It is the birthright of every young person to want to escape their homeland. In America, raising the stakes and taking a trip is part of popular culture.that is bruce springsteen lyrics.
But for some Americans, like the four teenagers on the Oklahoma Reservation in FX’s sublime coming-of-age comedy Reservation Dogs, the notion of home belongs to whom and who does it belong to? Some are more complicated. After all, the romance of the road is tied to a history of seeing North America as a frontier. That American myth strikes a little differently when your ancestors lived in what others saw as blank spaces to fill themselves.
Emerging as one of the most lived-in, specially-drawn comedies on television last year, “Reservation Dogs” is fueled by a push away from home and a pull into home. A great first season focused on the urge to escape. His second, returning to Hulu on Wednesday, is about what it takes to rediscover his own home.
The pilot episode bursts across the screen, like someone is chasing you. That self-proclaimed gang of four (the show’s title derives from their nickname, a reference to Quentin’s Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs) snacks his chips while jacking up his truck. be introduced. Their plan is to raise money, head to California, and leave the reservation responsible for the suicide of their friend Danielle (Dalton Kramer).
Like many improvisational schemes, this one takes a few turns, and the season fleshes out the kids with loose, observant character work. is a walking heartbreak that feels especially heavy (in the end, it turns out that it was she who found his body). Bear (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai) is a skinny boy who stumbles into becoming a man who outwardly looks like himself. Cheese (Lane Factor) is deadpan and thoughtful. Willie Jack (instant winner Paulina Alexis) has a very foul mouth and a loyal heart.
California is more of a “not here” idea, a stand-in, than a specific destination for them. But “Reservation Dogs” is deep in its feel and flavor. here that it describes.
Creators Sterling Harjo and Taika Waititi have created a story about indigenous people by indigenous people, filmed on location in Oklahoma, with the humped texture of excellent regional television. (It’s a great example of television’s focus on rural life, and also a reminder that “country” isn’t synonymous with “white man.”) Steeped in lore, lifeway, and pop history, is. Season 1 episodes delve into the myth of the avenging Deer Lady and the career of his American band Redbone in the ’70s.
Like “Atlanta,” another of FX’s magic realism comedies, “Reservation Dogs” is heartfelt irreverence and romantic cliché aversion.The bear is the spirit has visited It tells the story of a Lakota warrior (Dallas Goldtooth) who was participating in the Battle of Little Bighorn and died when his horse hit a gopher pit, so he didn’t participate. In the new episode, he solemnly tells Bear, “Go on, my wayward son, there will be peace when you’re done,” with blessings from classic rock band Kansas.
The first eight-episode season builds the world and builds a quirky local cast. His Zahn McClarnon, who anchored AMC’s crime drama Dark Winds, wryly plays his Big, a quick-witted, hapless tribal police officer. Set in an Indian Health Service clinic, the episode sketches the reservation’s pain and support system in miniature.
Like so many teenage romances, the things dogs hate about home (closedness, money problems, bad memories) are the things they love about home (relationships, relationships, relationships, etc.), whether they admit it or not. interdependence, better memory).
One by one, the friends grow reluctant to leave, and Elora heads to California alone to take her biting enthusiast, Jackie (Elba Guerra, also “Dark Winds”), to her grandmother’s car. . She is finally free, but seems unmoored the further west they travel. is handling the loss of
The new season leans a little more on the drama side of the drama, but still has plenty of laid-back humor.In the second episode, Willie Jack and Cheese consult Uncle Brownie (Gary Farmer). Uncle Brownie (Gary Farmer), an elder who dispenses advice and decades-old weeds, asks for help in breaking the curse. He stumbles through a ceremony that he says should conclude with an “old song”. He pauses and invokes the music from within — Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.” (“It’s about 30 years old. It’s old!”)
The miraculous and the mundane always collide in Reservation Dogs. Jackie receives a prophecy in the form of a commemorative card from a fortune-telling machine, “The Yakushi,” in the gas station gift shop. Uncle Brownie performed a ritual to ward off a tornado in the season one finale and now believes himself to be a saint. Spirits say this is nonsense. “He took a storm,” he says, but “anyone can do that.”
Like spirits, “Reservation Dogs” believes that any of its characters, not just the literal meteorological kind, are capable of magic. You have power and responsibility as a member of the community. You can get prophecies from a drunk sitting at a bar, or wisdom from a man cutting hair on the porch.
You can also catch a glimpse of enlightenment as you go about your day’s work. In the new season, Bear takes a construction job and she finds herself working next to Daniel’s father, Danny (Michael Spears), which brings back unpleasant memories for the two of them. Bear nearly falls off the roof trying to grab a loose shingles, but Danny catches him. “The first rule of roofing,” says Danny. “If it falls, don’t chase it.” This is the lesson that Bear and all his friends are trying to learn. How to know what to let go and how to save what is important.