Something to watch tonight: Thursday 16 November

GUEST POST: Chris Schulz on Reservation Dogs

Something a bit dif­fer­ent today: a guest post from anoth­er Substacker, Boiler Room’s Chris Schulz. Until recently Chris was a cul­ture writer for The Spinoff and one of the best reg­u­lar screen review­ers for RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

You can keep your superheroes.

You can have your jedis too.

These days, I’m no longer inter­ested in vam­pires or were­wolves or hob­bits or dragons or cute green pup­pets that get around in hover-cots.

If I get a chance to turn on the TV at the end of the day, I’m just look­ing for one thing.

A good hang.

By that, I mean I’m after a show that invites me into a world I want to know everything about, one that’s pop­u­lated by char­ac­ters that feel lived in, real, and alive.

It’s a tough thing to nail. Few shows get it right. The writ­ing has to be spot on, the level of detail inspired. 

Weird slang, clev­er needle drops and occa­sion­al doses of sur­real­ism are all key ele­ments to get­ting a good hang just right.

Need examples?

Atlanta? Good hang

Succession? Great hang.

The Bear? Incredible hang.

But the best hang cur­rently on screen has to be Reservation Dogs.

For two sea­sons, Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi’s exper­i­ment­al series has craf­ted a world I want to spend as much time as pos­sible in. 

It’s no won­der I’ve fallen for it: the show’s four indi­gen­ous teen friends Bear, Cheese, Willie Jack and Elora have a love-hate rela­tion­ship with their small Oklahoma town­ship. It reminds me of my own rela­tion­ship with my home town, Whanganui.

They have lost friends and fam­ily mem­bers there. They have com­mit­ted crimes there. They have run away from home, then returned with their tails between their legs. 

Reservation Dogs is a show that can go any­where. At times, it’s been funny. At oth­er times, it’s been emo­tion­al. It can be simple and sweet, or com­plic­ated and crafty. 

We’ve had to wait waaay too long to get the third and final sea­son (Disney+, we have beef). But it all landed recently and I’ve been eek­ing these epis­odes out like tak­ing tiny bites of a dessert brownie I nev­er want to end.

Yes, just like Atlanta’s third sea­son, Reservation Dogs spends much of its final run jet­ting off into weird and won­der­ful places. 

There are dream sequences involving ali­ens and sasquatches. 

There are stand alone epis­odes about the Deer Lady, a vigil­ante with cloven hooves and a pen­chant for pie, and for Spirit, a ghost and spir­it guide for Bear who’s become a fan favour­ite thanks to his cas­u­al atti­tude and fre­quent nakedness. 

It gets won­der­fully wacky. Some have said it’s a sign this sea­son runs out of steam. 

I dis­agree, because it also gets tender and real. In Frankfurter Sandwich, a stand out epis­ode, Cheese with­draws from his friends and is sent on a forest camp­ing exper­i­ence with his elders.

There, it turns into an impromptu men’s self-care ses­sion that ends with a fair amount of blub­ber­ing under the stars. 

By the time I get to this sea­son’s final epis­ode, I might be doing the same. 

* In Boiler Room, Chris Schulz keeps an eye on New Zealand’‘ pop cul­ture scene. Recently, he’s wondered why Limp Bizkit sold out Spark Arena, ques­tioned why no one covered two major music fest­ivals, and inter­viewed the author of a book about New Zealand’s worst ever con­cert. Sign up for reg­u­lar instal­ments here.

Where to find Reservation Dogs

Aotearoa: Streaming on Disney+

Australia: Streaming on Binge

USA: Streaming on Hulu

UK: Streaming on Disney+

Further reading

Over at RNZ I’ve just reviewed the latest wacky Japanese mon­ster movie Shin Ultraman (avail­able on Blu-ray and digital).