on. We’re out here, now stronger than ever.
Willie Jack’s Deadly Meat Pies
• Bless the writers for giving us that post-credits scene featuring Tim Capello.
• I also found the detail of the “Indigenous Map of America†shown during the road trip deeply touching, especially the illustrations of contemporary Indigenous people in traditional regalia.