Reservation Dogs: What About Your Dad

August 25, 2021 1:17 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

Bear's dad, a rapper, is hired to perform at the Clinic's Diabetes Awareness Frybread Feast. Bear spends the California fund buying him a gift - a beaded medallion that is supposed to resemble a microphone.

'Journalist Shea Vassar, a Cherokee Nation citizen and member of the Native American Journalists Association, perhaps said it best in her review for RogerEbert.com when she highlighted the importance of Indigenous youth having mainstream representation on a major streaming platform.

'Reservation Dogs is the definition of authentic storytelling,' Vassar wrote. 'The first four episodes capture the intangible feeling and nuanced truth that is specific to the Oklahoma Native experience unlike anything that has aired prior. Here’s to all the Indigenous kids who will watch this show and feel the joy of representation. Skoden!'"
Native News Online

I could not agree more!

posted by kaiseki (5 comments total)

This show continues to hit home for me. Sometimes too close. As a Tsa-la-gi Oklahoman with an absentee father this episode got me in the feels, as the kids say.

Serving fry bread at the diabetes awareness dinner is the most IHS thing ever.

I'm wondering what role Jackie will play now.

I'm additionally curious about in the first episode when Officer Big visits the kids looking for the stolen truck. He mentions that a lot of people have been seeing Deer Lady. Deer Lady is a spirit (sometimes she's a 'nunnehi' in Cherokee) that is said to lead men who seek to take women's power or do them harm into the woods to trample them. Seeing her can mean various things: Sometimes it's a bad omen, sometimes it means there is big change coming.

I wish my mom would have said what Bear's mom said to him. That shit was top shelf single mom.

I can NOT get that song out of my head.
posted by kaiseki at 1:30 PM on August 25, 2021 [14 favorites]

I loved Rita's "devil/angel on the shoulder" scenes with the different colored beaded earrings
posted by travertina at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2021 [9 favorites]

Like, I knew exactly what the beaded microphone was going to end up looking like, and I still cackled when Bear saw it. I also agree that Rita's devil/angel earrings were a great touch.

The guy she slept with, with his Confederate flag + feathers tattoo, was hysterical as well. I have totally met dudes like that (but thankfully did not sleep with any of them).
posted by TwoStride at 2:04 PM on August 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

The devil/ angel thing was cute. Any significance to the colour differences?

The race fetish/ racism is too real. I'm curious is it's a one-off or they explore it further.

Do people in the US pronounce diabetes diabetus or was that a subtle reference to Wilford Brimley?
posted by porpoise at 8:28 PM on August 25, 2021

That speech by Bear’s mom. Whew.
posted by bunderful at 6:40 PM on August 13, 2022 [2 favorites]