Reservation Dogs: Season 2

The Rez Dogs have split up. Elora has taken off for California without the rest of the crew, who are dealing with their own hardships. Her inevitable returns sparks both joy but also anger and jealousy. The crew also have to deal with wayward curses, the need for full-time employment, family bereavements, an energetic Native conference, Bear's unreliable spirit guide and a sinister "Catfish Cult" up to no good in the woods.

Reservation Dogs' first season was a perfectly-formed unit of television. It set out to do what it wanted to do - combining comedy, drama and fleeting moments of horror on a modern Native American Reservation - and executed it flawlessly. 

Annoyingly, because I'd already maxed out the score-metre on the first year, the second season establishes a new goal - all of the above, but better - and then executes that flawlessly as well.

The season opens with the gang scattered after the Season 1 finale, and it takes a couple of episodes for everyone to reform. Even when they do, the shadow of mistrust lies heavily on the group and it takes some cathartic emotional releases (thanks to a family bereavement and a pair of deranged social media influencers with a horrible line in cultural appropriation) for them to regroup properly.

A new theme then develops and it's hard to suppress a groan at the cliche even as it's written down: the gang has to grow up. They're out of school, the older members are now in full-time work and are struggling as they mix their new-found adult friends with the existing group. These are all familiar tensions and they've been done to death, but Reservation Dogs treats them like they're the newest ideas in town.

The show also continues its fine line in sometimes just rolling in an anthology story for the sheer hell of it. One episode revolves around Bear's mother and her friends as they attend a Native conference, both to discuss Native affairs but, more importantly, to party and look for prospective boyfriends. Another episode follows local cop Big as he inadvertently teams up with junkyard owner Kenny Boy, even more inadvertently takes a lot of drugs and then finds himself up against a sinister cult in the woods.

As I said about the first season, Reservation Dogs' mix of drama, comedy, occasional horror and pathos is unlike anything else on television apart, maybe, from network-mate Atlanta. In this second season, the show adds a little bit more heart. If the first season ultimately drove the group apart, this second year brings them back together and things like forgiveness and cooperation are a lot more in evidence. The show hasn't gone all gushy or overly sentimental, but it's definitely a warmer show this time around, culminating in the gang joining forces for a major road trip. The season's ending is surprisingly final, to the point that I wondered if the writers had been told to wrap things up for good, but a third season has since been commissioned.

Reservation Dogs' sophomore season (*****) is outstanding television, being smart, funny, occasionally biting and always compelling. The show is available to watch on FX and Hulu in the United States and on Disney+ in much of the rest of the world.

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Reservation Dogs: Season 1

Bear, Willie Jack, Cheese and Elora Danan (named for film Willow) are four youngsters frustrated with their life on a small reservation community in Oklahoma. In honour of their friend Daniel, who died a year previously, they plan to save up some money and escape to California. But their hopes are interrupted by a series of challenges, including the arrival of a new, rival gang; family issues; and Bear acquiring a somewhat incompetent spirit guide who tries to give him useful life advice.

Reservation Dogs is an off-kilter, low-fi comedy series created and showrun by Sterlin Harjo, with Taika Waititi attached as co-creator and producer. The show is noteworthy for being the first American scripted series to entirely be written (or co-written) and directed by an indigenous North American team, as is the majority of the cast (Waititi is notable as the only non-indigenous creative involved, and notes his job was using his name to get the show set up and then getting out of the way of everyone else). Set on a reservation in Oklahoma, the show attempts to show how people live in an isolated rural community, making the best of things or, in some cases, not.

The show centres on four key protagonists: Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs), Bear Smallhill (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Cheese (Lane Factor) and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), who plan to escape their small town existence by fair means or foul, whether that's selling dodgy meat products or robbing vans. At the end of the first episode the gang gain a name and identity, the "Rez Dogs," which fires them up in their mission. Several of the eight episodes involve the Rez Dogs getting into various scrapes in the closest the show gets to acquiring a traditional format. However, the series also eschews that to focus on each character at a time, as they each get a solo mission which explores their character and backstory in which the other members of the gang don't appear, or appear only briefly. Other episodes focus much more firmly on supporting castmembers, such as local cop Big, Willie Jack's father Leon, Elora's uncle Brownie, or Bear's mother who is anxiously trying to find a happier life for herself.

The show is also not afraid to change gears and tones. The show is ostensibly a comedy, but several episodes are more serious, dealing with more dramatic issues. One episode is even something of a tragedy. At least one episode conjures up a genuine horror movie vibe with some decidedly disturbing moments.

Where Reservation Dogs works is by making all of this work so absolutely effortlessly that it's genuine pleasure to watch. Each episode is exactly what it needs to be in tone and style. The direction is frequently original and fresh, the young cast is absolutely on point, the supporting cast is brilliant and the comedy moments are genuinely hilarious (especially Dallas Goldtooth's brilliantly incompetent spirit guide). The show's low-fi, laidback vibe and the way the action unfolds very slowly through long, lazy summer afternoons in the middle of nowhere gives it a chill feeling, but the short running time and tight focus means it's never boring.

In fact, although the subject matter and characters are completely different, Reservation Dogs recalls FX sister show Atlanta, which similarly uses off-kilter humour, drama, tragedy and horror to explore the lives of a small number of characters. That's a high bar to raise as a point of comparison, but Reservation Dogs rather handily meets it. 

The debut season of Reservation Dogs (*****) is brilliantly-executed television. At times strange and artistic, at others accessible and riotously funny, it mixes and matches styles, stories and tones with assured ease and a confidence that belies its status as a debut show. The show is available to watch on FX and Hulu in the United States and Disney+ in most of the rest of the world.