About halfway into the season-two finale of Reservation Dogs, when the show’s core foursome finally makes it to California and takes temporary shelter in a homeless encampment, Cheese (Lane Factor) launches into a conversation about Tim Cappello, the saxophonist most famous for his appearance in 1987’s The Lost Boys.
At first, Cheese’s efforts to explain Cappello’s career to his friend Elora (Devery Jacobs) seem like a funny, pop-culture-related aside. But by the end of this incredibly moving episode, the references to Cappello and “I Still Believe†— the song he performs in that ’80s vampire classic and also the title of this finale — have become a meaningful nod to the season’s deeper themes about embracing optimism and community despite feelings of isolation and despair. That’s how great Reservation Dogs is: It can take a casual conversation about a man famous for playing a woodwind instrument while shirtless and turn it into something of deep significance. Even the smallest details in this world shaped by showrunner and series co-creator Sterlin Harjo matter.
The significance of that Cappello conversation is hinted at when Cheese and Elora both recall that they learned of the sax player’s existence because Daniel — the dearly departed friend to whom this trip to California is dedicated — showed them both The Lost Boys and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, a film that features Cappello on its theme song “We Don’t Need Another Hero,†by Tina Turner. Daniel’s interest in these two movies does not feel accidental: Both can easily be read as reflections of his feelings about living on the reservation and his desire to break away from it.
Beyond Thunderdome, the third Mad Max movie in the franchise, focuses on a “lost tribe†of children and teenagers living on their own in a desert oasis and yearning to journey to a mythologized place they call “Tomorrow-Morrow Land.†It’s not hard to imagine a kid like Daniel watching that movie and seeing parallels to his own feelings of alienation and desire to find fulfillment elsewhere. The lyrics to “We Don’t Need Another Hero†capture that sense of yearning: “Looking for something we can rely on / There’s got to be something better out there.â€
The Lost Boys, another film whose vocabulary echoes Peter Pan, is a vampire horror-comedy above all else, but it also focuses on a group of young people who exist with little adult supervision and engage in activities that are dangerous and risky — motorcycle racing, dangling precariously from bridges, and, you know, being vampires. It’s not hard to imagine Daniel seeing some parallels between that sort of rebellious behavior and what he and his friends get up to in Okern.
The scene in which Cappello rocks the Santa Carla boardwalk with his performance of “I Still Believe,†in particular, courses with a sense of excitement and youthful freedom. Everyone in the crowd looks young, unencumbered, and completely intoxicated by the music and the summer-night air. And then there’s Cappello up there, swiveling his hips and sporting a slicked-back long ’do reminiscent of the hairstyles worn by Mose (Lil Mike) and Mekko (Funny Bone). Of course Daniel would watch a scene like this and hope maybe there’s a place for him, too, in a California that looks like that.
If Daniel was super into The Lost Boys — and given that he showed it to both Elora and Cheese, presumably he was — it wouldn’t surprise me if that movie specifically planted the seed in his mind to go to California. That may sound weird since the central characters, Sam, Michael, and their mother Lucy, have to contend with vampires almost as soon as they arrive out west. But they eventually prevail, freeing all the children and teens who had been victimized by Edward Herrmann’s head vampire. Again, as in Beyond Thunderdome, the idea of young people liberating themselves from a situation in which they feel trapped is central to the story. It’s absolutely central in Reservation Dogs as well.
Of course, our rez dogs do not face off against any literal bloodsuckers during their odyssey to Los Angeles. But they definitely encounter people who consider them prey. That’s the case earlier in the season, when Elora and Jackie (Elva Guerra) cut short their trip out west after being chased by gun-toting racists. It’s true again in this episode, when Elora’s car, along with all of Bear’s saved-up money, gets stolen. But like the characters in The Lost Boys, these kids also prevail, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean that Daniel dreamed of seeing for himself.
In the final moments of this episode, when Cheese says a prayer for Daniel that tearfully acknowledges all the things they lost when he ended his life, the group reconnects spiritually with their friend. They collectively embrace multiple times, and at certain points, Daniel is visible among them. Those group hugs mirror the moment in The Lost Boys when the vampires have been vanquished and Lucy, played by Dianne Wiest, and her two sons embrace in a circle.
The epilogue of this episode is even more blatant with its Lost Boys callback, putting Cappello himself on the beach, where he plays that sax and sings his cover of the Call’s “I Still Believe.†In this context, the track seems to refer to the experience the rez dogs just had in the ocean — “Flat on my back / Out at sea / Hoping these waves don’t cover me†— and the optimism they seize onto as this season ends: “For people like us / In places like this / We need all the hope / We can get.â€
This sly button on the episode is akin to one of those Marvel post-credits stingers where a significant character enters the frame — it’s a real IYKYK moment. But it also resonates more deeply than that. Given how strongly Cheese and Elora associate Cappello with their happy memories of Daniel, the appearance of the sax man signifies that Daniel’s friends haven’t forgotten him or the past they share. At the same time, the lyrics Cappello sings highlight both their desire to move forward and a renewed faith in the future. Daniel may have imagined one day arriving in a California that resembled the California he had seen in movies: sunny, salty-aired, near an ocean that stretches to forever and where muscular guys play their instruments outside with complete abandon. That California is a fantasy, but Reservation Dogs makes it a reality for Daniel’s friends and a way to honor a rez dog who was himself a lost boy.