Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1486263
this broadened landscape, and critics and audiences are responding. Many current films and series now include an abundance of Native characters and storylines, even if they're not the primary focus of the show. In 2021, the showrunners of Dexter: New Blood, the mini-revival of Showtime's serial-killer killer, chose to set their terror tale in Native-adjacent Alaska and cast part Choctaw and Chickasaw actor Julia Jones as the Native sheriff of a Pacific Northwest town — as well as Dexter Morgan's love interest. Jones is best known from the Twilight series and Westworld, and received a Saturn Award nomination for her work on Dexter. ABC's Alaska Daily, starring Hilary Swank as an investigative reporter, also fills prominent roles with Native co-stars, including her partner in crime, Secwépemc actor Grace Dove. FX's true crime miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven cast Gil Birmingham (Yellowstone) with Andrew Garfield as detectives, one Comanche and one Mormon, who attempt to unravel a horrific LDS cult. Syfy's Resident Alien, a mystery-comedy-drama about an Earth-stranded alien on a mission to wipe out humanity won the Best Cable Series, Comedy award from the Hollywood Critics Association in 2021 and includes prominent Indigenous actors Sara Tomko, Gary Farmer and others in featured and recurring roles. Many Native stories are front-and-center, however, and this year has proven especially significant for Indigenous points of view. Sundance Institute founder, actor Robert Redford, brought his new incarnation of Tony Hillerman's novel The Dark Wind to the small screen, and it has received much acclaim. In 1991, Redford produced a feature film adapted from the same book series but it failed to make an impression. In contrast, the AMC series Dark Winds, produced by Redford and created by Chickasaw Nation writer Graham Roland, has been hailed as a tightly drawn and absorbing thriller that combines traditional Native rituals and heritage with a 1970s world — something non-Native audiences have responded to in large numbers. Zahn McClarnon, who is half Lakota and appeared in Westworld's first season as well as in FX's second season of Fargo, stars as Sheriff Joe Leaphorn, and he also executive produces the series. The cast is also mostly Native actors, many of whom are making their screen debuts. Another success came in Peacock's streaming sitcom Rutherford Falls, which boasted the largest writers room of Native American talent in history, but was canceled after two seasons due to setbacks from the pandemic. FX's Indigenous comedy-drama Reservation Dogs, however, created by Seminole Nation filmmaker Sterlin Harjo and New Zealand's Maori filmmaker Taika Waititi, has been a sustained hit and was recently renewed for a third season. Reservation Dogs focuses on the contemporary experiences and social takes of a group of Indigenous teenagers who would do just about anything to get out of their boring, dead-end town — a familiar trope, except this time, that dead-end town is an Oklahoma reservation. It's also filled with traditions, myths, potential magic and harmless back-alley territory scraps that lend themselves to the tongue-in-cheek title nod to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. The program has thus far received a Peabody Award and the American Film Institute named it one of the best television programs of 2021. The dark comedy also breaks new ground by featuring all Indigenous writers and directors, a soundtrack composed of popular songs by Native artists, and an almost entirely North American Native cast and production team. Paulina Alexis, left and Devery Jacobs, Reservation Dogs. FX ON HULU 62 SAG-AFTRA | Fall/Winter 2022 | sagaftra.org