Reservation Dogs Season 3: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.
Warning: Spoilers for Reservation Dogs Season 3 are throughout this review. Reader discretion is advised.
Ending as soon as it began, Reservation Dogs already feels like a nostalgic yearning for distant friends whom we lost touch with. With Elora (Devery Jacobs) constantly on the run in each season, she finally faces her birth father Rick in the penultimate episode of the series. She’s bitter about facing him and only with him to finally get into school (oddly enough, she cannot be permitted access to the college without financial information from either parent and her mother, Cookie, is obviously deceased). Rick abandoned Elora as a child at the wee age of one, and she only knew who her birth father was a week prior. This meeting is for business only. However, at this instance — and after multiple attempts to make it to California in memory of her departed friend Daniel — she recognizes herself in her father. Elora quips “So that’s where I got it from, huh?”, acknowledging her father’s admittance that he used to run away from his problems. While heading off to school seemed like another attempt at leaving the reservation, it now seems like she — like her father — is finally comfortable with settling down. She chooses to accept her new family that lives near the college she gets accepted into, and her search for comfort is now over.
This time, Elora isn’t alone on her quest. The end of season 1 saw Elora ducking out to California with her new friend Jackie without notifying others. Season 2 had all of the Rez dogs (Jackie now included) heading back to California in unison, but it still felt very much like Elora’s dream that she had to fulfill for Daniel. In season 3, all three of the other main characters (Bear, Wilie Jack, and Cheese) went through their own soul searching to the nth degree, and they will also finally make their own treks (either literal or figurative). Additionally, this magnificently tender third and final season of Reservation Dogs brings the stories of their elders full circle so we confront their broken dreams, comforts, and grievances. They also serve as a reminder that while the original dream was to break free of the reservation, being surrounded by loved ones in this wicked thing called life is where home will always be. As the older generation sits around the campfire after a funeral in the series finale and acknowledges another one of their peers is now gone (poor Old Man Fixico), we see our main characters decades from now reuniting and reminiscing. Reservation Dogs was too short of a show for us to really see these characters blossom, but we at least got to see them off to their next stages of life. This finale assures us that no matter what the future holds for these kids who have come of age, everything will be okay.
The final season of Reservation Dogs gives the charming, impressionable series a deep purpose that will provide it longevity for generations to come.
Throughout the third season, we’ve seen the lead characters figure out their own initiatives more than just Elora trying to make a legacy for herself. Bear’s mother has been offered a profitable job out of their city and will have to move; Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) initially feels abandoned by both her and Elora, but he gets one more visit from Spirit Knifeman (we also learn that Bear’s ability to see spirits is a genetic trait passed down from his mother who gets visited by Cookie this season). Bear decides that he will be able to make it on his own as an independent, employed citizen. This revelation may have come from his friendship with Maximus: a new character — played by Graham Greene — who is constantly incapacitated because he, too, has visions of spirits like Bear. Despite all of this, Maximus still takes care of Bear like the father he never had (a guardian he desperately needed after the many times his birth father, Punkin Lusty, burned him). Before we move forward, Bear wants to break Maximus out of the healthcare institution until he learns that Maximus wants to be there and stays there to heal periodically. This is when Bear learns that he can be in charge of his own destiny.
Cheese (Lane Factor) begins to distance himself from his friends but connects with the Uncles (Big, Bucky, and Brownie) on a camping trip; he even gets the poor Uncles sobbing and opening up more than they ever have before. While it’s great that Cheese found purpose and meaning by reconnecting with his friends, it’s even more touching seeing these elders finally connecting on a real level. Rocking new glasses with his vision, literally and metaphorically, being stronger than ever, we all know that Cheese is going to be okay; of all the main four Rez dogs, I think it’s safe to say that we were all the least worried about Cheese. He’s so caring, warm, and profound. Things were going to work out for him, but it’s nice to get that confirmation solidified on screen.
Then there’s Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) who is the gruffest Rez dog and has maybe the largest transformation of the season. After connecting with Old Man Fixico — who wants to pass on his medicinal practices to at least someone before he dies (which we now know for sure will happen shortly from this moment) — Willie Jack is granted purpose in life; this is quite the dichotomy considering that her graphic graffiti of a penis person with breasts has to be scrubbed off the wall (and she forces poor Cheese to clean up her mess). In the finale, Willie Jack reconnects with her aunt (and Daniel’s mom) Hokti (potential future Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone) who is still in prison; this beautiful event provides Hokti with a little bit of hope and Willie Jack with some much-needed guidance. While Hokti is one of the people who can see spirits and most others cannot, she presents a visual representation that Willie Jack can understand: within a well-built community that passes down stories, lessons, and memories, that will not shatter for any reason, “spirits” of the deceased will always be present. Willie Jack knows she must help contribute to the togetherness of the community: to preserve the lives of all that have passed and will pass.
Reservation Dogs connects with its audience on a spiritual, nurturing level.
It feels difficult to not equate Reservation Dogs with another major FX property: Atlanta. The latter is a surreal satire that details race relations in the titular city and all over the nation and globe as well. Reservation Dogs feels like the spiritual equivalent: one that carries the same sociopolitical undertones surrounding a marginalized race of people but with more warmth and optimism than scorn. Both short-lived series are crucial takes on the BIPOC experience, but their methods are quite different. Atlanta creates a parody of the worst of contemporary society with a broken laugh. When Atlanta breaks reality and timelines, Reservation Dogs instead connects us to the afterlife via the visions of spirits. This still feels very much like our own world and not a parallel dimension. We are experiencing the past and present at the same time while we look to the future. Atlanta is already deemed an instant classic of television, but I’m hoping — after this gorgeous final season — that Reservation Dogs attracts a similar response.
It was difficult to pinpoint how I felt about Reservation Dogs until the minute I finished watching the finale, “Dig”. I instantly wanted to start from the beginning again. This series is only twenty-eight episodes, and none are longer than thirty-five minutes in length (most hover around twenty-five minutes, if anything). I then couldn’t help but equate it to another series (and another one of my favourites): Freaks and Geeks. Both concluded just when they felt like they were getting started and yet revisiting both series after finishing them reveals how much we may have missed on the first watch. There was so much story that isn’t instantly prevalent that rises to the surface on a second watch. Wondering where these kids and their families will wind up wasn’t the point: it was about spending time with them, in the same way, that these moments are what make Freaks and Geeks one of the most rewatchable shows in all of television. I feel like Reservation Dogs possesses the same magic: no matter who you are, you feel present with the Rez dogs and their families. You’re happy to see them grow, but it feels too soon to say goodbye to them. It’s the harsh reality that this sometimes marks the end of a great show. Reservation Dogs was (*is) great.
Reservation Dogs is a practice of minimalism when it comes to exploring its greatest strengths. If Brandon Boyd of Incubus fame as White Jesus wasn’t a surprising enough cameo, then how about Ethan Hawke as Elora’s father in the second last episode? We could have had this moment squandered early on, but instead, it is savoured for the final hour of the entire series. Whether it’s this revelation, the minimal usage of flashback episodes (but what powerful episodes they are, including Maximus’ tragic first visit from the star people), or side characters who feel like running jokes (I felt like we didn’t get enough Uncle Brownie in season 2 but he’s back and funnier than ever here), Reservation Dogs savours every moment, every punchline, and every slice of its philosophy. In the day and age where we feel inundated by the same things on social media ad nauseam, Reservation Dogs and its patience is a remarkable sign of restraint.
This drives home the notion of homeliness. There’s a difference between longing and belonging, with the former being a sensation where someone is constantly searching for what they are missing, and the latter being the recognition of what makes one feel at home. Reservation Dogs experimented with both. The series started with the robbing of those flaming hot snacks; by season 2 the Rez dogs are tired of eating these snacks; by season 3, they’ve made peace and are back to acknowledging them, with Willie Jack even sharing a bag with her aunt in prison in the finale. These were kids who wanted to feel like they could break out of this reservation, make something of themselves, and find solace in the wrong places. Season 3 is the presentation of proper identities where these kids are now grown adults who feel like they know what is actually best for them. Will they be right? We’ll never know, but we have to send them off anyway and hope for the best. We at least have proof that they’ll likely make the right choices from here on out. What an exquisite presentation of age, family, identity, and purpose.
Reservation Dogs seemed like a show that was going to rebel against traditional television norms, but it wound up being one of the great comfort shows of our time. The only rebellion that should take place is against whoever is destroying our community and livelihoods. To see the new generation bond — and identify — with the same elders they wanted to escape is touching. Feeling Reservation Dogs treat its characters and audience with the utmost amount of love and seriousness is something else: a revelation. It was a given that Reservation Dogs was going to be a show to watch in 2023, but it not only concludes as one of the best series of the year: but it reinvigorates itself as a whole as one of the most remarkable series in recent memory. I’d say it’s tough to look forward to the next television series but that would be missing the point of Reservation Dogs: sometimes the best things are what have already been and what are present, not what’s next. I’m going to miss this show, but in the age of accessible streaming, Reservation Dogs will fortunately always be with me (and us).
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.