Looking Back At ‘Dark Winds’ Season 1

When it comes to the FBI, Lieutenant Leaphorn (Reservation Dogs’ Zahn McClarnon) isn’t under any illusions. He knows they aren’t invested in finding out who killed Anna Atcitty (Shawnee Pourier) and Hosteen Tso (Harrison Lowe). They just want to know if their deaths were connected to an armored car heist that took place recently. The helicopter carrying the stolen cash was seen flying towards the Navajo reservation and it’s the money, not the murderer, that has the FBI concerned. For the case to be taken seriously it’s the tribal police, not the FBI, that are going to have to investigate, and that’s where Lieutenant Leaphorn comes in on the first season of Dark Winds.

The other big event that happens in the first episode is the arrival of a new deputy for Leaphorn in Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon). What’s great about Chee is that, while he fulfills the outsider role that a show needs at the beginning to act as an audience surrogate, he grew up on the reservation so doesn’t need everything explained to him. As a result, the show isn’t written to cater to viewers who might not be familiar with Navajo traditions. In episode two, for example, Longhorn’s niece (Makena Ann Hullinger) goes through a coming of age ceremony called Kinaaldá but instead of explaining every little thing that’s going on to viewers it’s more about learning through immersion and being ok with not understanding everything that’s going on right away, like the fact that Diné is the Native word for Navajo. The word is used from the beginning of the series (usually in reference to the Diné language) but it wasn’t until much later in the season that I understood what it meant, which goes to show how much you can take for granted. There’s no reason I couldn’t have looked the word up but I chose to rely on context clues.

Another aspect of the series that stands out is the allowance for the existence of black magic. Leaphorn’s second-in-command, Bernadette (Jessica Matten), carries a medicine bag and, instead of trying to cast doubt on her beliefs, the series keeps an open mind.

These days a TV show getting a Blu-ray release of any kind — even barebones — is cause for celebration (and relief in light of the recent rise in some streaming services dropping their original programs) so when I saw that Dark Winds came with a bonus featurette I went in prepared for a five minute video padded with clips that barely scratched the surface. What I didn’t expect was a proper behind-the-scenes video (approximately 30 minutes long) of the kind that’s rarely done for TV shows anymore. We’re talking cast members being asked about their process rather than just getting questions that regurgitate the plot.

The difficulty of the Diné language is brought up, as well as what it was like filming at Camel Rock, the first Native-owned film studio. Even executive producers, George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones) and Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) appear in the video. Martin used to attend a weekly writers meeting in Santa Fe founded by the writer of the Leaphorn and Chee books, Tony Hillerman, while Redford is interviewed by executive producer/director, Chris Eyre. While it’s mentioned that it took 30 years for the series to come together, the featurette doesn’t get into why it took so long.

At first I wasn’t sure why the series was set in the ’70s, other than the difference in technology, which is important. Nothing sells isolation than not being able to rely on a cell phone, but Dark Winds doesn’t always feel like a period piece (which says more about how Indigenous people are still mistreated today) and one reason I hadn’t considered until the featurette is that the Diné language was spoken more in the ’70s.

Dark Winds Season 1 is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from AMC Studios. Season 2 is currently airing Sundays on AMC and streaming on AMC+. If you love mysteries and/or TV shows like the equally excellent Reservation Dogs, the first season of Dark Winds isn’t even that long at six episodes and is well-worth the commitment.