[I know I wrote
a week’s
series of posts on Longmire a couple
months back. But having now seen the show’s last season, I can say definitively
that a central wish
for the AmericanStudies Elves this year is for everyone to experience this
wonderful American cultural work. So this week I’ll make a relatively
spoiler-free case for doing so by sharing a handful of lessons we can learn
from characters on whom I mostly didn’t focus in that prior series. Add your
thoughts in comments, Longmire
Posse and everyone else!]
[Also: serious
Season 6 SPOILERS in these final three posts!]
On an iconic but
mythic Native American character, and how a flesh-and-blood human one took a
different path.
For the first
few seasons of Longmire, one of the
show’s most interesting and ambiguous characters was Hector (Jeffrey De Serrano),
a Native American former boxer turned vigilante who brought a rough but fair brand of
justice to the Cheyenne reservation and its residents and community when
the white legal system failed them (as it so often does). As such, Hector sometimes
found himself on the wrong side of Walt Longmire’s Sheriff’s department; but
Walt certainly did seem to understand and respect the need Hector filled and
the role that he played, and they not infrequently ended up being complicated
partners in Walt’s own evolving, tortured relationship to law and justice. Yet
despite these multiple important and interesting contributions to the show’s
plots, I would argue that Hector never quite became a character in his own
right, at least not a three-dimensional human one (the character traits that we
did learn all tended to connect to his specific role, such as his refusal to
kill any of his victims). That is, Hector remained fully and purposefully a
mythic figure, a legend, a folkloric avenger for whom the larger-than-life stories
seemed to line up more or less directly with the reality.
When Hector was murdered in
season 3, his death left a void in both the show’s storylines and the Cheyenne community,
and for at least the next season and a half (really more like two and a half
seasons in total) it was Lou
Diamond Phillips’ Henry Standing Bear, one of the show’s main protagonists,
who stepped in to become “the new Hector.” On the one hand this made a great
deal of character and narrative sense, not only because Henry and Hector had
been friends (as much as anyone can be friends with a myth) and frequent
allies, but also and especially because of Henry’s own clearly defined role as
a protector of the Cheyenne community (as I discussed in that last hyperlinked
post). But on the other hand, Henry is also one of the show’s most
multi-dimensional and fully developed characters, with a voice and personality
and identity and backstory (and wonderful
catchphrase, and total inability to use contractions, and etc.) that make
him as recognizably and deeply human as the best characters always are. So
turning our Henry into a legendary vigilante was at best a fraught endeavor,
and one that threatened to derail the broader character arc of one of the most
interesting and compelling characters and performances I’ve seen on television.
The showrunners
seemed to recognize that potential effect as well, and eventually moved Henry
away from his role as the new Hector. In the aftermath of that shift, and for much
of the final season, Henry didn’t have much to do, other than serving as the
continual sounding board and friend for Walt that he had always been. But by
the season’s and show’s end Henry had found a new role, as an even more unexpected
replacement for another character: this time for Jacob
Nighthorse as the owner of the Four Arrows Casino on the Cheyenne
reservation. Henry’s general aversion to the casino, and his friendship with
Walt who was thoroughly opposed to it, made this a surprising development (although
his time owning a bar made it perhaps a more logical transition). But at the
same time, whatever we might feel as individuals about casinos, there’s no
doubt that they have become of central importance to the survival and success
of Native American tribes and communities, a fact that both Jacob and the show
itself seemed to recognize. By taking over the casino operations, then, Henry
could be said to be fulfilling his role as a Standing Bear for
the tribe in a more 21st century and future-oriented way than the legendary
Hector ever could; and in his final scene in the finale he looked proud to be
standing tall on that casino and communal floor.
Last lesson
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other texts you wish we’d all check out?
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