'Reservation Dogs' offers empathetic, quirky depiction

It took me a while, in the midst of other assignments and recommendations, but I finally finished watching both seasons of "Reservation Dogs" on Hulu, per the suggestion of reader John Skans, and I find myself wishing I'd made more time for this show before.

Like "Northern Exposure" did with its fictional small town of Cicely, Alaska, "Reservation Dogs" depicts the amusing and occasionally discouraging idiosyncrasies of everyday life in its isolated rural community, trading traditional sitcom studios for on-location shooting, while eschewing laugh tracks entirely.

"Reservation Dogs" is set in an unnamed Native American reservation in Oklahoma, and its first season became the first TV series to be filmed entirely in Oklahoma.

A "reservation dog" is the name for one of the many stray and feral dogs that can be found roaming the streets and other outdoor spaces of Indigenous reservations in North America.

It's also the name adopted by the four Native teens in this show who see themselves as "cool gangsters," in the style of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs."

The show follows these kids as they yearn for bigger things than life on the "rez," while they also struggle to make sense of the often contradictory muddle that their culture has become, after centuries of white colonization, plus their own short but tumultuous lifetimes of being raised by parents, grandparents and other tribal elders who are frequently still sorting out their own messes.

"Reservation Dogs" depicts "rez life" as a perpetual state of chaotic disrepair, with tribal law enforcement that's underfunded and disrespected, and Indian Health Service workers who are similarly overworked and ill-equipped.

While we're shown this can lead to lax responses to petty crimes and health issues endemic to Indigenous peoples, "Reservation Dogs" also hammers home the idea that the relaxed and often nonexistent boundaries of Native American culture can help integrate family and spirituality more fully into their community experience.

Several characters receive casual and frequently unasked-for visitations from ancestor spirits, and our quartet of "Reservation Dogs" typically address adults on the reservation by some combination of "uncle," "auntie," "grandparent" and "cousin," just as those elders greet the young people as "niece," "nephew," "grandchild" and, again, "cousin."

The tribal members themselves point out the difference between those titles as honorifics versus those relatives who are actual "kin," but one of the symptoms of cloistered communities in any culture is how closely intertwined everyone's histories become, as jovial adults allude to past relationships by telling their friends' kids, "I was almost your (momma or daddy)."

What's key to the portrayal of reservation life in "Reservation Dogs" is not just its insights into rural Native Americans, but also its empathy for their plight, since many of their ongoing challenges and shortfalls are shared by similar communities of economically disadvantaged white people outside of big cities, but then compounded by their legacies of outside oppression.

It's initially hilarious, but subtly heartbreaking, when two tribal elders lead an informal prayer ceremony to undo some "bad medicine" wrought by one of the teens, and in their quest to cap off the ritual with "a really old song," they resort to reciting what they can recall of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'," as one of their ancestor spirits looks on and remarks that even he knows the lyrics better than they do.

Over the course of this show's two seasons, we see our gang of four animated by the unmet goal of their fallen fifth member, Daniel (Dalton Cramer), who dreamed of traveling to California before he lost hope and took his own life.

As with any number of sparsely populated rural communities, the internal conflict of growing up on the reservation is that it can provide a welcome sense of identity and community, but depending on how much broader you'd prefer your horizons to be, it can feel like it's killing your soul and aspirations.

Adolescence is already when many childhood friendships come undone, as kids who have known each other their whole lives start to grow apart, as they become their own men and women, and for the "Reservation Dogs," the question of whether to carry out Daniel's planned pilgrimage to the California coast underscores the differing priorities these kids are developing.

As we see with the adults who raised them, this dilemma transcends generations.

Rita (Sarah Podemski), the single mother to "Reservation Dog" Bear (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), stayed on the reservation and works at the Indian Health Service, while Teenie (Tamara Podemski), the aunt to fellow "Reservation Dog" Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs, whose character was indeed named for the film "Willow"), became a "Big City Indian."

During one of the annual IHS conferences where the "aunties" go to "snag" some no-strings-attached hook-ups, Rita and Teenie have a brief blowup over how each one envies the other's life, but both feel alone in their own way.

The narrative turns an unflinching eye toward examining each character's flaws and foibles, even as it affords them all some measure of sympathy.

This is how the show manages to feel grounded in reality, even when it diverges into encounters with the fantastical - such as Bigfoot sightings, and judgments passed upon men who have lost their way by the vengeful, cloven-footed "Deer Lady" (Kaniehtiio Horn) - and the absurd (three words: colonizer catfish cult).

As a fan of supporting-cast character actors, I love how "Reservation Dogs" showcases seasoned Indigenous performers such as Gary Farmer, Wes Studi, Zahn McClarnon and Kimberly Guerrero, and because it's a minority-majority cast, when non-Native actors do appear, they're deployed perfectly, from Garrett Hedlund and Bill Burr to Megan Mullally and Marc Maron.

This one is a treat, gang. If you haven't seen it already, then like me, you'll kick yourselves for not watching it sooner.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]