Everyone on Dark Winds is a little lost halfway through season three. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) is haunted by his actions, while his wife is unnerved by his admission about killing the man responsible for their son’s death. Emma (Deanna Allison, just sublime) can’t cope with it, leaving the fate of their marriage hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) are also in limbo when it co*es to their romance. Their reunion in “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls)” ends with his soulful plea for her to return home, only for Bern to make a case of building a new life for herself and go running into the bed of the Border Patrol co-worker who’s been asking her out. It’s safe to say that all four of them are in emotional crises and feeling exacerbated by the crimes around them.
“Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls)” quite masterfully brings everything to a head, though, intertwining Leaphorn and Chee’s investigation in the Navajo Nation with the case Bernadette is determined to crack 500 miles away at her new job. Through its anxiety-inducing central suspense, Dark Winds tells a truly gripping tale. The mystery is anchored in make-it-or-break-it moments for the protagonists. That’s why this AMC original stands out in the current sea of crime shows. Well, that and McClarnon, whose performance manages to raise the bar with each passing episode.
Joe Leaphorn has to handle a lot of problems, internal and external, in “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls).” He can’t seem to get over the fact that he’s responsible for B.J. Vines’ (John Diehl) death, no matter what he tells himself about getting justice for his son. He also has to listen to his rightfully pissed wife tell him he’s now tainted the memory of their dead child and invited Vines’ spirit into their home. I’m always appreciative of how Dark Winds brings Native American rituals and culture into the fold, and Emma’s perspective of this situation is rooted in that (as well as the fear of possibly losing her husband if he’s found out, of course).
To top it all, the FBI agent who has set up shop in his police station is onto Joe. Sylvie Washington (Jenna Elfman) is one smart cookie. Aware of Leaphorn’s history with Vines, she’s been subtly getting on his nerves for the first few episodes, hinting at how closely she’s looking into Vines’ disappearance. So when a skeleton is found in episode three, she goes all in assuming it’s him. After making Joe translate a witness’ account of the night Vines was left in that ravine, she directly asks him for his alibi. Joe lies and claims he was with Emma. By the look on Emma’s face when he tells her this, it’s not going to end well. I do think she’ll protect him, but she’ll also likely give him a reality check that what he did was wrong, especially for a police officer.
While that investigation is on, Leaphorn and Chee continue hunting down Michael Halsey (Phil Burke) after he drove off in his red pickup truck at the end of episode three. He’s the dude who oversaw a chili farm near the reservation, but it’s revealed that this is just a front to run drugs for oil baron Tom Spenser (Bruce Greenwood). Yes, it’s the same Spenser who lives in Bernadette’s new town and who has been the subject of her sneaky inquests. She’s convinced he’s up to no good, a theory confirmed when Chee visits her in “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls).” He drives down six hours (aww!) to see and warn her because he found a copy of her official Border Patrol ID photo at Halsey’s farm.
First of all, it’s a relief to see Gordon and Matten together on the screen again. They share an easy, warm chemistry that I’ve missed. And when their characters last left us in the season-two finale, they had finally kissed. But Chee’s visit is not romantic—at least not on the face of it. The two of them try to figure out what it is Spenser is up to (just like old times). It might not be trafficking, like she suspected, but he’s likely using his large oil trucks to smuggle drugs in from Mexico and then sending them to different places, including the res. And just like that, Dark Winds finds a way to connect its disparate stories with ease, bringing two of Tony Hillerman’s novels (Dance Hall Of The Dead and The Silent Pig) together.
The progress made here is excellently paced, especially because it builds up to the payoff in episode four’s closing scene. Leaphorn, after his arguments with Emma, heads off to the station to spend the night there. The only co*pany he has is Halsey, whom they nabbed outside of a motel per the guidance of his girlfriend, Suzanne (Casimere Jollette). (Joe saved her life after Halsey drugged her and left her at the farm, so she repays that kindness by giving up her abusive partner). But before Halsey can make a deal with the cops to give up Spenser as he promised, the lights go out in the station for the night. Thinking nothing of it, Joe makes the crucial mistake of venturing outside alone to fix it, leaving Halsey to be sliced and diced by Spenser’s goon, Budge (Raoul Max Trujillo).
Look, Dark Winds has had its fair share of scary villains, including the cold-blooded assassin Colton Wolf (Nicholas Logan) in season two. But there’s something far more chilling about Budge, who, as described by Spenser, is a man with no feelings. We saw this in last week’s episode when he told Bernadette with a creepy smile and dead eyes that she’s going to be a problem for him some day. The menacing way in which Trujillo plays this part adds to it. We don’t see Budge actually slit Halsey’s throat in “Chahałheeł (Darkness Falls),” but there’s no one else who could leave this much blood in his wake, right?
With that, Dark Winds sets up a particularly intense second half that connects Bernadette back to her hometown, pushes Leaphorn and Chee further into Spenser’s hellhole, and leaves Emma to pick up all the pieces.