Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Reservation Dogs’ Season 3 On FX/Hulu, The Final Season For The Indigenous Coming-Of-Age Comedy

While we were sad to learn that the third season of Reservation Dogs was going to be its last, we were also excited at the creative directions co-creator Sterlin Harjo was going to go in, with the four members of the Rez Dogs having learned some things about life in California the previous season. After the first couple of episodes, we’re excited to see where things are going to go.

RESERVATION DOGS SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A grassy plain. A tumbleweed rolls across the frame. Then, a Native in warrior gear rides in on a horse. “Aho! Young and old warriors!” shouts William Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth) as the camera immediately zooms in on him.

The Gist: Kinifeman is the spirit that Bear Smallhill (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) keeps seeing, the one that pushed him to go out to L.A. with his friends — the Reservation Dogs — to find his father. He’s going to tell the audience what happened. Though, given that he died at the battle of Little Bighorn and he’s somewhat inept, we might want to take his narration with a grain of salt.

When Bear, Elora (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor) approach what Bear thinks is his father’s apartment, a woman answers the door and tells him that his dad went up to Oakland for some band gig and more or less ghosted her. “Guess it’s back to White Jesus”, the gang says, referring to the robe-clad homeless guy (Brandon Boyd) they’ve been hanging with.

Elora’s aunt Teenie (Tamara Podemski) arrives to take the gang back home to Oklahoma, and at a stopover at a bus station in Texas, Teenie talks to Elora about how she feels the same as Elora does now as a teenager, but the “baggage” of life is what makes you an adult. In the meantime, Cheese is getting better with his artwork, and Willie Jack assures him that she’ll be around for awhile. Elora finds out more about her dad, whom she originally thought was dead.

Bear finds Knifeman peeing in the restroom, and the spirit tells him that he shouldn’t get on that bus back home. Bear discounts this, as he starts to think he’s crazy for even humoring his visions by talking to Knifeman out loud. But he accidentally ends up missing the bus anyway, right when he runs out of juice on his phone. For some reason, Teenie and Bear’s friends don’t even notice that Bear isn’t on the bus.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The direction Reservation Dogs seems to be going in during its final season puts it more in the category of shows like Atlanta, where the story is less about the gang or life on the rez, but more about the characters’ journeys through some heavy life stuff.

Our Take: It definitely feels like Sterlin Harjo, who co-created Reservation Dogs with Taika Waititi, is pushing the show creatively with the knowledge that it’s the show’s final season. We knew that Bear’s dalliances with the spirit world were going to come to a head, and the first episode is a good setup for what happens in the second, where he spends time with an elder named Maximus (Graham Greene), who believes in the existence of “star people” and has lots of life insights that belie his the tinfoil hat persona that Bear perceives when they first meet.

The rest of the season promises more of the same, with Bear and Elora finding out much more about life than they ever bargained for during their journey to California, which they initially did to fulfill the dream of their friend Daniel, who committed suicide. The Rez Dogs are certainly different than the kids we met in Season 1, and that’s because they did the simple act of venturing off the rez.

We may get more insight into the lives of Willie Jack and Cheese, as well, but we’re just happy to see them be loyal friends who will go anywhere for Bear and Elora.

Of course, we’ll see more of their life in Okern, but things will definitely be different, even the teens’ relation to their families. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out over the final season.

Sex and Skin: We see Knifeman’s bare butt when Bear sees him in the bus station restroom.

Parting Shot: Bear comes to a literal crossroads, and he thinks about the note he left for his dad Punkin. He makes a decision and goes down the crossroad to his left.

Sleeper Star: Sarah Podemski didn’t have a lot of scenes as Bear’s mom Rita, but her reaction when Bear didn’t get off the bus was priceless.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Bear is embarrassed when the donut-holding unhoused guy comes out of a bathroom stall as Bear talks to Knifeman, Bear tells the guy that he’s practicing for a play. “Have at it, Brando,” says the donut guy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The final season of Reservation Dogs looks like it’s going to take some creative risks, which is going to make a pretty damn good series even better.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.