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 gave its heroes their due. And then the new fourth season, now streaming on AMC+, unwound it all again. Series star Zahn McClarnon’s Navajo Tribal police officer Lt. Joe Leaphorn faces his toughest–and strangest–threat yet after a young woman goes missing from the reservation and is kidnapped. The spirit world of last season shifts to co-star Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee, who must decide whether or not to embrace his ancestral past, and whether he is man enough to work for his girlfriend. That’s badass heroine cop Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito, played by Jessica Matten, who broke off her relationship with Chee and moved away to pursue a job with border patrol, but has now returned. Will they stay together?
The series is a hefty project adapting Hillerman’s novels, with producers including the late Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, novelist Anne Hillerman (who wrote later novels in the series), and many others.
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 as was last year’s–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.
The central personal conflict for Joe continues from last year. When two main characters have a dispute it doesn’t usually stretch over two seasons. But Joe Leaphorn’s wife Emma, played by Deanna Allison, is evidently done with him for good. Joe is practical, Emma is spiritual. But why did they take an entire long marriage for them to figure that out? The scripts spend more time with that struggle as Joe, with Jim and Bern in tow, goes off to Los Angeles in search of the missing young woman. And Emma happens to live there. The spat of these beloved characters is bogging down the fun that viewers flock to the show for.
The “big bad” this year will be a welcome surprise for genre fans. That’s Franka Potente as Irene Vaggan, a hitman charged with eliminating loose ends related to a looming federal trial of Titus Welliver’s character Dominic McNair. Potente (The Bourne Identity, The Bridge, Psych, The Shield) is perfect for this strange role, where she must look after an ailing grandfather (played by Udo Kier) between murdering people, and she seems to fall in love with Joe and ultimately kidnaps him to make him her own. It’s creepy stuff, and also brilliant.
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 catapulted into something great. McClarnon and Martinez had an electric rapport together on Longmire, but it was like the beginning of two old pals solving crimes 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, magic happens. And then in the fourth season finale, the writers destroy it all.
Expanding the format from six to eight episodes was a great and appropriate move, giving the series adequate time to tell some good stories of law and order in the 1970s Southwest. But it’s time to switch to a crime of the week format so we actually get to enjoy watching Joe and Jim and Bern work together. That’s why we’re all showing up to watch the series. The season long arcs don’t have the necessary excitement for a series and concept that is this good.
New supporting cast members this season in addition to Potente are worth watching, including Luke Barnett as FBI Special Agent Toby Shaw, Isabel Deroy-Olson as the kidnap victim, and Chaske Spencer (Echo, Jessica Jones, Longmire, Twilight) as Sonny Bear Heart, a character Chee works well with undercover briefly.
Even with its faults it’s one of the best dramas–and Westerns–around. If it is going to make it to seven seasons–putting it on par with police procedural Shetland and on track to be the next Longmire or Bosch, it needs to infuse some spark back into the scripts. But killing off the most promising supporting character of the series lets the wind out of the sails coming into the next season, and it blows the opportunity to just let Joe and Gordo have some episodes of their own together. The final scene with Gordo trying to engage Joe is just a gut-punch to fans. Why go there?
All four seasons of Dark Winds are now available on AMC and Netflix. Look for Season 5 in 2027.
