Reservation Dogs Season 3 Premiere Review: Sweet, Funny Beginning To The Final Season
RESERVATION DOGS SEASON 3 PREMIERE REVIEW SCORE
Reservation Dogs Season 3 returned with its two episode premiere this week, and the best show on television opens with as much promise as you could hope for. Delivering its usual delicious balance of funny and touching moments, the first two episodes of the new season focus mostly on Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), though the rest of our old friends aren’t forgotten.
The only potential downside is that if your memory of Season 2 is still fresh, you may feel like the series is taking a hard left turn from what was planned.
“It’s a story about people going through transition, and specifically kids going through a very transitional moment and grief. I just don’t think that lasts forever. I think that we’re meant to be with them during this transitional time. To me, the show’s too important to drag out.”
–Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo on the series ending with Season 3
The Season 2 finale saw Bear, Elora (Devery Jacobs), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) finally reaching L.A. and achieving what seemed to be as much closure with the death of their friend Daniel (Dalton Cramer) as they could hope for. Along the way, their car is stolen, and the season ends with Bear determined to stay in L.A. to somehow find their ride.
But with “BUSSIN’,” the first episode of Reservation Dogs Season 3, Bear’s promise is forgotten. Instead, the four friends make a stop at Bear’s absentee father’s place where Bear endures yet one more bombshell from his dad. After a brief reunion with White Jesus (Brandon Boyd), the teens link up with Elora’s aunt Teenie (Tamara Podemski) for a bus ride home.
But Bear doesn’t make it home with his friends. Partly inspired by the always hilarious spirit William Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth), Bear allows himself to be left behind at a bus station in Amarillo without Teenie or his friends even noticing.
When he was asked about Reservation Dogs ending with Season 3, series creator Sterlin Harjo suggested to Variety that it was organic.
“It’s a story about people going through transition, and specifically kids going through a very transitional moment and grief,” Harjo said. “I just don’t think that lasts forever. I think that we’re meant to be with them during this transitional time. To me, the show’s too important to drag out.”
Everything Harjo says makes sense, but considering how the new season veers away from what seemed to be teased in Season 2, it’s tempting to speculate there’s something else at work.
“Maximus,” the second episode of Reservation Dogs Season 3’s premiere, leaves the Oklahoma reservation behind to follow Bear on what William Knifeman calls his “walkabout.” After dismissing the goofball spirit, Bear is kidnapped by Maximus (Graham Greene). Maximus comes off like a crazed conspiracy theorist at first — and it isn’t like he’s not — but nevertheless exposes hidden depths to Bear.
While “BUSSIN'” is certainly the more fun of the two episodes in Reservation Dogs Season 3’s premiere, “Maximus” is a much more interesting story particularly when you consider similar encounters in Season 2.
Like Bear, Elora and Jackie (Elva Guerra) have some interesting meetings with strangers on their first, abortive trip to the west coast. There’s their meeting with the creepy Victor (Josh Fadem) in the Season 2 premiere which turns violent, and their short stay with the lonely Anna (Megan Mullaly) in the following episode.
Perhaps most surprisingly, unless I’m forgetting something, there isn’t a single uttering of the word “sh*t-ass” in either episode.
In both cases, for better or worse — almost certainly for better in the case of Victor — Elora and Jackie turn on their new acquaintances. But now in “Maximus” when Bear has the chance to escape the titular character, instead he stays, seeming to sense not only a kinship with the older man but that he has something important to learn from him.
Another very interesting relationship development in Reservation Dogs Season 3 arises between Bear and William Knifeman. In previous seasons, Bear has confronted the spirit with confusion, friendliness, and sometimes understandable frustration. But the new season finds the young man absolutely done with the spirit’s “cryptic aphorisms.”
The Rest Of The Reservation Dogs Cast
With the focus on Bear for most of the Reservation Dogs Season 3 premiere, there are still some teases for what’s to come in the stories of the rest of our heroes. Elora learns some surprising news about her ancestry, Cheese and Willie Jack ponder their coming days back on the rez, and Teenie drops hints about her own future. There’s even the surprising suggestion of a strengthening connection between Bear and an old enemy.
Sadly missing from these first two episodes are some of the best Reservation Dogs recurring characters like the meth dealing Kenny Boy (Kirk Fox) and Ansel (Matty Cardarople) who rule over the scrapyard, the Yeti-hunting cop Big (Zahn McClarnon), and the tornado-banishing Uncle Brownie (Gary Farmer).
Perhaps most surprisingly, unless I’m forgetting something, there isn’t a single uttering of the word “sh*t-ass” in either episode of the two episode premiere.
But if the rest of the series is anything to judge by, everyone will get their time in the spotlight before the end.
Regardless of why Reservation Dogs Season 3 will be the last we see of this wonderful story, the two episode premiere is as full of the bittersweet and often hilarious storytelling that’s made it the best thing on TV during its run. If the rest of the season is as good as this, we should all consider ourselves fortunate.
