Highlights and review of Reservation Dogs season 3 episode 5: House Made of Bongs

In the fifth episode of the third season of the FX original series Reservation Dogs, back in 1976, we hang out with Maximus and his friends as they celebrate the end of the school year at Okern High School.

Recap of FX’s Reservation Dogs season 3 episode 5

This is the Dazed and Confused homage of the season as we throw it back to the teenage wild days of the elders in the rez. As if the title of the episode didn’t clue you in.

It’s the end of the junior year in 1976 at Okern and all the students are raring for the summer break. Brownie pulls into St Nicholas Training School in his cool car, what used to be the facility for retraining the natives run by evil nuns we saw back in episode three.

By this time, Uncle Brownie (as an elder) is now a staple in the cast and it’s great to see him here in his teen years as a snarky and cool hellraiser type ala an overweight Dave Wooderson, the character that Matthew McConaughey played in the 1993 movie.

Maximus, Bucky, Irene, and Mabel are all part of his gang of friends at the boarding school. Maximus, the dude who grows up to be a crazy alien conspiracy nut who rescued (or kidnapped) Bear, actually prefers to be called Chebon.

Chebon is a junior and staying at the dorm for the summer and not going home. His PE teacher even tells him to hit him up if he gets bored. He also owns a video camera and likes to film stuff in school.

This sensitive young man seems like a far cry from the survivalist in episode three who believed that alien “Star People” exist and he must prepare for their return by growing eggplants in his organic greenhouse.

We later find out that Chebon’s family died when he was a kid and that he mostly grew up in boarding schools like this one. Chebon’s friends assigned him to score some acid (aka windowpane) for a party in the forest but he’s screwed it up.

Apparently, his cousin Fixico (who is the medicine man in the 2020s) could be asked for an easy fix since he spends his proximity around pharmaceuticals, but there are bones of familial contention there, exacerbated by their teenage love triangle with Mabel, that we will unravel as the episode runs.

At a local drive-through take-out place, Brownie and the gang encounter Fixico and his friends waiting in line in their own car. Since Chebon didn’t score them any drugs, Brownie decides to ask Fixico.

When Fixico asks if Chebon is still angry at him, both crews’ consensus is that Chebon likes to act “white and hold grudges.” Chebon finally coughs up the money for their score when Mabel asks—it’s here that we confirm that Mabel and Fixico had been an item, but prior to that it was Mabel and Chebon who were lovey-dovey.

At the riverside party, much like tailgate kegger except with lots of drugs, Mabel and Chebon have an intimate conversation about why Chebon seems like he’s always angry at his cousin Fixico.

Chebon confesses that his cousin always seems to have it easy, the road to a career as a medicine man all but assured, as well as a kind of snobbishness that having all that just exudes. All that just rubs him the wrong way.

When the LSD finally arrives, Chebon is the only one who hesitates. Later, he confesses to Bucky that he’s never dropped acid before, which is why he was reluctant. By the by, Bucky the elder is later played by Wes Studi in the 2020s.

All in all, Chebon has a fairly good time on his first acid trip. That is until the gang leaves the party. They all pile into Brownie’s car and, since he’s still pretty messed up, Brownie asks Chebon to drive them all back to the rez.

Before they leave, Fixico checks in with Chebon and while he does ask nicely Chebon doesn’t react too well. He accuses Fixico of lording it over him with his disguised offers of kindness and calls him a “poison man.”

Fixico, rebuffed, just stands there and takes the insults from his cousin. The gang rides away with Chebon driving.

Along the way, Chebon thinks he’s doing well, especially considering the way he clapped his comebacks versus Fixico. Until he starts to nod off all too frequently, probably from the comedown of the LSD.

Makes me very nervous to think that Chebon might crash the car since he’s all but asleep at the wheel even though I know this gang survived the 70s to become elders of the rez community.

Then everyone falls asleep in their seat and a bright light confronts Chebon, shining from above and behind. Smartly, he pulls over and avoids any road collision. Stepping out of the car though he is confronted by an extraterrestrial.

The thing looks like a classic ET with grey skin and bulbous, glassy dark eyes. Above and behind the creature is a gargantuan flying saucer. In a kind of telepathic communication, the alien declares that it just wanted to say hi to a relative.

When the rest of the gang finally wakes up, they find Chebon looking across an empty road. Of course, they all blame it on the acid trip but Chebon knows that it’s more than that, that his friends really didn’t see and in all likelihood would be unable to see what he did.

It’s great to see the arc of Maximus and how he became the aliens-obsessed survivalist in episode three.

After the throwback to the brutality of the evil nuns at the boarding school, this slice-of-life episode where native teens just act like themselves, well for the most part, is a great exploded picture of how it was when the elders were still teens. Meaning, practically the same as our gang of rez dogs.

Hey, the more things change, right?

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