‘Reservation Dogs,’ a TV All-Timer, Says Goodbye

Even the greatest TV shows of the modern era struggle to stick their landings. Seinfeld notoriously ended on a sour note (or did it?). The Sopranos created more confusion than catharsis with its abrupt cut to black. Lost finished goopy and sentimental with a vision of an afterlife beyond the series run.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that the most quietly brilliant and under-the-radar half-hour current TV comedy ended exactly right: when FX’s Reservation Dogs concluded last week with a third-season finale called “Dig,” fans could breathe a sigh of relief. The streak, or circle if you like, remained unbroken. Capping 28 episodes with a funny, resonant, and deeply emotional ending, Reservation Dogs went out on top, exactly as its showrunner Sterlin Harjo intended.

But let’s back up a bit: how did an FX-on-Hulu series that started just two years ago jump the line over expensive, overproduced peak TV product to join the elite echelon of all-time great TV shows, one that’ll continue to be discovered and discussed for many years to come?

At first glance, Reservation Dogs felt like another goofy Taika Waititi side project. The writer/director co-created the series about so-called shitass indigenous teens on a fictional Okern, Oklahoma, reservation. Waititi co-wrote the pilot episode and it featured his trademark quirks: rude and tough-talking teens, a main characters talking to a ghostly Native American warrior character, a low-speed potato-chip heist and car chase, a streak of sadness over an absent friend who committed suicide, and a bunch of not-at-all subtle nods to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

Great start, but nothing to indicate how resonant and important the show would become.

By episode 2, “NDN Clinic,” the series established its comedic rhythms and oddball side characters. In episode 4, “What About Your Dad,” viewers got their first deep emotional jolt when Bear, one of the main kids of the core Res Dogs quartet, realized who and what his absent “Fry Bread” rapping father is really about. Episode 6, “Hunting,” was another Kleenex-required highlight with tough-talking Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) connecting with her father over her friend Daniel’s suicide.

But it might have been the Season Two episode “Mabel,” about the last hours of a community elder, that convinced critics and fans that Reservation Dogs was among the best shows on television. By this point, the show had expanded its roster of writers, directors and supporting cast, to a wide community of indigenous voices and the show only got better and more specific for it.

It’s not that the sad episodes are the only great ones; the show could turn on a dime and get extremely silly with 30 minutes on a drug trip gone wrong in “This is Where the Plot Thickens” or genuinely scary with “Deer Lady,” about the abuse of Native kids in schools meant to deprogram them.

But it was those ugly-cry episodes that continually elevated Reservation Dogs into more than a comedy about teen shenanigans in a dead-end town. Its heart grew and grew until, inevitably, Reservation Dogs became about the sacred bonds of community, the repeated cycles of love and abuse and healing that each generation performs and passes on, and about the need to keep going. At every step it avoided feeling didactic by being wildly entertaining, well-acted and acutely observed as well.

It would be reductive to say that Reservation Dogs was the Native American answer to Atlanta. But like that also-great and concluded FX series, it was unpredictable from week to week with an impeccable sense of place and character. It had a lot to say and it said those things extremely well. It ended before overstaying its welcome, also remarkable and rare, but minus all the Emmy recognition that Atlanta got. (Fingers crossed for this last season’s award chances.)

It was also about four really funny, really sweet kids who make it through the soul-deadening burden of feeling trapped in a place they hate but ultimately come to appreciate. I grew to absolutely love every one of them: Bear, Elora Danan (yes, named after the baby in Willow), Willie Jack and sensitive, pronoun-aware Cheese.

Watching them grow up over three seasons was a joy; I’d be a lot sadder about Reservation Dogs ending if it wasn’t so clear that the talent behind and in front of the camera will keep making more great TV, movies and whatever else they each choose to pursue.

Mvto, Res Dogs.