‘Reservation Dogs’ Elders Go Back in Time With ‘Dazed and Confused’ Inspired Episode

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Reservation Dogs Season 3, Episode 5, “House Made of Bongs.”]

Reservation Dogs continues to explore new avenues in its final season, bringing viewers back in time to the 1970s with its latest episode, “House Made of Bongs.”

Set in 1976, the episode shines a light on the friendship between Cheese’s (Lane Factor) “grandma” Irene (Quannah Chasinghorse), Bucky (Mato Wayuhi stepping in as a younger Wes Studi), Uncle Brownie (Nathan Alexis subbing for Gary Farmer), Elora’s (Devery Jacobs) grandma Mabel (Shelby Factor), and their pal Maximus (Isaac Arellanes), who was introduced as an elder in Season 3’s second episode, “Maximus” (in which Graham Greene portrayed the character).

This twisty episode with a Dazed and Confused vibe offers some clarity regarding Maximus’ ultimate severing from the group after an acid trip goes wrong. Fresh out of school for the summer, Maximus is different from his friends in that he plans to spend the break boarding at school while they all return home. Without parents, Maximus doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone, and he refuses to make up with his cousin, Fixico (Josiah Wesley Jones), with whom he’s had a recent falling out.

(Credit: Shane Brown/FX)

When Mabel asks Maximus if it has anything to do with her — she previously dated Fixico and is now involved with him — Maximus denies it, claiming that Fixico has a lot but never acknowledges how little he has in comparison. This layer is just one part of the wedge that seemingly separates Maximus from his friends and home, with the other one being an acid trip that leads him to have an alien encounter. As he tries explaining the situation to his friends, they laugh him off, similar to how they doubt his lofty filmmaker ambitions.

For director Blackhorse Lowe, it was a thrill to put the dynamic onscreen. “When it came to seeing the backstory of our elderly characters of Reservation Dogs and seeing who they were in their teenage years, it spoke to me,” he tells TV Insider. Lowe was particularly excited about the story “since they were doing acid out in the woods and they see aliens.” The director has previously helmed episodes like “Come and Get Your Love,” which introduced Deer Lady (Kaniehtiio Horn) in Season 1, as well as Big’s (Zahn McClarnon) acid-trip episode, “This Is Where the Plot Thickens.”

Those installments are among some of Reservation Dogs‘ trippiest, which is no coincidence. “Sterlin [Harjo] caters to your taste and your strengths” as a director, Lowe says. “I always get the genre stuff and all the psychedelic stuff.” While he was excited about the possibilities that a throwback episode would entail, for him, “it felt like a pilot to a whole new re-imagining of Reservation Dogs and these characters before they became old.”

(Credit: Shane Brown/FX)

In order to capture the feeling of the time, Lowe says, “I had everyone come together at this theater called Circle Cinema, and I showed them Two-Lane Blacktop and Vanishing Point to get everyone in this rhythm of the ’70s, the execution, the technicalities, and the grammar of that time. So it was very fun for me to do that.”

When it comes to his influences, Lowe credits filmmakers like John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg‘s early work. “I love ’70s cinema,” he muses. “It was very exciting when I got that script and it was very funny, poignant, and emotional.” Helping sell the time was period-appropriate clothing and cars, “making that era feel alive and real.”

The episode helps remind viewers that although these figures may appear wise in their later years, the elders are flawed individuals just like the new generation. “It very much parallels all these stories of these youth, going back to Daniel in the first season where he is [experiencing] loneliness and suicide and how that affects the community. It just happens to be the ’70s version of that,” Lowe points out, regarding Maximus. “He’s that one young person who kind of went off and got lost and ended up in his own tragedy.”

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Along with capturing this story, the young stars seemingly encapsulate their older counterparts with pitch-perfect performances. “I really didn’t have too many conversations with them,” Lowe says of working with the young stars and influencing their approach to these characters fans have come to know in the present day. “They were given free rein to make those scenes as unique as we want without having to worry about paying heed to something that had been previously established.”

It also helped that most of the episode follows their drug trip. “It gave us a lot more room to explore and really do something different with these characters,” explains Lowe. As for whether Maximus really saw aliens or not, according to the director, “I came at it as if he did see the aliens, so that way I was able to process it and directed it a whole lot better, too.”

“It was a nice blending element, exploring something that was fantastical, but also we already had the elements of Deer Lady, Bigfoot, and all these other characters, so it was kind of like a natural element and fit for knowing it was aliens and Maximus and realizing who he was as a young person before he goes through his own traumas,” Lowe shares.

“It just feels that much more tragic because we’re seeing him in his youth with aspirations of becoming a filmmaker, aspirations of rebuilding his community, and doing all these different things,” Lowe acknowledges, “and then we see where life put him in his experiences.”

Perhaps there’s hope on the horizon that Maximus will one day find his way. There are plenty of Season 3 episodes still to come, so stay tuned to see if his story will take a turn in the future.

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