The editor of ‘Reservation Dogs’ was influenced by Robert Altman for Finale

“It really starts with the images,” says editor Varun Viswanath.

While that’s par for the course for any editor, Viswanath, who along with fellow editor Patrick Tuck was nominated for an Emmy for FX’s “Reservation Dogs,” has a secret weapon in the editing room: co-creators and showrunners Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi.

They not only do long recordings, but also resets. “We hear what they say to the actors, and it’s an additional tool to get into their heads and understand their preferences,” says Viswanath. Viswanath and Tuck joined forces to collaborate on the creation of the series finale, “Dig.”

In the episode, the town comes together to honor medicine man Fixico (Richard Ray Whitman) after his death. While the theme of community anchors the entire series, it is key to this episode. The main characters all reach different resolutions: Elora (Devery Jacobs) heads off to a new adventure in college; Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) learns about independence as his mother takes a job in the city and he makes his way – perhaps with Jackie (Elva Guerra); and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), who has apprenticed with Fixico, has turned her attention to helping others on the reservation. As for Cheese (Lane Factor), his new glasses give him a sharper outlook on life.

For the finale, Harjo wanted the episode to be about the kids and the community, and the best place to show that would be at a funeral. “One of the happiest moments in our community is when you come to mourn someone’s death,” he said. “I think people are more honest when faced with death, so they will tell each other that they love each other more, and let their guard down.”

As a huge fan of cinema, Harjo admits that each episode contained references to other films, including ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘Dazed and Confused’. Harjo thought about Robert Altman when writing and filming this episode and how the filmmaker used his ensemble casts. In particular, he watched Altman use slow zooms, switching between a background and a foreground character and making them talk over each other.

When it came to the editing, Tuck and Harjo wanted to capture the essence of the community and the feeling of being there. “There were long, sweeping shots, interspersed with moments of [the central characters] in the future and see that their lives are just beginning,” says Tuck.

“They have come home, they have matured and it has come full circle.” Another powerful scene involved Willie Jack visiting her Aunt Hokti (Lily Gladstone) in prison. Willie Jack tells Hokti that Fixico has died, but admits that she did not spend much time with him. With that information, Hokti uses a selection of sweets to explain the power of community to her young niece.

Viswanath had also dropped the prison sequence in season 2. “I decided not to try to be radical and shoot it differently,” says Harjo. “I wanted it to feel familiar in Season 2. But what’s really great about that is that it’s a really calm moment before the chaos of the rest of the episode.” That prison scene was a prologue before audiences got to see the community in action, Harjo says. “What better way to express the importance of community than through a character who must be taken from the community and kept apart from it? That has a weight that it wouldn’t have if she wasn’t in prison.”

Viswanath found it harrowing to cut the scene and admits he didn’t have much footage to work with. “That scene, to me, is a great microcosm of the indigenous community that Sterlin and his team represent,” he says.

The importance of the scene reflects the power of passing on multi-generational secrets and how community can still be fostered even in a limited environment. That’s coupled with Willie Jack who “makes sure the community machine works the way it’s supposed to,” Harjo says.

Bear must say goodbye again, this time to his spirit guide, William “Spirit” Knifeman, played by Dallas Goldtooth. “You deserve to be loved, and you deserve to love,” Spirit says, reminding Bear
that the community offers him that love.

Viswanath, who interrupted their first meeting in the pilot, felt that Bear experienced the greatest emotional growth and that the goodbye was a full-circle moment. He had a goal in capturing that farewell scene: “To see how much more nuanced he is with the little expressions on his face, and how much more measured they are,” the editors say of WoonA-Tai’s performance.

The final shot of the episode shows the group of people together, sharing their love. In the editing room, Tuck debated crossing other coverage for certain lines, but ultimately settled on the foursome’s sweeping shot.

“We really had to fight the instinct to keep the messaging separate, and instead decided to make the audience – and the Rez Dogs themselves – feel present in the moment, surrounded by the people and community they love . It’s such a beautiful style to show how these characters have matured and grown over three seasons, and a perfect way to end the series,” says Tuck. “It encompasses everything you want to feel at that moment.”

The scenes leading up to that ending focused on deeply emotional moments of farewell and loss, but as Viswanath notes, it always leads to one theme: “You can go back to your community, share a meal and be lifted up.”