Reser­va­tion Dogs is an authen­tic and wit­ty Native Amer­i­can comedy

In recent years, more and more direc­tors have tak­en it upon them­selves to make our white-washed tele­vi­sion screens more cul­tur­al­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly diverse. In 2018, Tanya Sara­cho brought us Vida, depict­ing the lives of the queer Lat­inx com­mu­ni­ty in Los Ange­les’ Boyle Heights. Mindy Kaling’s 2020 com­ing-of-age Net­flix show Nev­er Have I Ever fol­lows the adven­tures of Devi (Maitreyi Ramakr­ish­nan), a teenage Indi­an-Amer­i­can Tamil girl who helps her audi­ence to unlearn all the Asian stereo­types they have been fed over the years. And now we have the indige­nous Reser­va­tion Dogs of rur­al Okla­homa, cour­tesy of Ster­lin Har­jo and Tai­ka Waititi.

Open­ing with the local Indi­an Reservation’s radio sta­tion K49: Ter­ri­to­ry Jams, we meet the tit­u­lar group of friends as they are about to rob a truck full of Flam­ing Flamers chips, to the sound of The Stooges and ​‘I Wan­na be Your Dog’. Before the pilot episode ​‘F*ckin’ Rez Dogs’ even reach­es the end of its open­ing sequence – which includes a sen­si­ble dis­cus­sion as to whether wear­ing a seat­belt will dimin­ish the bad-assery of the rob­bery, and a not so sub­tle get away with sparks lit­er­al­ly a‑flying – the pro­tag­o­nists’ per­son­al­i­ties have been established.

Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) con­sid­ers him­self the leader of the group, much to the amuse­ment of Elo­ra Danan (Dev­ery Jacobs) and Willie (Pauli­na Alex­is), who clear­ly have the say here. They are the ones con­tin­u­ous­ly com­ing up with and over­see­ing mon­ey-mak­ing schemes to sup­port their Cal­i­for­nia dream­ing, their hopes for a light on a beachy horizon.

Whether they’re sell­ing their stolen chips or meat pies made with shoplift­ed ingre­di­ents, Willie and Elo­ra Danan keep a check on the finances, with their minds set on rais­ing the nec­es­sary funds to relo­cate from Okla­homa to Cal­i­for­nia with­in two months. Else­where, Cheese (Lane Fac­tor) is the soul of the group; calm and soft-spo­ken, child-like in his phys­i­cal appear­ance. Yet some­thing about him sug­gests he pos­sess­es the kind of emo­tion­al matu­ri­ty the oth­ers lack.

Once the dust has set­tled on their speedy get away and they’ve trad­ed in the truck for hard cash at the local scrap­yard – home to the ​“meth-head apoc­a­lypse” – we’re let into a lit­tle back­sto­ry by ways of Bear’s school video project. It shows him invit­ing the view­er to get to know him, his group of friends, their secret hang­out, and the local Cat­fish dive where they go for lunch when­ev­er they can scrape togeth­er enough money.

It also makes us aware of a recent loss to the group: Daniel, for whom a memo­r­i­al is being planned. Their deep sense of grief, and the real­i­sa­tion that their own envi­ron­ment killed him, gives even urgency to their plan to escape their drea­ry lives. Shot entire­ly on loca­tion at the Musco­gee Nation reser­va­tion, the sparse urban back­drop enhances the feel­ing of rest­less­ness these kids are experiencing.

When Elo­ra Danan – whose name presents var­i­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for Wil­low ref­er­ences – announces that their chip-truck heist is get­ting them clos­er to Cal­i­for­nia, Bear finds him­self unset­tled rather than ecsta­t­ic. Always look­ing at things ratio­nal­ly, and fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed by his chaot­ic spir­it-guide, William Knife-Man, he is not sure whether run­ning away is the answer. Prompt­ed by William’s ques­tion, ​“What are you doing for your peo­ple?”, Bear comes to the con­clu­sion that there is more pride in becom­ing vig­i­lantes than pet­ty criminals.

Upon hear­ing about the reper­cus­sions the dri­ver of the stolen truck suf­fered due to their actions, it becomes clear to Bear that, in this com­mu­ni­ty, they are all in the same boat, and it’s time to work with one anoth­er instead of against each oth­er – a fact Elo­ra Danan and Willie need a lit­tle more con­vinc­ing of.

The sec­ond episode, ​‘NDN Clin­ic’, is pre­sent­ed almost like a bot­tle episode, main­ly tak­ing place at the town’s ​“Indi­an clin­ic” where the crew finds them­selves after Bear is jumped by the Indi­an Mafia and left with a rearranged nose.

While Elo­ra Danan and Willie use the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sell meat pies next to old man Fix­i­co, who is sell­ing real, nat­ur­al-based med­i­cine, Cheese, who was just look­ing to steal some choco­late at the clinic’s recep­tion, gets talked into tak­ing an eye exam. If the episode’s tem­po is slow, its wit is as quick as the pre­mière episode.

With­in the NDN clin­ic – where Elo­ra Danan’s stom­ach ache is attrib­uted to her 15-pack-a-day intake of Flam­ing Flamers, and Bear, much to his dis­may, is giv­en the okay to keep on get­ting into fights – every­one is sus­pi­cious of the white man. Not only is their med­i­cine regard­ed as bad, the town’s police offi­cer, ​“Big” (Zahn McClarnon), refers to the sug­ary drinks in the vend­ing machine as ​“white man’s bul­lets” – although he’s not opposed to buy­ing a can of a cheap-look­ing ener­gy drink, insist­ing to Bear that it is made of actu­al energy.

There’s a gen­er­al lack of patience and empa­thy from both the admission’s office and the doc­tor, which ties in quite beau­ti­ful­ly with Cheese’s tak­ing on the role of a bedrid­den old lady’s grand­son and grant­i­ng her a sim­ple wish: To see the trees dance against the sky­line. Just like home.