The third season of AMC’s crime noir, Dark Winds, opens with an ominous scene. Instantly setting a horror tone, we see our Navajo Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn lying unconscious in the desert night. He gradually awakens but struggles to stand, alluding to possibly being poisoned or drugged. Joe drags himself across the ground, paralyzed with fear, to turn off his scattered flashlight. He senses something out there in the darkness, when suddenly the shadowy silhouette appears.
Time rewinds seven days as Joe learns about a missing Navajo child named Ernesto. He meets fellow officers Jim Chee and Sheriff Gordo Sena to survey a disturbing scene. Another student, Bowlegged George, was the last to see him. They travel to school to interrogate George, but the young boy evades them.
Our location shifts 475 miles away as Bernadette Manuelito now serves as a US border patrol agent. She stumbles upon an abandoned white van and finds an armed mother and daughter running in the opposite direction. She eventually convinces them to follow her to the station. Amid the chase, someone absconds with her weapon. Bernadette seeks to follow up on the two runaways’ condition but she’s told to ignore the situation. The mother and daughter are taken back to Mexico, but Bernadette suspects a threat closer to home.
Leaphorn and Chee question Shorty, the missing boy’s father. A former classmate of Jim’s, the two hold bitter animosity for each other, making it hard to get clear answers. Instead, they interview George’s brother who states a monster took Ernesto.
The episode introduces one of the season’s new characters, FBI agent Sylvia Washington. She has traveled to Arizona to wrap some open cases. She’s particularly interested in the whereabouts of Mr. BJ Vines, the rich rancher who crossed Leaphorn in the past.
Later, Leaphorn learns George and Ernesto assisted at an archaeological dig led by Dr. Reynolds and his assistant, Teddy Folsom. Teddy relays they had a falling out with the boys and dismissed them from the dig site. This pushes Joe and Sheriff Sena beyond the site to an abandoned drain tunnel, where they make a horrible discovery.
The series has dabbled in the supernatural before, but this mystery alludes to an entity stalking the reservation for blood. This paired with Leaphorn’s past regarding Vines should make a thrilling season. Elfman is a pleasant surprise as many may only know her comedic chops. Her character seems like a strong obstacle Leaphorn wasn’t anticipating. There were questions on how to continue Bernadette’s story removed from the reservation, but the writers managed to have her present with a case of her own, giving her a bit more agency.
Rating: 8/10