OK that makes the episode make SO much more sense. It’s hard to keep track of everyone’s names and we were very confused. Like “I know I know the name Maximus, but from where?” type of confused. So perhaps a little too much to put on an audience to piece together? Also, we already had a weird flashback episode this season. I think I prefer just one and with this being the last season, I don’t think it’s awful of me to want to see our Rez Dogs together?
I have/had a pretty simplistic and naive view of what life on a reservation would be like. Grim, almost featureless, gray low buildings, abject poverty, lots of open space, etc… And even if this is set someplace outside of such a reservation, what I find most gratifying and most authentic seeming is the life the people live. The interactions, the true Indian sensibility, the language, the traditions and the mythology and how it infuses every day life…the culture. The kids make this series absolutely alive without sacrificing the truth of the overall condition of the people. It happily violates or confronts almost every stereotype one can muster for the life of native Americans. I think this is a remarkable piece.
Definitely got that this week.
I just started watching the show recently, and the whole time I was watching that episode I kept saying to myself, “and we called them savages”.
Those nuns were evil.
On the other hand, I did like this week’s episode. Cheese is such a nice kid.
How do you go from everybody being very poor to having VR gear?
Saw the first two episodes of season 3 last night, and bits of the Deer Woman episode as I was cleaning up the kitchen. I love the magical realism, with the Deer Woman and William Knifeman (Bear’s unspiritual spirit guide) in the midst of a realistic look at a Native American town. Bear is clearly on a mythic hero’s journey, that seems like a Native spirit quest mixed with the Odyssey. I’m curious to see where it goes, but I read that the Deer Woman gives him a ride back home. The scenes with Maximus (the eggplant-growing probably-schizophrenic) were both touching and frightening.
I just watched that episode last night. The title card at the beginning said it was 1976. As to the 60s cars, well it wouldn’t make sense for them to be driving brand new cars, would it? Cars that would have been around 10 years old at the time would have been about right. That episode did suffer from a problem I noticed in a lot of period shows, in that all the cars looked shiny and new, even though they would have been old cars at the time. But those were probably the only cars they could get.
I didn’t like that episode so much on its own, but I thought it was a good set up for the next episode (I watched them back to back). So you had to wait until the next episode to get the connection to the present.
They drive “Indian cars”–falling apart pieces of junk. (Their term, not mine.)
…It isn’t easy to google for “Indian car” without getting mostly hits for cars in/from India. But it does turn out to be a more widely used term, and even has a song:
There was a TV series (I think) once where one of the protagonists (an Indian) called his car “Res Dog”. It only went in reverse. Can’t recall the series now for some reason.
I’m just now learning that’s an actual term. I thought it was just a Tarantino pun.
I recall learning the term “rez car” from the film Smoke Signals.
I recall early in the episode one of the characters comments on how old and broken down Brownie’s car is. The the writers were definitely trying to establish that these are old cars, even though clearly the only cars the production team could get were pristine restored examples (they probably rented them from collectors). I love that Brownie had an AMC Ambassador, though.
Oh, I missed that you had posted the image showing the “1976” earlier. The image wasn’t loading for me before; now it is.
Yeah, she called it a “fucking Indian car” with a “ghetto-ass door”.
I’m in season 2 currently and loving this show. I would binge-watch it if the person I’m watching it with had time.
It definitely feels both real and like an indie movie, almost gave me Napoleon Dynamite vibes at first. But much less wacky and much more real and emotional.
Willie Jack is my favorite, and the rappers on the bikes are always amusing too. Cheese and Big are good dudes.
Wait, who is Big? Are you referring to Bear?
Big, the Lighthorseman cop. I like Bear but I’d often like to slap him upside the head and call him a shitass.
Sorry, forgot about the cop. Bear is trying to find his way, which becomes more of a thing in the third season.
Have you ever watched Derry Girls? Reservation Dogs reminded me a bit of it because it’s another show about a culture that I was not very familiar with. It’s a lot more sitcomy than Reservation Dogs, but it’s set in 1980s Ireland during “the troubles” and is a great slice of life for how things were in Ireland at that time. It has some sitcom tropes but also a ton of Irish culture with true-to-life events happening around them.
Yes! Love Derry Girls! The end of the series with the vote was amazing.