Highlights and review of Reservation Dogs season 3 episode 2: Maximus

In the second episode of the third season of the FX original series Reservation Dogs, Bear wanders around the plains lost and close to dehydration. Then an old man knocks him out and takes him to his strange house.

Last episode we saw Bear get left behind by the bus to Oklahoma because he was arguing with his “spiritual guide” Knifeman.

Close to dehydration, Bear is still roaming endlessly in what he thinks is the general direction of the reservation, when he starts hallucinating a Spanish conquistador on a horse until Knifeman appears and chases him off, showing the conquistador an eggplant medallion made out of gold.

Reservation Dogs season 3 episode 2 recap

As Bear and Knifeman are having an argument, we see a Mad Max-type guy goggled and on a dune buggy observing Bear talking to himself. Then Bear gets a dart on the side of his neck and passes out.

When he comes to it’s in the living room of an old Indian, mohawked and bearded. The old man gives him some rusty tap water to drink and Bear is too thirsty to not down it all.

Immediately the old man starts spouting conspiracy theories especially when Bear reveals that he got lost on the way to the Okern reservation.

At this point, still tied up, Bear notices the strange and definitely madman-ish drawings on the walls. Bear excuses himself to go to the bathroom and piss, trying to escape he finds no way out.

They go outside and hop on the dune buggy, then go to the greenhouse where the old Indian, likely Maximus because of the episode name, has been growing eggplants.

Maximus claims they’re not for him but food for the Star People. As weird as he may seem, Maximus may be the wise man that Knifeman has been rambling about that Bear will have as a mentor.

They take a ride and go to another small house that seems like Maximus’s workshop inside. The old man fires up a projector and shows Bear a very old film of him and his friends, just like Bear’s own posse.

Maximus reveals that he’s been electro-treated in psych wards in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Then he takes Bear to a tunnel that looks like an unused sewage line, where he says if anything happens Bear should escape through it and to the highway.

As night falls, Bear listens to the old Indian and finally has his walkabout albeit couched in alien and deep state conspiracy speak. They even bond over instant noodles.

In the morning Maximus wakes up Bear in a panic, saying “They’re here!” When Maximums peeks outside he sees strange-looking folk, like aliens in human form. But when Bear looks outside it’s just the police.

Maximus tosses him a duffel bag and tells him to go. Then the old man goes outside and surrenders peacefully. The police take him away.

Left alone, Bear goes to the greenhouse, waters the plants, and takes a few eggplants for his journey. He hops on the dune buggy and drives to the tunnel. Fearfully he walks the tunnel and successfully comes out the other side without issue.

Bear has been born anew. Better still, he’s reached the highway and can continue his trek homeward.

You can watch seasons one to three of Reservation Dogs on HULU.