Dark Winds is a thriller series airing on AMC, starring Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon and produced by Robert Redford and George R. R. Martin. Created by Graham Roland, it is an adaptation of the Leaphorn & Chee novels by Tony Hillerman.
The first season, which aired in 2022, is based on the novel Listening Woman. When a witness to an armed robbery is found dead on a Navajo reservation, FBI Agent Jim Chee is deployed to investigate, and is reluctantly paired with local officer Joe Leaphorn.
In 2023, a second season was released, this time based on People of Darkness. Some time after the events of the first season, Leaphorn and Manuelito continue to work together, while Chee has left the FBI to become a private investigator. When a car bomb kills cancer patient Emerson Charley and injures Emma Leaphorn, Joe and Manuelito are drawn into the orbit of the People of Darkness, a strange cult that is somehow tied to Joe's dead son. Meanwhile, Chee has been hired by a wealthy wife to recover a box... which also happens to be connected to the People of Darkness.
This series contains examples of:
- The '70s: The show starts in 1971 on a Navajo reservation. Period events like the Vietname War, the conflict which Native Americans have with the US government over various things, and some white doctors in the Indian Health Service secretly sterilizing Native women all play a part.
- Action Girl: Bernadette Manuelito is one of Leaphorn's officers. She's equally tough as him and Chee, her male colleagues, coming to rescue them when they get in a fix during Season 1. Manuelito uses her gun very skillfully on the show.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: The show's version of Jim Chee was taken out of the reservation at an early age, and grew up in the white man's world. Much of the novels' Chee's conflicts came from his desire to live a traditional Navajo life and become a medicine man. The latter trait is carried over, as Jim recognizes ritual artifacts at a crime scene.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Chee didn't appear until People of Darkness, the fourth novel in the overall series and didn't team up with Leaphorn until Skinwalkers, the seventh.
- Bernadette Manuelito was not introduced in the books until Spider Woman's Daughter in 2013, and never really served alongside Leaphorn, as he was left disabled in Daughter, but in this series, she serves alongside both Leaphorn and Chee on their first case together.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the original books, Leaphorn and Manuelito have no real relationship, as she joined the series just as he exited it. In this series, Manuelito was raised by Joe and his wife.
- Adopted to the House: Joe and Emma Leaphorn adopted Bernadette Manuelito when she was young and her parents died. In the present, they take in Sally Growing Thunder.
- Advertised Extra: Rainn Wilson shows up heavily in all the promotional materials, but ultimately only has one significant scene in the six episodes and is a relatively minor part of the plot.
- Affectionate Nickname: Bernadette Manuelito is called "Bernie" or "Bern" sometimes by friends.
- Alliterative Name: Dan DeMarco, or Devoted Dan. There's also victim Anna Atcitty.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Sally lives with her mother alone. Her father is not seen or mentioned.
- Badass Native: Most of the cast are Navajo, while the tribal police are the series' main characters. Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito, are all tough, competent Navajo cops. On the antagonist side we get people such as Frank Nakia in Season 1, a Navajo and decorated Vietnam veteran who has become a skilled criminal.
- Bad Habits: James Tso impersonates his twin brother, a priest, as cover while he commits bank robbery, kidnapping and murder.
- Big Bad: BJ Vines, especially in Season 2, where he's revealed to have been behind the Drumco explosion.
- Bittersweet Ending: Season 2. Vines faces "Indian Justice" at Leaphorn's hands and is either going to freeze to death or be arrested for skipping bail. Chee rejoins the police department but Bernadette leaves to go take her Border Patrol job.
- Black Magic: Ada practices witchcraft, which involves using magic to harm people per real Navajo belief (usually aided by something like their hair).
- Canon Foreigner: Joe and Emma were childless in the novels, but in this version they had a son, Joe Jr., who died in an accident.
- The Cavalry: Manuelito rescues Leaphorn and Chee when they get pinned down by Frank in Season 1.
- Child by Rape: Sally Growing Thunder's unborn child was the product of a rape by James Tso.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Chee and his mother were cast out when he was a kid after his mom fought back against an abusive paramour.
- Manuelito was sent away to an abusive residential school. While she was there, her parents got sick and died sealed up inside their hogan, leaving her an orphan.
- Death by Racism: Whitover gets shot dead by Guy Atcitty right after calling Guy's daughter a "two-bit whore".
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- The series explores the racial tensions between white people and Navajo in the 1970s, with the FBI and the Navajo Police working at cross-purposes to each other, to the extent that Jim Chee is sent undercover because his superiors at the FBI don't trust Joe Leaphorn to properly investigate their case.
- A subplot in season 2 involves a white reporter investigating rumors that native women are being sterilized under the Family Planning Act. This brings her into conflict with Emma, whose efforts to prevent the sterilization of other native women means that she's also steering those women away from modern contraception. While Emma insists that her actions are preserving native women's right to choose whether or not to have a baby, Sally calls her out on this, pointing out that because of her, she's stuck with a baby that she never wanted, and her reproductive options are still effectively limited, because she can't stomach the thought of getting pregnant again and few men are going to want to raise someone else's kid.
- Designated Girl Fight: Bernadette Manuelito, the female police officer on the good side, goes to arrest Ada, the Wicked Witch with the bad guys. This results in a vicious fight between them and ends with Ada's death in a fire.
- The Determinator: In "The March", Joe is so dead-set on capturing Colton that he jumps down a sheer cliff just to get the jump on him, even though he shatters his wrist in the process. Once he manages to tie Colton up, he forces him to march through canyons, intending to bring him all the way back to the station even if it kills them both.
- Dirty Cop: The penultimate episode reveals that Agent Whitover is part of Tso and Nakai's gang, having blackmailed his way in.
- Domestic Abuse: People quickly determine that Sally is being abused by her baby's father and the police investigate. It turns out they were never in a relationship - he'd raped her, which conceived her baby.
- Driven to Suicide: James Tso shoots himself offscreen near the end of Season 1, saying his cause will have a martyr by him doing so.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The blond hitman shows strong devotion to his mother, while he has no hesitation about killing anyone else if he's hired or preventing himself being caught. Subverted when it turns out that he shot her when he was a kid - it's unclear now if she's even still alive.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Frank Nakai doesn't like shooting other Navajo. He's also pissed when he learns that Tso let the racist Whitover join their gang.
- Fair Cop: Manuelito is a Navajo police officer, Chee an FBI Agent. Both are quite good-looking. Whitover later asks if anyone's told Manuelito she's too beautiful to be a cop, to which she says everyone has.
- Framing the Guilty Party: In order to cover up Guy shooting Whitover in cold blood, Chee and Manuelito drag Whitover's body into the cave and place it near Nakai's, while taking Guy's rifle and putting it in Nakai's hands, making it look like Nakai and Whitover shot each other.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Frank Nakia is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran. After coming home, he became involved with murder and bank robbery as part of the radical Buffalo Society.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier:
- Emma speaks in Diné with Sally while she's getting an exam at the Indian Health Service clinic by a white doctor. Both of them actually speak fluent English-this is a way Emma has to warn Sally against giving birth there, as if she does the doctor would illegally sterilize her afterward, which Emma herself suffered after having her son.
- Chee later warns Manuelito about Whitover being dirty over the radio in Diné too, which he can't understand.
- History with Celebrity: Manuelito admits to Chee that she once had a fling with Elvis Presley, but makes him promise never to tell anyone.
- How We Got Here: Season 2 opens with Leaphorn and Manuelito trying to capture Colton Wolfe and instead being ambushed by him. The show then goes back six days to recount how they ended up in this situation.
- Hypocrite: Devoted Dan professes to be devoted to three things, the Lord, his wife and children, and giving people good deals on cars. In reality, he's been cheating on his wife for years, which is how he got blackmailed into getting involved with Tso and Nakai.Dan: I am weak when it comes to temptations of the flesh, okay? As well as gambling. And a bit of drinking.
- Impersonating the Evil Twin: Inverted. Father Ben Tso is actually being impersonated by his sociopathic twin brother James.
- It's Personal: After learning in Season 2 that the blond hitman killed his son, Leaphorn stops at nothing to bring him down, including being seriously injured while doing this.
- Just in Time: Manuelito arrives just as Frank Nakia is about to gun down Leaphorn and Chee, shooting him (not lethally).
- Locked into Strangeness: In "Ha'íínlni", Manolito ends up with a white streak in her hair after an encounter with the witch Ada. The streak goes away after she burns Ada's house down.
- Magical Native American: Tso and Nakai have a witch, Ada, as part of their crew. She uses a curse to put Wanda into a coma, then uses a spell to knock Manolito out so that she can break Nakai out of prison.
- Magic Realism: The series is set in the early 1970s on a Navajo reservation, with mostly ordinary things going on. However, in keeping with Navajo belief there is actual magic too, as one character is a witch who's capable of harming people using it.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The Navajo Police investigating suspected Domestic Abuse against Sally Growing Thunder reveals the Buffalo Society, a radical group who had committed the armored car robbery and murders which the series opens with.
- The Mole: Chee was sent by the FBI to infiltrate the Navajo Police and gather intelligence about an armed robbery, as his superior does not trust them to cooperate with the feds, but Leaphorn quickly pegs him as a fed and convinces him to instead use his FBI connections to help Leaphorn solve a local double homicide.
- The Needs of the Many: Frank Nakia repeatedly expresses displeasure at killing fellow Navajo. James Tso argues it's necessary sacrifices to save the rest.
- Never Found the Body: In the finale scene of season one, Leaphorn tells Chee that the police never found Frank Nakai's body. They also never recovered the money that Chee and Manuelito left in the cave.
- Never My Fault: Guy's hatred for Leaphorn stems from this. When the two got into a fight (that Guy had instigated), Guy tried to attack Leaphorn with an axe even though Leaphorn had stood down by that point and Leaphorn shot him the leg in self-defense. Guy of course acts like Leaphorn attacked him unprovoked and treats him like a monster for it. He finally owns up to his behavior in the penultimate episode.
- No Ontological Inertia: Wanda wakes up from her coma after the witch Ada dies, freeing her from Ada's curse.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Bernadette Manuelito is usually nicknamed Bern by other people.
- Outliving One's Offspring:
- Joe and Emma Leaphorn lost Joe Jr., their son, several years before the series starts. Both are still mourning him. It's particularly poignant as he was their only child due to Emma's being sterilizated illegally after she had delivered him.
- Anna's parents lose her in the pilot when she's murdered. Guy, her father, later apologizes tearfully to Joe Leaphorn for not knowing the pain he was suffering over the loss of his son, saying he does now after Anna died.
- Pædo Hunt: Whitover was able to blackmail his way into Tso and Nakai's gang because their original helicopter pilot was a pedophile who got caught with his stash.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: In the books a lot of the narrative is simply characters (mainly Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee) thinking about things while they are on very long drives across the vast Navajo reservation. In the series they put the three main protagonists of the books in the same setting and a lot of the drive time is spent with them talking.
- Protective Charm: Manuelito does some kind of ritual that wards off evil after Ada had tried to harm her with magic. She also tells Chee about having her medicine bundle at all times on patrol for this purpose as well, advising that he should go get one for himself.
- Resentful Guardian: In season 2, Sally has grown to hate being a mother, as her social or vocational prospects have been severely hampered by having a child, and she is heavily dependent upon Emma and Joe.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Buffalo Society are a radical Navajo group who want to end all exploitation against their people by white businesses and the US government. However, they will rob and murder to achieve this.
- Rite of Passage: In "K'e", Joe and Emma host their niece Nanoba's kinaalde ceremony after she experiences her first period.
- Running Gag: At several points, Joe goes to grab an RC Cola only to find that someone else drank the last bottle.
- Seen It All: Joe Leaphorn is a very experienced officer and knows a lot about the people he serves.
- Suicide by Cop: In the second-season finale, Sena relates how he once got called in on a domestic disturbance where the husband killed the wife while she was sleeping, then called the cops on himself, hoping that they would kill him. Disgusted by the man's cowardice, Sena obliged him, and it's haunted him ever since.
- Sympathetic Magic: Ada uses the hair of victims to curse them with her magic.
- Wicked Witch: Ada is a witch with a lot of the traits, though Navajo like most of the characters. She is rather unattractive, wears a black dress, lives off by herself with her daughter and uses her magic to harm others for her evil comrades, usually by something from them like hair.
