‘Reservation Dogs’ Creator Sterlin Harjo on Why It Was Time to End the Show As the Characters Come of Age in Season 3

variety.com:

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Sterlin Harjo is surprised that you’re surprised “Reservation Dogs” is ending. The critically acclaimed FX series, which returns to Hulu on Wednesday with its third and final season, is a dramatic comedy about a group of Indigenous teens finding their place among family and friends as they grow up in Oklahoma.

But the thing about coming-of-age tales, Harjo notes, is that eventually the characters come of age. “It’s a story that had an ending,” Harjo tells Variety. “It’s a story about people going through transition, and specifically kids going through a very transitional moment and grief.

I just don’t think that lasts forever. I think that we’re meant to be with them during this transitional time. To me, the show’s too important to drag out.” From the beginning, “Reservation Dogs” was about Elora (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor), four pals collectively coming to carry on after the death of their best friend, Daniel.

Because Daniel dreamed of traveling to the California coast, the quartet vowed to follow through on that wish. At the end of Season 2, they finally made it — and in a cathartic moment in the ocean, they felt Daniel right beside them.