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Mar 31, 2025 By Kyle Mullin Photography by AMC Networks Web Exclusive

Zahn McClarnon exudes as much leading man gravitas as ever in Season Three of AMC’s 1970s Navajo reservation-set crime drama Dark Winds. In the pulse-pounding cold open of “Ye’iitsoh (Big Monster)”, the season premiere, he fends off a merciless adversary while nursing a wound from a feathered projectile in a sequence that brilliantly subverts and updates well-worn bow and arrow cowboy-and-Indian tropes. Even more entertaining is his unearthing of overlooked clues at a harrowing new crime scene where two boys went missing in the Arizona desert. McClarnon (who long percolated as a character actor on Fargo, Westworld, and Rez Dogs) is relishing rich material playing Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. In his portrayal of the Native American police chief (who was the subject of Tony Hillerman’s beloved 1980s paperback novel series), McClarnon often makes facial expressions stony enough to give Dirty Harry a run for his money. When some levity is called for, he’ll rib his deputy and supposed former track and field finalist Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) for being outrun by a suspect.

As good as McClarnon is, he’s rivaled by younger co-star Jessica Matten. In prior seasons, she showed promise as tribal police sergeant Bernadette Manuelito. Now, after leaving Leaphorn’s squad this season for a post at border patrol, her character comes into her own. Though she made that move to roam beyond her dusty, crime laden Arizona reservation (despite her complicated romance with Chee), Manuelito is frustrated at border patrol. But, despite her conflicted emotions, she starts off looking nothing short of heroic–spotting a suspiciously abandoned van on one of her patrols, chasing down a Mexican mother and daughter who were in America illegally, wrestling a gun away from the mother, and bringing them both in. Before making the arrest, she realizes her own pistol went missing. That’s because the driver of the van had followed them, swiped Manuelito’s gun, and sped away, while the new border patrol officer was occupied with bringing in the mother and daughter.

All that leads Manuelito to deduce the mother and daughter weren’t trying to illegally immigrate, but were instead being trafficked. Not that her commanding officer cares. He instead condescendingly, and with no shortage of misogyny, tells Manuelito the case is closed. But just like Leaphorn, Manuelito is eager to dig in for a just cause.

McClarnon and Chee–in a parallel plot that I can’t wait to see intersect with Manuelito’s–search for two Navajo boys who went missing from the reservation, leaving behind a bloodied and chopped up bicycle. Grim as the scene is, McClarnon deploys the needed nuanced humor when pointing out to Sheriff Gordo Sena (A Martinez, of Santa Barbera fame) the evidence his fellow veteran cop failed to notice. There is considerable emotional heft in this plot as Leaphorn and Chee close in on the home of one of the missing boys, George Bowleg, whose father used to date and abuse Chee’s mother. After monotonically fumbling through too many early Dark Winds episodes, Gordon lights up the screen in these scenes .

Thankfully, Leaphorn is on hand to level Chee out. Not that the lieutenant is above reproach. After committing a grave transgression last season, Leaphorn is under the scrutiny of an internal affairs officer, Sylvia Washington (Jenna Elfman, Dharma and Greg). She quips that she lives up to her name because she’s a fed who just arrived from Washington, and she quickly plops behind a desk and begins rummaging through Leaphorn’s files. This gives McClarnon a chance to shade his typically heroic character with barely suppressed worry in scenes that push the series into compellingly complex grey areas.

Better still: early scenes at home of Leaphorn frying up eggs and sausage, then standing in the bathroom mirror as his wife Emma Leaphorn (a warm hearted yet stern Deanna Allison) braids his hair in the Navajo tradition. In fact, the season three premiere is overflowing with such scenes that deftly develop the characters, running the gamut from action packed to quietly contemplative. These make up for some shoddy staging and props during a scene that is meant to be a horrifying jump scare. Same goes for an unnecessary supernatural undercurrent that distracts from the compelling and realistic police work. But the performances, period details (including gorgeous vintage cars), and above all character arcs–not to mention some guest appearances by showbiz legends who will make your jaw drop, make the Season Three premiere of Dark Winds a strong early contender for best TV episode of the year.

Subsequent episodes don’t just maintain that momentum, they build on it. There’s a chilling scene in the second episode, “Náá‘tsoh (Big Eyes),” where a character is buried alive in a way that I’ve never seen on TV or in film. This is also impressive on an artistic level, given how well trodden tropes like that are in mysteries and thrillers. Better still, a morgue scene where the hardened Leaphorn allows a single tear to roll down his cheek, eloquently shot by director Michael Nankin (Battlestar Galactica). The subtext about missing and murdered indigenous women will make you well up as well.

Episode three, “Ch’į́į́dii (Ghosts),” is equally moving because of an inevitable conflict on the home front. The tension and hesitation between McClarnon and Alison as she learns about his character’s dirty police work, and his understandable (if brutal) reasoning, are among both actors’ best work yet. That’s saying something considering their dynamic is nothing short of lived-in.

That was followed this week by “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls)” penned by Thomas Brad and Erica Tremblay. The latter made a huge splash last year with Fancy Dance starring Lily Gladstone. Aside from reuniting Manuelito and Chee, the episode also features some excellent interrogation scenes between Leaphorn and suspects and witnesses, not to mention a couple of plot twists taut enough to leave viewers’ stomachs in knots. The supernatural elements that dragged otherwise excellent earlier episodes down are weaved far more intricately throughout “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls). The hallucinations of ghouls and insects are replaced with mundane (but no less eerie) flickering light bulbs that follow Leaphorn like a specter from one locale to the next, obscuring his vision during a hair-raising jumpscare.

The rest of the season will continue to reach those heights. Old school sleuthing and shootouts to character development and ambitious visuals (especially in upcoming episodes), Season Three of Dark Winds thrillingly defies expectations.

Author rating: 9/10