Reservation Dogs series finale: A lovely, full-circle farewell

The final episode of Reservation Dogs ends with a simple title card: “Mvto (Thank You).”

The images that flank the title card (the young reservation dogs hugging each other together, the elders sitting together in each other’s company) are no doubt intended to be seen as complementary. Not so much echoes of one another as refracted possibilities of what it means to live in quiet contentment with those you’re close to. There’s been frailty in these friendships—we’ve witnessed them splinter and nearly break through the course of three seasons. But co-creator Sterlin Harjo, who wrote the episode with Chad Charlie and directed it himself, has opted to leave us in a suspended moment when our protagonists have come out of the other side and, on the brink of the lives they have ahead, choose to celebrate one another.

For it is a kind of hopeful vision that Harjo leaves us with. And how could he not? At its core Reservation Dogs has long been a show about the emancipatory power of friendship, of community. And in this fitting send off, Harjo and his entire cast and crew (and really, we did get pretty much the entire cast!) made good on the promising storytelling that was already evident in its near-perfect pilot episode a few years back.

Reservation Dogs began with an episode devoted entirely to mourning, to a makeshift memorial Elora, Bear, Cheese, and Willie Jack organized for themselves in honor of their late friend Daniel. In a lovely full circle moment, this final episode centered on yet another memorial, this time for Old Man Fixico. Grief, which motivated much of the series, with our young protagonists struggling to find a way to move on given Daniel’s death, becomes the note with which the series comes to an end. Only, to hear Daniel’s mom say it (the luminous, always transfixing Lily Gladstone), as painful as it may be to understand, those who leave us never really leave us.

That’s the note the episode opens with. Willie Jack is visiting Hokti (Gladstone) in prison. It’s there that she breaks the news to us and Hokti alike about Old Man Fixico. Over some bags of Flaming Flamers, Willie Jean is offered a welcome lesson in grief: Old Man Fixico may be gone. But he’s not altogether absent. The connections he made while alive—with Willie Jean, Elora, and many others in Okern—live on. That’s what community means. It means carrying the dead and their lessons even—and especially—when they’re gone. The dialogue between the two, beyond being yet another masterclass from (fingers crossed, soon-to-be Oscar nominee!) Gladstone, is a beautiful meditation that still finds time to be silly and absurd. (“No notes!” Hokti is told by the spirit that continues to show up around her.)

And so, armed with the conviction that the best way to honor Old Man Fixico is to remember how much he cared and nurtured the community around him, Willie Jack leaves Hokti and arrives at the place where the much beloved elder will be laid to rest. It’s there, over the course of this 38-minute episode, that we’ll see pretty much every key character that has ever orbited around our rez dogs.

The men, on the one hand, are tasked with digging the grave where Old Man Fixico will be laid in. The women, on the other, are (in Bev’s words) tasked with “matriarching” and making food for all involved. But really, these are just excuses to get to learn about what everyone is up to. We learn, for instance, that Rita is taking that job and will be leaving Bear in Okern. This makes Elora a bit uneasy; she was already hoping to break the news about heading to college to Bear. But that was before knowing he’d be left alone. She shouldn’t have worried, though. In a teary, tender moment with him in the chapel where Old Man Fixico is resting before being lowered into the ground, he wishes her the best in her future adventure. “”I just want to make sure that you’re okay,” she tells him only to be waved away: “I’ll miss you but it’s going to be okay.” After all, she won’t be that far away. She can come visit on weekends.

In true Reservation Dogs fashion, the episode teeters between lovely wistful moments and broader comedic ones. That’s how, after Willie Jack breaks ground for Old Man Fixico’s grave, we get a montage of each of the men (young and old) tackling such a task. And yes, that even includes White Steve and Ansel, both of whom are rather useless.

But throughout, whether we watch Teenie gossiping with the women (about Big of all people!) or witness Cheese being playfully ribbed by the elders who want nothing more than to have plenty of coffee, “Dig” stresses the importance of community, of the bonds teens and elders have forged and nurtured with one another.

Sure enough, “Dig” gives us one final interaction between Bear and William Knifeman. Curiously absent since he was told, unequivocally, to “fuck off,” our favorite spirit comes back not to comfort Bear but, as it turns out, to learn what it is the teen has learned since their last meeting: “I learned that I don’t have to be the only leader,” he confesses. It’s as unassuming and selfless a lesson as he could’ve learned. And it’s one that will no doubt serve him well.

And so, there really was no other sentiment the show could’ve ended on than the one writers Harjo and Charlie chose: gratitude. It is, after all, as simple yet expansive a feeling to finish with as anything else. For the show, yes. For the time spent together, as well. But mostly for the chance to tell these stories unapologetically and with candor and humor and care. I can’t improve on that, so let us wrap up our recaps with that same sentiment:

Mvto (Thank You).

Stray observations

• I love me a good callback, and seeing Big leave his copy of Beau Harrison’s Moon Man: Learning To Become A Better Man By Confronting Toxic Masculinity in Old Man Fixico’s coffin has to rank up there with the best ones the show has offered us.
• See also: Flaming Flamers!
• Favorite Bev line of the episode: “That’s why we are queens!” or “Just teaching these young matriarchs how to matriarch the hell up!”
• Speaking of Bev, her bit with Big and a big zucchini = comedy gold.
• I did not have “Kenny Boy quotes Hamlet” (“flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”) on my Reservation Dogs series finale bingo card but really, I couldn’t have been more thrilled to find that small moment be played with such welcome mix of earnestness and hilarity.
• Apt for the show to use “Can The Circle Be Unbroken (By And By)” by the Carter Family this episode. The melancholy song about grief helpfully sets the tone for “Dig.”
• Loved seeing Maximus reunited with his friends, even if they’re still ribbing him for keeping his eyes glued up to the stars.

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