Yo…

What is the Outer Range of Sheriff Joy Hawk’s patience when you treat her like just another Reservation Dog?

This is the TV Guide description of Outer Range now streaming on Prime Video: “Royal Abbott is a Wyoming rancher, fighting for his land and family, who discovers a mysterious black void in the pasture, following the arrival of Autumn, a drifter with a connection to Abbott’s ranch. While the Abbott family copes with the disappearance of their daughter-in-law Rebecca, they are pushed further to the brink when a rival family, the Tillersons, try to take over their land.”

That mysterious black void? Is a black hole...in the ground…in Wyoming.

How does a cattle rancher process that?

Policing the town where Royal and his dysfunctional family live is Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk played by Tamara Podemski and my guest on this episode.

Sheriff Joy is trying to keep the peace and gain enough votes so she can be re-elected as the town Sheriff. This is a Western and the Sheriff is not always welcome. Especially a Sheriff who is determined to pursue justice.You don’t need to be accountant to know things are not adding up in this small town. There’s a couple of other significant reasons why Sheriff Joy’s police presence is not appreciated and my attached charming conversation with Tamara explores that messiness.

Sheriff Joy wants to serve her town but many in town would rather serve her notice. It’s all upside down…

Outer Range isn’t sci-fi it’s an unsettling supernatural mystery; over the course of the first season’s 8 episodes there are murders, characters have gone missing and as viewers we still don’t know why there is a black hole...in the ground…in Wyoming.

Thankfully Prime Video has renewed the TV show for a second season. Whew…don’t leave me hanging.

As I conclude at the end of this episode: I hope I conveyed the darkness, the dysfunction and the drama of families trying desperately to hold onto disturbing secrets. As you can hear from this My Summer Lair conversation with Tamara Podemski this is a TV show about strong identities.

And this interview reflected that; I asked her about being a unicorn. Her father is an Israeli Jew and her mother is an Anishinaabe from the Muscowpetung band of First Nations people in Saskatchewan. That’s…well that’s clearly a unicorn. No matter how many parties you go to; you ain’t gonna run into individuals like that.

As a child of Egyptian parents I still don’t grasp hockey…like what is icing all about? With her background and her experiences I can’t even begin to understand how to process or even balance a Jewish First Nations identity. (Granted I struggle to understand icing in NHL games so I’m dealing with a host of ongoing issues.)

As you’ll hear when you press play…her response to being a unicorn is insightful and witty.

If a black hole in Wyoming is not your jam you can see Tamara as Aunt Teenie in 2 episodes of Reservation Dogs: Season 2.

Reservation Dogs follow the exploits of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma. However, the second episode Tamara appears entitled Wide Net in has quite a number of exploits of her own. Oh my. Prepare to blush. Aunt Teenie is wild so make sure the kids are out of the room. Season 2, episode 5. Enjoy.

Have you watched Outer Range? If you have any clue…any idea at all as to what’s happening do let me know.

Also acceptable? Explaining icing to me. Mysteries are a complicated magic.

Your body of work has no spine if your brain doesn’t listen to your gut. #pARTicipACTION

The Black Hole (a 1979 Disney movie) is terrible, avoid it at all cost...Sammy Younan-28-

Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.

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