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chocobosdungeon2 · 2 years

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I wanna talk about the approach to the supernatural in Reservation Dogs.

I'd like to add as a disclaimer that I'm not yet familiar with most of Taika Waititi's other work. I know he has written about the supernatural before, but I haven't seen it firsthand so I don't know if what I'm about to say is unique to Rez Dogs or if its common throughout his work.

The show presents the supernatural and poses the question of whether or not it's "real" in the very first episode of the series with Big and his field of catfish (among other conspiracies). Big is often used as the POV character for these phenomena because he's presented as someone who readily accepts conspiracies, supernatural theories, and is known in his community as a Bigfoot-hunting wackjob. By doing this, the show makes the audience question if the things Big sees are real. At the same time, very "real" supernatural events happen to other characters, such as the Spirit who speaks to Bear. Some truth is shown to Big's beliefs in S1E5 Come and Get Your Love, where the Deer Lady is definitely shown to be real. This is all the Season 1 setup for the glorious romp that is S2E8 This is Where the Plot Thickens (which we'll come back to), where the line between reality and supernaturality is completely blurred, but there's a larger theme at play here I think. I would say Reservation Dogs likes to present reality-based solutions to supernatural problems, but without ever discounting those problems as "fake" or "just in your head." I feel like this is in contrast to a lot of media, which tends to do the Scooby Doo "There was a logical explanation the entire time!!!" thing. Not here.

The supernatural IS real

BUT it is always conquered by the mundane.

First, I want to pivot to Elora. There's a small scene in Stay Gold Cheesy Boy (S2E7) that illustrates what I mean really well. At the end of the previous episode (S2E6), Elora is shown sitting alone in her house. A house she is now the sole owner of. She begins to hear chanting coming from Mabel's bedroom, reminiscent of the elders who chanted as she was dying. Elora nervously investigates. The chanting gets louder as she approaches the bedroom, but it ends suddenly when she turns the light on. Elora turns the light off and walks back into the hallway, looking around her darkened house as if in a panic. There's muffled chanting and a growing soundwall that makes you feel claustrophobic, like something is coming towards you/her. The camera zooms in on her distraught face in the dark and then cuts to credits.

I don't know about the rest of ya'll, but that scared the shit out of me!!! I was like "oh fuck, what might happen to Elora???" This is Reservation Dogs! Shit can get DARK. She hasn't been in a great place mentally.

We don't see Elora at all for the beginning of Stay Gold Cheesy Boy. When Jackie goes to tell Bear and Willie Jack that Cheese was arrested, she says that Elora isn't answering her phone, spiking anxiety in the audience. You're made to wonder if she's okay.

But soon after the three of them find Elora at her house, plugged into headphones, painting the walls of her grandmother's bedroom, and there's relief. But that was quite the buildup to what turned out to be a paint job, right?

Elora is haunted by her grief, and as we saw in Mabel (S2E4), by the memories the house holds that she doesn't, by its history. Elora wanted to leave the Village, but now she's chained to it by this house she suddenly owns. I don't think the chanting and strange noises were just in Elora's head. She was being haunted. But she also didn't get attacked in the night by ghosts and the solution wasn't to hire an exorcist. When we're haunted by the past, the best thing we can do is look to the future. Elora was being haunted by the house's past so she took a step towards the house's (and her own) future. It's a very... reasonable reaction for a person to have. You can sense the urgency Elora felt to get this done after that harrowing night. What would you do if you felt like you couldn't handle living in a house with its history and memories? If you can't move, giving it a new coat of paint might be the next best thing.

Back to S2E8, this episode is a great example because it plays so much with the audience's sense of reality. A character with one of the strongest connections to the supernatural we've seen, Big, accidentally starts tripping on a huge dose of acid. He's soon followed by Kenny Boy. Complete side note, the juxtaposition of nervous and terrified Big's first time on acid, and chill Kenny Boy (hecking love Kirk Fox btw), who has probably done this a billion times, just vibing is hilarious. A lot of what Big sees can be assumed to be hallucinations, although in this show you can never be too sure. Deer Lady appears but is it really her or is it just his memory of her? Until they come upon the cultists. The Field of Catfish was a mystery presented at the start and built up a little every time Big would see or talk about it with no possible explanation. It turns out, the answer was weird cultists who fuck dead catfish. As wild as that is, it's still an answer grounded in reality so it brings your expectations back down a little bit. Then a bona-fide Supernatural Phenomenon shows up to save them. Not only is the Deer Lady confirmed to be SEEN by someone other than Big, but Kenny Boy KNOWS her, they've met before! So, there can no longer be any doubt in the audience's mind.

As a refresher, the Deer Lady is a supernatural woman with deer legs (as the name implies) who kills "bad" men (and men specifically). Figuring out what "bad" and "good" means is kind of what Big's arc is all about. She asks if Kenny Boy has been good and he replies, smiling, "No... but I've been trying real hard." Kenny Boy isn't someone Big would consider "good" in his very simplistic, child-like idea of it. Her affection toward Kenny Boy shows that being good isnt just saying No to drugs and following the law. Her targets are consistently womanizing rich men who have no regard for others or their environment. She does extend to outright criminals like murderers and robbers if the opportunity presents itself, but usually to protect or save someone. I don't think she likes to work in the open if she can avoid it. The Deer Lady is a supernatural phenomenon that punishes Bad Men. You can avoid getting killed by her by being a Good Man. By not flaunting excessive wealth, by not harming others, and by caring about people around you. The fundamentals of being a decent human being.

There's other examples of this throughout the show of course, but these are a couple that stood out to me. A kind of overlapping theme that I'd love to delve into is the reverence given to Weirdos who Just Say Shit. Junkies, homeless, random dudes in waiting rooms, etc. All spewing their strange ramblings to whoever will hear, but the show frames them as wise and worth listening to. I think I need to end this post before I get too off-topic, but I think it plays into this theme as well.

I've intentionally avoided speaking on the scenes of prayer, where there's a very obvious crossing between these boundaries. I think there's a lot to say about those scenes as well, but I am not Indigenous and I feel like I'd be trying to speak on cultural and spiritual practices I know nothing about. I already feel dangerously close to doing that. I really don't want to make assumptions about anyone's beliefs, so I've tried to stick to examining the screenwriting and how it conveys these themes. If anyone else is willing to add their input, I'd be thrilled to read it.

#reservation dogs #reservation dogs spoilers #rez dogs #analysis #reservation dogs analysis #screenwriting #ramblings #ive spent the last few days trying to figure out how to write this #i hope its coherent #long post #come and get your love #this is where the plot thickens #stay gold cheesy boy #mabel #deer lady

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