Reservation Dogs: California Dreamin

September 14, 2021 5:52 PM - Season 1, Episode 7

Elora takes her drivers' test, after multiple previous failures. Instead of completing the test, her eccentric instructor takes her on a wild ride. More is revealed about both Daniel's passing, and her mother's. [Content Warning]

[Content Warning: Suicide]

Reservation Dogs Recap: Don’t Wanna Walk Anymore

posted by Quonab (11 comments total)

In episode three, I thought that the writers were taking the easy way out by saying that Uncle Brownie couldn't talk about how Cookie died without him crying. I thought that if it was his story, he should be the one to tell it. To me, it seemed like a writer's trick, that they would rather put the whole issue in a later episode.

In this episode, we learn how Cookie died. Her boyfriend was drunk, but he wanted to drive her home. Uncle Brownie realized that Cookie's boyfriend was too drunk to drive, so he tried to knock him out. He failed. Cookie died in a fatal car crash.

If only Uncle Brownie had knocked out Cookie's boyfriend, she would be alive today. He can knock 10, 20 , 30 , even 40 people out, but none of them will make up for his inability to knock out Cookie's boyfriend before he took her to die.

To be honest, this is just a minor point in what happens in the episode. I would like to talk about it more, but I would only just cry.
posted by Quonab at 6:41 PM on September 14, 2021 [12 favorites]

Devery Jacobs wrote a moving column in Time about filming this episode.
posted by gladly at 6:42 PM on September 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

This show is very much not what I expected at all - it's better. I love the exploration of relationships, and showing what communication can accomplish.

With one more ep to go, I have no idea what direction they're going to take it.
posted by porpoise at 9:21 PM on September 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

My Lord, this is one of the most important and most phenomenal shows on tv right now. If it doesn’t get an Emmy nominations next year, imma fight somebody.
posted by chara at 10:56 PM on September 14, 2021 [10 favorites]

Yeah, this isn't what I was expecting when the season started, but it's even better.
posted by Kyol at 6:55 AM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

If there's any justice, Oklahoma should be knee-deep in Emmy statues next year. I hope this show runs for 100 seasons.

I'm just absolutely fucking amazed by the ability of the creative team to craft these fully-fleshed, multi-dimensional, believable, human SIDE characters in a half-hour of television. They've done it again and again: Uncle Brownie, Willie Jack's father, Coach Toilet....all without detracting from the overall story or taking anything away from the lead characters. I love this show so much.
posted by ssmith at 9:05 AM on September 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

Oh man, this was a hard one.

My wife and I watched this episode Monday night. Earlier that day an estranged friend of my wife reached out to her to let her know that one of their mutual friends had just died of ethanol poisoning. She was 38 years old, possibly 39; much too young in any case. It was one of those situations where the outcome was somehow simultaneously a shock but not a surprise.

My wife said she keeps thinking, "This is what happens when you don't leave [HOMETOWN]." And that's not a knock on [HOMETOWN]. [HOMETOWN] is in many ways a lovely community and lots of people move there and have great lives. It's more, "This is what happens when you stay where all of your personal trauma is, and all of your generational trauma is, and you're living in the house where you only saw your mother die of cancer because cancer was faster than the cirrhosis her own struggle with binge drinking had caused."

I don't know that Daniel would have been ok if he had made it to California. Maybe not. It's hard not to wonder.

When I was in high school my best friend was a dude whose ass I had to kick two or three times a week. Saying that with adult perspective and twenty-five years of additional exposure to neurodiversity makes saying that feel weird; as a teenager everything felt equally normal and equally weird. He was a sweet, awkward guy but he would just get twitchy and start hitting people out of nowhere. He was probably 5'7" and weighed a buck twenty soaking wet so he didn't really do any lasting damage but the hits hurt. And you could tell him a dozen times he needed to stop and warn him a dozen more that he was about to get his ass beat but nothing stopped him until he caught a beating. And then he'd sulk for about five minutes before he'd be his normal sweet, awkward self.

Daniel's outbursts on the hunting trip and at the bar felt a lot like watching my friend, and maybe more like watching teenage me than I'm ready to acknowledge.

I love the running gag about Kenny Boy relating everything back to 80s/90s movie trivia. I wondered if they were going to make the connection that Coach Bobson's daughter and her friends almost certainly got their drugs from the same junkyard where the taillight got repaired. Small towns, man.

My high school friend did eventually get cured of his hitting habit if not his awkwardness. He joined the Navy right after high school and as he explained to me years later the difference between your friends and the armed forces is that your friends will stop when you go limp and start crying.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:35 AM on September 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

I want to say (as an OU graduate) that a random person in a small town in Oklahoma is way more likely to wear an Oklahoma State jersey or hat than an OU one. The Thunder paraphernalia is a given, but the absence of OSU garb seems really telling. Maybe there was some, but I missed it (like I said I am an OU grad), but the prominence they gave to the University of Oklahoma doesn't seem earned.
posted by Quonab at 11:36 AM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Daniel's outbursts on the hunting trip and at the bar felt a lot like watching my friend, and maybe more like watching teenage me than I'm ready to acknowledge.

We've barely seen Daniel, but the show has so clearly sketched out his pain in that handful of scenes. It's aching knowing what happens to him.

I'm just absolutely fucking amazed by the ability of the creative team to craft these fully-fleshed, multi-dimensional, believable, human SIDE characters in a half-hour of television.

That's really it. I have no idea what will happen in each episode, but I love their characters so much, I'll watch it.
posted by gladly at 9:00 AM on September 17, 2021

Quonab, that is interesting. I do know that there's at least a handful of OU alums working on this in the art department. Wondering if the wardrobe department is the same, and that this is a little poke at OSU?
posted by queensissy at 11:11 AM on September 21, 2021

Sterlin Harjo is a University of Oklahoma grad :)
posted by oneirodynia at 8:59 PM on September 21, 2021