"Everything you see on that episode is something that my community does"- co-creator Sterlin Harjo breaks down Reservation Dogs finale

Reservation Dogs drew eyeballs around the globe when it premiered in 2021, bringing forth the story of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma, while also being a series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors, along with an almost entirely Indigenous North American cast and production team. The show capped off its third and final season with a terrific finale on Wednesday, putting to bed one of the best television shows to come in recent times.

There were a lot of expectations from the Reservation Dogs finale, which was a long time in the making. Apart from the fact that the finale did live up to every expectation, it also took the story of four teenagers and made it much bigger than them, including the whole community in the process, something that co-creator Sterlin Harjo planned ahead, as revealed by Harjo to Variety in a recent interview.

Harjo said:

"It is their whole community. And we see that by going back into the past with some of the elders. We see that by learning more about the other characters. I wanted to illustrate that in the finale, which is all of them coming together for a goodbye to one of their own....Everything you see on that episode is something that my community does [when someone dies]. We dig by hand, we fast, people cook for you for when you break the fast in the morning. You sing songs when you’re transporting the deceased body. People just come together, there’s a lot of jokes, a lot of fun, a lot of sadness. It’s all of that."

With the finale, Reservation Dogs delved into a tragedy, but it also brought together a picture of a native American community that has struggled for representation all along.

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Sterlin Harjo reveals Reservation Dogs finale was inspired by films of Robert Altman

Reservation Dogs had built such a beautiful tale along the way and deserved to have a perfect sendoff for fans to remember it properly. Moreover, the final episode was also aimed at integrating the story as a whole and taking it beyond just the four characters, to emphasize that the community and the story will live on with or without the main protagonists.

In the interview with Variety, Harjo, who also directed the finale, revealed that Robert Altman's films served as a major inspiration behind the finale, which could tie up all the ends perfectly.

Hardjo elaborated:

"I spent a lot of time rewatching some Robert Altman films whenever I was prepping this...Because there are multiple characters, there’s lots of things happening in the foreground and the background. There’s zooms, and you’re kind of telling this layered story that has movement. It felt like a moment to show some ‘Nashville’ love."

Timeed perfectly with the release of the upcoming Martin Scorsese film, Killers of the Flower Moon breakout star Lily Gladstone also returned for the finale, giving fans one more glimpse at Hokti.

Reservation Dogs will hopefully remain relevant for a long time to come and will also open the doors for many other such indigenous stories.

All the seasons of Reservation Dogs are now streaming on Apple TV+.