1x06 Hunting

[8.6/10] This is going to sound weird, but this felt like an episode of Adventure Time to me. There’s just something about the combination of a slack tone, a bunch of goofy humor, but also a lot of heartfelt poignance at the center of it, is the type of balance Pendleton Ward’s show was so good at striking.

That’s another way of saying I loved this one. Willie Jack going hunting with her dad is a pretty basic premise for an episode. But it provides room for tons of character and subtlety. We learn that Daniel wasn’t just Willie Jack’s friend; he was her brother. We learn that it was his idea to go California. We see that, like so many people, he wasn’t a perfect person in life even if he becomes revered in death. And most importantly, we see how his loss still lingers in the hearts of his father and his sister.

I instantly love Willie Jack’s dad. You get the sense of him as someone who cares a great deal about his kids, and tries to do what’s best for them, while also seeming like a real father who can be rough around the edges and still human. The sense of his OCD having flared up since he lost his son, something that manifests in him taking particular precautions with his daughter, is sympathetic as all hell. The same goes for the way he hasn’t had much of a taste for hunting since he lost Daniel, who didn’t even like hunting, but was part of the excursion each year.

I also like how Willie Jack is parenting her dad at the same time he’s parenting her in some sense. Few shows capture the way in which kids can sometimes look after their parents. The way Willie Jack wants to get her dad out of the house, seems low-key worried about him and checking in on him, and even reassures him about a number of things is sweet in a way we don’t often see from the character.

I was particularly moved (and amused) by the discussion of what it would mean for Willie Jack to move to California. She sees all these things she wants to do that she can’t in Oklahoma, an escape which might have spared her brother. Her dad sees this as a place where his people are, where his family is, some combination of sweetly myopic or willfully blind as to what L.A. could possibly have to offer in comparison. Willie Jack’s trying to imagine her future, and her dad doesn’t want to lose his present after already having lost part of it. There’s a lot of heart and character there.

There’s also some damn good humor! The sequence of the father and daughter wandering through the forest while being caught on the trail cams is a hoot (especially when they start boogieing down). Speaking of hoots (or gobbles, I suppose) the turkey that follows them is an out there but rib-tickling addition. And the back and forth between Willie Jack and her dad is touching a lot of the time, but also filled with that casual, smart aleky, matter of fact banter that most parents and kids can relate to, and which Willie Jack does particularly well.

Then come the waterworks. The parent and child admitting how much they miss Daniel together, affirming that they love each other in the way they know how, is moving as all get out. You get the sense that these admissions haven’t come much before, that these hunting trips were a place where big conversations were had, and that’s as much why Willie Jack wanted to do it and her dad was hesitant to as anything.

I dig the magical realism elements of it too! Willie Jack seeing her brother in the flesh rather than as a picture gives him and his death a visual immediacy which parallels how real he still feels to her. The vision of a hairy “tall man” with glowing eyes is haunting, but in a way that suggests, as Willie Jack herself proposes, Daniel’s spirit may still be with them. Again, it’s a nice way to use the medium to dramatize the spiritual in a sideways fashion, helping you to feel a lurking presence who clearly represents this family’s feelings about their lost one in some form or another.

Whether it’s Daniel’s spirit or not, something guides “big chunk”, the stag they’ve been hunting for years (which seems to share the tall man’s glowing eyes in the picture?) to Willie Jack and her dad’s little corner of the woods. Something about letting it out, hearing reassurance from her dad to breathe, gives the young woman what she needs to finally go home with her prize. It’s a nice way to give her a win after all of this.

The writing is just excellent here. It hints at the psychological state of Willie Jack and her father, not to mention the history of losing Daniel and what happened afterward, without ever being cheesy or expositional about it. This is a comfortable episode, one that moves at its own pace and feels real in its interactions, while still telling a strong story and delivering layered characters. Reservation Dogs just keeps getting better and better.