‘Reservation Dogs’ Recap: A Restless Spirit Risen From the Dead
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This post contains spoilers for “Wahoo!,” this week’s episode of Reservation Dogs, which is now streaming on Hulu.
Among the great things about Reservation Dogs is that there are no strict storytelling rules. Anything goes in a series which easily toggles between kitchen sink drama, magical realism, and broad comedy, sometimes within the same scene. If an idea fits both the needs of a given story and the series’ larger themes about Indigenous culture, then it’s in, no fuss, no muss. So nobody really worries about why, say, Bear is constantly being harassed by William Knifeman while the other three kids barely interact with spirits, if at all.
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“Wahoo!” is about as close as we get to an explanation for that, as the spirit of Elora’s late mother Cookie tells Bear’s mother (and Cookie’s best friend) Rita that some families are just more open to seeing spirits. But even that is largely beside the point of another great episode, which is equal parts supernatural comedy and emotional catharsis.
In the past, characters on the show who interact with spirits have tended to be kids (or, in the case of Big, first encountered said spirits when they were kids). So Bear is more willing to go along with the idea that William is back again to offer half-baked wisdom, or that he’s sharing pie with Deer Lady. When Elora’s grandmother appeared to her shortly after passing away, Elora was not only young enough to not question it, but very desperately needed to say goodbye in this way, along with all the others that we saw throughout that episode.
Rita, though, is a middle-aged woman, old enough that her son can arguably be left on his own (plus some help from Bev and others) should Rita take a lucrative promotion in a big city. To her, the sudden return of her late friend in spirit form — not ghost form, Cookie clarifies, because “Ghosts are dumb!” — is not a sign that she is receiving wisdom as part of her culture, but a warning that she is losing her mind.
Much of what follows could feel overly broad or schticky, as if writer Migizi Pensoneau (and, for that matter, Devery Jacobs, who directed the episode under her full name, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs) had spent a lot of time bingeing Ghosts, or watching Jimmy Stewart in Harvey, and thought it might be fun to deploy the familiar gimmick in this show’s context. But its use here feels just off-center enough to fit into this unique show, rather than as a rehash of what’s been done dozens of times in the past elsewhere. A lot of that is just the performances by Sarah Podemski as Rita, and especially by JaNae Collins as Cookie, who remains entirely a creature of the era when she died, yet whose sunny disposition only serves to increase Rita’s fear that she’s gone crazy. But it’s also the way that other people respond, from Larry the useless clinic shrink somehow turning Rita’s problem into an excuse to discuss his complicated feelings about Lou Diamond Phillips and La Bamba, to Cookie being able to recreate Bev and Big’s gross sex noises, to Rob at the trading post somehow turning Rita’s problem into an excuse to revisit the middle school dance they attended together.
Mostly, though, it’s the way the story pivots toward the end as we find out the reason for Cookie’s visit. If you instantly recall that she’s Elora’s mother, this seems obvious from the start. If you don’t — and, as with the teenage versions of the elders from the Seventies flashback episode, the show does not hold your hand regarding names mentioned intermittently in past seasons — then it’s still clear the minute Elora opens the door, surprised to see Bear’s mother standing there. As Cookie notes, Rita should have been there to be an auntie for Elora, especially since her actual aunt Teenie has been mostly absent. What follows is as poignant as it is simple: Cookie getting a chance at a good look at the daughter she never really knew, Rita struggling to find the right words to say, and Elora mostly seeming puzzled by the whole affair. But we know that Elora can see spirits, and when she admits to Rita that it sometimes feels like her mother is still around — that sometimes, it just feels warm — that comment, along with Rita saying that Cookie would be proud of Elora, is enough for all three parties.
From there, everything is about where the two best friends will go next. Cookie scolds Rita for not doing this sooner, and more frequently, and implores her to take the promotion, since Bear can be on his own, while Rita has earned a more well-rounded life. But Cookie herself has nowhere to go, since she usually can’t get through to Elora at all, but also can’t move on, leaving her feeling neither here nor “there.”
And now the roles within the Smallhill family reverse, as Rita has to turn to Bear for advice on how to let go of Cookie, by asking him what he and his friends did about Daniel in California. The difference is that the kids weren’t literally haunted by Daniel, at least not until they were all in the Pacific together. But his loss dominated their thoughts at least as much as Cookie’s has for Rita. An ocean isn’t readily accessible, so Rita, Bev, and their friend Natalie gather by the bridge where Cookie died for a goodbye ritual of their own, mixing rhetoric (Bev calls Cookie “You hot, vivacious, mean bitch,” which seems about right based on how Collins plays her) with physical acts of letting go. We already saw Cookie vanish from Rita’s car a few scenes earlier, but it’s clear that this impromptu farewell will ensure that Cookie won’t remain trapped in this world any longer. And right before the episode is in danger of getting too treacly, Rita announces that she’s taking the new job, and Bev demands her phone to make her a Tinder profile.
As has been the case throughout this season — throughout the entire series — “Wahoo!” is an impressive emotional balancing act, and just great TV.
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