Review by C.J. Bunce
After a promising first season and a lackluster second, the third season of the adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s Dark Winds finally gives its heroes their due. Series star Zahn McClarnon brings his Navajo Tribal police officer Lt. Joe Leaphorn full circle as he must face the death of the man he killed–B.J. Vines–the man who murdered his son. The series is a hefty project adapting Hillerman’s novels, with producers including Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, novelist Anne Hillerman (who wrote later novels in the series), and many others. Despite its large Native American cast, only this season does the show really lean into its cultural roots when Leaphorn is haunted by the ghost of the man he killed as he and co-star Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee pursue the trail of a missing local boy and the murderer of his friend.
At the end of last season, badass heroine cop Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito, played by Jessica Matten, broke off her relationship with Chee and moved away to pursue a job with border patrol. Created by Hillerman’s daughter Anne as an update to the stories after she took over the novels from her father, Bernadette became a high point for the show and her relationship with Jim Chee became a key attraction. So how does the series fare with its leads split up?
The writers made it work. The third season rose to become something better than before, as McClarnon, who has been a standout player in many series including Longmire and Echo, firmly settles into the role. The result is a relatable, memorable, quiet lawman whose confidence becomes both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, a lead Western hero from a similar mold as Walt Longmire. Dark Winds is both a classic Western with all the tropes, and scripts that consider modern sensibilities.
Above all the novels are mysteries, and this year’s mystery–although a bit on the preposterous side–is carefully served up bit by bit, creating a compelling, suspenseful atmosphere. Boasting one of television’s best theme songs, the series also balances the score of each episode with the action and drama, creating the best Western vibe since Longmire. That’s thanks to the musical family of Deana, Kevin, and Sean Kiner. One experimental episode mid-season sees Leaphorn return to the season’s opening scene, where he confronts an actual monster. In parallel a local religious woman narrates a tribal tale (cleverly interwoven as it is performed by two kids on a stage) to explain why Leaphorn seems to be trapped within himself, trapped with this monster. But is Dark Winds a supernatural mystery? Is something else going on here?
Season 2 didn’t quite capture the spark of the first, but with a bigger role for versatile TV icon A Martinez as Sheriff Gordo Sena, the series has catapulted into something great. McClarnon and Martinez had an electric rapport together on Longmire, but here it’s like two old pals solving a crime together again. You could imagine a storyline putting these two together as partners for an entire season as something epic. Every time they are together this season, magic happens.
Viewers will see a brief return of Jeri Ryan (Star Trek Voyager, Leverage). Series newcomers include Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek 2009) and Jenna Elfman (Dharma and Greg). Greenwood plays Tom Spenser, a wealthy rancher who Manuelito is investigating on the border. Elfman plays FBI Agent Sylvia Washington, sent to investigate Leaphorn for the murder of B.J. Vines. The season didn’t really need any guest stars, as McClarnon, Gordon, Matten, and Martinez carried the show just fine. More interesting is the missing boy’s father, Shorty Bowlegs, played quite stoically by Derek Hinkey.
Expanding the format from six to eight episodes finally gives the series adequate time to tell some good stories of law and order in the 1970s Southwest. The mystery of the season is layered, more than in previous seasons. In learning what happened to the missing boy, and who killed another boy on the reservation, Leaphorn and Chee reveal common threads between their case and Manuelito’s off-the-books investigation on the border. Along with looking at Native Americans in the 1970s, we also get a view of Latin Americans in the Southwest. Matten sees her tough heroine opening up to a new love interest (another cop, played by Alex Meraz), learning the ropes with a not-so-inviting new police squad and a disapproving boss, and finding herself confronting the series’ darkest and most loathsome villain, Budge Baca, played to the hilt by Raoul Max Trujillo (Blue Beetle). Her character has some commonality with Maddie Bosch on Bosch, and this season she is similarly buried alive. The writing on this series is good, but Bosch scripts continually featured more thrilling situations for its leads.
This season sees Dark Winds coming closer to becoming a series that may have the quality and drive to still be around for seven seasons–it’s on par with Shetland and on track to be the next Longmire or Bosch. The new season also features Carly Roland, Tonantzin Carmelo, Terry Serpico, Christopher Heyerdahl, and Phil Burke.
The TV and cinema history books will show this season as the final performance of Robert Redford. He appears in a cameo in jail with another inmate, played by George R.R. Martin. The series will not be winding down anytime soon. The next season will introduce Titus Welliver as a crime boss named Dominic McNair, and Luke Barnett as FBI Special Agent Toby Shaw. Viewers will also see how Leaphorn carries on without his wife Emma (Deanna Allison), who cannot handle living with a murderer. The first three seasons of Dark Winds are now available on AMC and Netflix. The eight new episodes of season 4 begin February 15, 2026.
