'Reservation Dogs' final season is hitting Hulu: What to know about the Oklahoma-made series

When she directed the first episode of "Reservation Dogs'" third season, Danis Goulet didn't realize she was helming the beginning of the end for the trailblazing made-in-Oklahoma streaming series.

"I did not know in advance that this was going to be the final season. But I think, for me, that didn't necessarily shape how I would have worked," said Goulet, who also directed the third of the 10 episodes of "Reservation Dogs" Season 3.

"I know the word 'groundbreaking' gets thrown around a lot, but ... how important this show has been to Native representation, there has been nothing else like this."

The first two highly anticipated episodes of the acclaimed FX series' third and final season premiere Aug. 2 exclusively on Hulu. Sterlin Harjo, the Tulsa-based co-creator and showrunner of "Reservation Dogs," announced in June that the award-winning comedy will end at the conclusion of its third season.

"As we continued to break stories and write scripts this season, it became clear to the producers, Taika (Waititi, the show's co-creator) and me that the season three finale is the perfect SERIES finale,” Harjo posted June 29 on Instagram.

How has 'Reservation Dogs' blazed new trails for Oklahoma and Indigenous people?

"Reservation Dogs" — co-created and executive produced by Waititi, an Oscar-winning New Zealand moviemaker who is of Maori ancestry, and Harjo, a native Oklahoman and longtime indie filmmaker who is Seminole and Muscogee — has been blazing trails since it debuted on Hulu in 2021.    

The coming-of-age comedy is not only the first full-time, scripted network television series to film entirely in Oklahoma, but it's also the first mainstream TV show on which every writer, director and series regular performer is Indigenous.       

Filmed primarily in Oklahoma, "Reservation Dogs" has proven a critical smash, appearing on the best TV shows of 2022 lists from USA Today, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and more. The show recently earned its first Primetime Emmy Award nomination — for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation — and previously earned a Peabody Award, a Gotham Award and two Independent Spirit Awards.

But "Reservation Dogs" hasn't just been a critical darling. It's achieved commercial success, said Crystal Echo Hawk, founder and executive director of the Tulsa-based Native woman-led social justice organization IllumiNative.

"It actually really performed: Nielsen found it brought in 1.4 million new viewers to Hulu. It had a retention rate, I think, of over 23%. Those are economics ... and it shows it pays to invest in Native stories and Native creators," Echo Hawk, an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation, told The Oklahoman in June.

"The legacy is that they really did unleash ... the opportunity to show that Native stories are for all people, that we can have complex, multilayered representation of Native peoples that can resonate with all audiences. It can be joyful, it can be sad, it can be all the things. We don't have to play to stereotypes."

What can viewers expect from Season 3 of 'Reservation Dogs?'

Set in the fictional small reservation town of Okern, Oklahoma, the series follows the misadventures of tight-knit teens Elora Danan Postoak (Devery Jacobs), Bear Smallhill (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Willie Jack Sampson (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese Williams (Oklahoman Lane Factor) and their colorful community.

A Cree/Metis writer-director from northern Saskatchewan in Canada, Goulet teased The Oklahoman by phone last week with what viewers can expect from the third and final season of "Reservation Dogs":

Q: The end of Season 2 saw the Rez Dogs in California. How are we going to get back to Oklahoma?

Goulet: I approached the episode like a road movie. ... In the episode, they do get out of California and into safety. And I think it's a first moment for them all to reflect on what's next. And it was really beautiful to shoot that: They've gone and done this thing, they've had a big, cathartic moment that brought them all together, but there's so many outstanding questions about where they're all going in their lives.

So, it was just almost in a way about gently bringing everybody back into the world. And I love that Spirit (played by Dallas Goldtooth) is the first person that shows up and picks up the story. And boom, we're back in.

Q: The third episode centers on the Deer Lady, a real figure from Indigenous legend. Why do you think that character has resonated?

Goulet: She's so badass. She's amazing, and Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays her, I just can't imagine an actor more suited to play this character. She is so magnetic and captivating on screen, and you just want to know where she's gonna go? What's she going to do? What is she going to get up to? So, I think it's that unpredictability that's really fascinating to watch. ... But the mythology and all of that, I think everybody wants to seek justice, and she exists as a character to bring justice to places where there is no justice.

Especially within an Indigenous context, on a more serious topic, the way that we are treated in the justice system is still not right, and so to have this character that's an incredible, larger-than-life character that goes about the world setting things right is just so satisfying.

Q: One of the issues in this season is the history of Native American boarding schools. What was the approach to incorporating that?

Goulet: I was so happy to see the show tackle ... something that Indian Country has known about for so many years. It happened in all of our families and all across North America. But it's an essential story that needs to be told about how America was founded. There's something incredibly dark about knowing that it wasn't just about soldiers fighting battles; it was also about the taking of children away from their parents.

We had a process in Canada that looked at what we call the residential schools down there — they're called boarding schools (in the United States), but it was the exact same system — and when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission up here released their findings, they found that a child going into a residential school had a greater chance of dying than a Canadian soldier did going into World War II. Which means that these schools were horrific places of abuse and mistreatment. There were deaths and experiments done on them.

So, to do it within the context of the show is definitely a challenge, to look at this historical thing that happened. But it's also so brilliant that the show has chosen to take this up.

Q: How were your experiences working in Oklahoma on 'Reservation Dogs?'

Goulet: I absolutely loved being down in Oklahoma working on the show. I just love the community and the crew and everything that Sterlin's built down there. ... It's such an amazing experience, and I think the episodes that we tackled — or I tackled — in the season are both very different.

There were ups and downs, for sure, and some challenges. But I just feel so lucky to work with the cast and crew down there. ... I worked in Season 2 on Episode 4, which was called 'Mabel,' ... and that was my first time to Tulsa. But I've known Sterlin for a number of years, and he's described Oklahoma to me for so long that it lived in my imagination as a place I always wanted to visit.

Q: What do you think about this being the final season of the show?

Goulet: For just regular Native American life to be depicted on screen in such an authentic way, that's something that audiences haven't had the chance to experience. The brilliant characters, they've been rendered with such specificity, with the comedy and the darkness all together in this container, I think, is what has been so appealing about the show for wide audiences.

But for our communities, this show has meant everything. I travel all over Canada, and everywhere I go, people talk about the show. People love the show, and it really can't be stated what a profound breakthrough this show has been.

So, to see it end, of course, everybody that I've come across has been lamenting the end of 'Reservation Dogs,' But I'm really just happy that the creatives were able to make that decision when the time felt right for them and for the story.

HOW TO WATCH 'RESERVATION DOGS'

The first two episodes of the third and final season of the groundbreaking Oklahoma-made FX series "Reservation Dogs" premiere Aug. 2 exclusively on Hulu. Episode 3 debuts Aug. 9.

Season 3 is 10 episodes, with the series finale slated for Sept. 27.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma-made series 'Reservation Dogs' debuts third and final season