After the pretty remarkable one–two punch that started the fourth season of Dark Winds, it makes sense that the writing would settle in for something of a transitional episode, one that works primarily to define the increasingly twisted dynamic between this round’s cat and mouse: Zahn McClarnon’s Joe Leaphorn and Franka Potente’s Irene Vaggan. While that dynamic is unfolding to a very weird place by the final scene, Jim Chee is going through something troubling himself. Not only does he appear to have been stricken with ghost sickness—physically impacted by the death that has surrounded him in the last couple days—but he’s hit with the truth that the two most important relationships in his life are not exactly what he thought they were.
When Jim finds out that Joe chose Bernadette over him to be the next police lieutenant, Kiowa Gordon plays the discovery like a physical blow, a punch to the gut. The writers and Gordon are smart to not overplay the potential chauvinism of the revelation. Jim Chee loves and trusts Bernadette Manuelito. He might have actually been convinced by Joe that she was the smarter choice to be the next lieutenant. What hurts isn’t being passed over for the promotion; it’s that Joe didn’t tell him. Is it believable that Bernadette would drop that bomb on Jim in the middle of an exhausting case that kept them up all night? Wouldn’t she have just insisted that Joe finally sit him down and tell the truth? Maybe, but it’s a forgivable writing shortcut for a show that rarely takes them.
“Ahááldláádígíí (That Which Has Been Torn Apart)” opens by revealing that the hunt that ended last episode also took the life of Albert and Billie’s grandfather, a respected elder. Joe is startled to discover that Irene took the time to do her best to perform a Navajo ceremony on her victim’s body, revealing that she may not be a traditional cold-blooded assassin. We also learn in these early scenes that Irene took a photo from Albert’s body, which we later learn is connected to her real target: his cousin Leroy.
These opening scenes illustrate the attention to detail in Dark Winds that separates it from so many lazy procedurals. Jim Chee has been up all night, chasing Irene across the region and now likely afflicted by ghost sickness. Unlike most shows in which heroes never reflect the human condition of exhaustion, Kiowa Gordon looks like he has deep bags under his eyes and a large sweat mark on his back. He’s been through the physical and emotional wringer, but the production doesn’t draw attention to it through dialogue but rather physical choices.
It’s funny that shortly after seeing Chee’s back sweat, Leaphorn tells him he needs a real one to break the ghost sickness that’s haunting him. While he pushes the idea away, the scene back at the station makes it clear that Joe’s right. In another great directorial choice, Billie is told about the death of her grandfather in the background, unfocused, while the focus remains on Jim in the foreground, so slumped over his desk that he would fall to the ground if it weren’t there, blood dripping from his nose. It’s gonna be a rough season for Jim Chee.
The investigation reveals that Irene is not there for Albert or Billie but for her brother Leroy. Albert broke Billie out of St. Catherine’s to find him, and they had been hunting the region for the nomadic sibling. That’s who was in the photo that Irene took off Albert’s body. Meanwhile, Irene gets closer to Joe, breaking into his house and looking at his belongings while he surveys the scene from which she had a sniper scope view in the premiere.
The big investigative turn this week comes when Bernadette and Jim find a guy who claims that Irene has been searching the region for much longer than when Albert got to town. It turns the dynamic a bit in that it’s not that Irene was chasing Albert before he grabbed Billie but that Albert was trying to get to Leroy before the assassin. In a sense, he was following her and using Leroy’s sister to try and find him first.
The two big beats of the episode come in the back half. In the first, Bernadette tells Jim about the promotion, knowing “you’re not gonna like it.” He gets emotional and storms out, getting hit in the car by the ghost sickness. He rushes to Joe, where Gordon sells an angry, emotional scene. He saved Joe’s life. He protected Joe from the authorities. “I woulda done anything for you,” he says. Again, it’s more about not being told than being passed over, and that hurt makes Jim a little cruel, calling Joe a liar to everyone, even his wife. Joe may be right that “Bern is the right choice,” but he undeniably handled this one poorly, too, distracted by his own new life of loneliness to consider Jim’s feelings.
The other crucial sequence is, of course, the last. By now, Joe has determined that Leroy probably went back to Los Angeles, but they don’t have the resources to follow him or the woman who’s on the hunt for him. As he’s about to do a sweat of his own, he pauses to see what looks like an elk nearby before he hears the cock of a gun. He turns to see Irene, who seems to have a twisted respect for Joe, calling them “two opposing forces in a spiritual union.” As she holds a gun on him, she kisses him before slinking back over the horizon. Things are going to get weird on Dark Winds.
Stray observations
- • This one has a slightly different visual language than the first two episodes, a bit grainier, darker, and edited with more of a ’70s drama or thriller rhythm. It’s effective.
- • “The only thing better than solving crimes with the woman I love would be coming home to her at night,” says Jim. He can be a real sweetheart, which is going to make the emotional nightmare he’s about to go through all the more impactful.
- • Bern has an effective, tender scene with Billie when she’s told she’ll have to go back to the abusive, awful school from which Albert broke her out. Of course, she won’t go. She escapes in the middle of the night. Bern’s emotional connection means at least she is going on a road trip soon to the City Of Angels. Can a physically, mentally, and emotionally devastated Jim Chee even make the trip?
- • Why an elk? It’s not just a distraction so Joe doesn’t see Irene on the other horizon. The elk represents strength and endurance in Native American culture, making it a symbol for the one-on-one that unfolds between two other solitary, strong figures. The most interesting question for the next five episodes is how Joe Leaphorn’s journey to capture Irene will bring him back the endurance that he lost when his wife left. He’s the elk, searching for his herd again.
Brian Tallerico is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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