Season three of AMC’s underrated “Dark Winds” opens with an image of the dark desert, illuminated only by a fallen flashlight. David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” bleeds into the scene, as the camera pans to reveal an unconscious Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) laying amongst the dirt. The camera pans away from his body, swirling and refracting until multiple versions of him appear on screen. As Bowie begins to sing about making the grade, Leaphorn gasps awake.
Picking up six months after the events of season two, this season sees Leaphorn and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) investigating the disappearance of two fourteen-year-old boys. Leaving in their wake nothing but a blood-stained bicycle, the missing boys spark an unraveling for not only Leaphorn himself but a community already teetering on the brink. 500 miles away, Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) is failing to settle into her new life working with the Border Patrol. However, she has bigger fish to fry when she begins to uncover a human and drug trafficking scheme.
When FBI agent Sylvia Washington (Jenna Elfman) comes to town, Leaphorn finds his leadership being questioned and his strength being tested more than ever. Adamant to uncover the disappearance of B.J. Vines (John Diehl)–the culprit who was responsible for Leaphorn’s son’s death, and whom Leaphorn left in the snowy desert to die–Sylvia pokes and prods at the history of the Navajo Tribal Police force, and the man in charge. Pushing her questioning aside, Leaphorn is committed to finding the missing boys, who undoubtedly remind him of his own son.
We watch as Leaphorn and Sheriff Gordo Sena (A Martinez) army crawl through opposite sides of a drain pipe, their faces only illuminated by the harsh yellow gleam of their flashlights, as the score hums and groans beneath their sharp breaths. Once both parties reach the center, the body of one of the missing boys comes hurdling down from above their heads, and in its rigor mortis-set mouth, they find an arrowhead. Leaphorn describes finding an arrowhead in the mouth of an Indigenous child as akin to seeing a Catholic defiling a crucifix. Thus, it is clear that the murderer is not one of their own.
Colliding with Bernadette’s storyline following the trafficking of Mexican women and workers, lines between the people of the Navajo Nation and the outsiders who are eager to occupy their land become more crossed than they’ve ever been. At the center of this is Leaphorn’s growing guilt surrounding his final showdown with Vines last season. The freedom he thought he would gain by killing the man responsible for his child’s death moves further away with each passing day. Replacing it is a feeling of overwhelming dread that manifests in apparitions and whispers, haunting Leaphorn while he tries to solve a case that hits too close to home. His quest for vengeance has left him cracked open and hollowed out, and McClarnon shapes this weary version of the series protagonist into the most fascinating version yet.
“Have you been seeing monsters?” Leaphorn’s mother asks him one day, to which his resulting silence acts as an admission of itself. This brooding silence overtakes him for the majority of the season, with McClarnon using slight movements in his eyes to truly convey the anguish Leaphorn is trying to keep buried deep within himself. It bursts out of his chest during a confrontation with his wife Emma (Deanna Allison) towards the end of Episode 4, in which he tries to unveil how he’s coping—or rather not coping–with the secrets he’s been carrying. This episode and the ones that follow prove that McClarnon is a singular performer in modern television, one who, with each season of “Dark Winds,” gives a more heart-wrenching performance than the last.
In moments like this, the series proves itself as a piece of visionary art in a landscape desperate to turn out content instead of creativity. The show’s magnetic central performance is paired with a cinematography that captures the beauty and horror of these rural landscapes, cameras placed inside of trucks as we watch Leaphorn and Chee run past dirt-stained windows or directed at puddles of water which reflect the image of Leaphorn with his gun drawn back to the audience. This mastery is only rivaled by AMC’s other genre venture, “Interview with the Vampire,” which, along with “Dark Winds,” is deserving of accolades that the general public, unfortunately, isn’t ready to give them.
Although season three starts off slower than the previous two, this languid pace allows this season to unfold into the series’ best. It comes to a head in Episode 6, a standout piece amongst an already strong season, that collides with the opening sequence in Episode 1. It’s here that “Dark Winds” proves itself as a series committed to examining each and every thread that has been explored–thoroughly or not. An unwavering understanding of grief and forgiveness is showcased through dream sequences that feel like a timely “Twin Peaks” homage, crafting visions that leave you contemplative and full of wonder.
Unafraid to dive head first into its fantastical and emotional core, “Dark Winds” feels like a miracle in the current era of television. In cracking open the emotional core of each of its characters, season three shapes up to be one of the most magnificent seasons of television released this decade. It feels as though many modern series falter as they continue on, but with a season four renewal announced earlier this week, there is no doubt that everyone involved in this series is determined to make it one that continues to outdo its previous ventures.
Six episodes were screened for review. Season premieres on AMC and AMC+ March 9.
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