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This article was published on September 28, 2023.Reservation Dogshas since received fournominations for the 2024 Emmy Awards.
Read all of Vultures Emmy-racecoveragehere.
The shows earliest episodes make it hard to see that choice as a lie.
Its desaturated grays and sense of hopelessness appear objective, but theyre actually rooted in the teenage perspective.
With theseries finalethree years later,Reservation Dogscomes back to those opening images.
But the meaning has shifted.
What does growth look like?
Is it the same as progress?
Progress for who, and to what end?
How do you heal?
How do you keep going?
Every timeReservation Dogsturns back through that loop, it enacts its answer to the Rez Dogs frustration.
Closing the circle is one way to move forward.
By the time the series reaches its finale, Cheese says that he cant wait to be an elder.
Willie Jack, future medicine woman, joins the aunties in bringing food to those who need help.
Bear realizes the community needs many warriors more than it needs one great leader.
For a finale episode about a funeral, its impossibly hopeful.
The cul-de-sac isnt a trap.
Okern looks warmer in the last episode, the yellows are softer.
Over the radio, the DJ plays Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
Reservation Dogsbelongs in the pantheon of great television, TV that comes with an aura of unmistakable magic.
But at every turn,Reservation Dogsearns that kind of grandiose language.
Its not about a sad midlife crisis and it has very little sex or violence.
At the same time, the last several years were the era of Peak TV.
Without both of these forces operating at once, its tough to imagine a show likeReservation Dogsgetting made.
But both of these forces are much weaker than they were five years ago.
Peak TVs end is inarguable.
Even if the strikes had not happened this summer, television was already moving into an era of contraction.
The big announcements are not about exciting new talent and original storytelling; theyre aboutHarry PotterandanotherGame of Thronesspinoff.
Even tiny budgets may not save many of these kinds of in-development shows from the post-Peak reaping.
The other possibility is that Hollywood shuts the door on shows like this.
That would be a terrible waste of talent and promise.
In the final moments of Dig, the four elders sit at a picnic table and make a toast.
Well, we did good, Bucky says.
To the next one, Brownie replies.
We can only hope there will be dozens of next ones.
