TV Talk: ‘Dark Winds’ roars back on AMC
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
Viewers may feel the impact of the concurrent writers and actors strikes in a few months, but this summer’s TV premieres continue apace, and the latest provides additional good news for crime drama fans.
Already there was the welcome return of the shrewdly plotted, engrossing “Justified” sequel series “Justified: City Primeval,” and now there’s the return of last summer’s AMC hit “Dark Winds.”
Adapted from stories and characters by the late Tony Hillerman, “Dark Winds” is set on the Navajo reservation in the 1970s and follows Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and his former deputy-turned-private investigator Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon).
Shepherded to the screen by Hillerman’s friends Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin (“Game of Thrones”), AMC’s “Dark Winds” isn’t the first attempt to adapt Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee stories — previously there was “Skinwalkers” on PBS in 2002 and theatrical release “The Dark Wind” in 1991 — but it is the most successful.
Even with a showrunner change (John Wirth succeeded season one showrunner Vince Calandra), “Dark Winds” remains an intriguing crime story with a novel setting. While the first season offered a great introduction, season two stands on its own for those who didn’t see season one. With the first episode of season two now streaming on AMC+ (new episodes appear there on Thursdays), “Dark Winds” has its linear season premiere at 9 p.m. July 30 on cable’s AMC.
The specificity of the show’s setting — and the show’s determination to avoid slowing down to clunkily explain some cultural references — benefits the storytelling, which begins with a scene of Leaphorn and Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) raiding a motorhome only to find themselves under fire. Then the story jumps back six days and introduces the main plot of the season involving a blond man on a murder spree. There’s also a wealthy family whose chain-smoking-while-on-oxygen matriarch (Jeri Ryan, “Star Trek: Picard”) hires Chee to recover a box stolen from her husband’s safe.
While season one evinced hints of a supernatural element at play, season two is more grounded as it picks up on a topic referenced but undeveloped in season one: the forced sterilization of Native women. Besides bringing an important issue to the foreground, this plot has the added benefit of giving a more substantial story to Leaphorn’s wife, Emma (Deanna Allison).
The show’s visuals also get an upgrade in season two, with several intricate shots that make an impact, including the unique point of view from inside a coffee vending machine in episode one. The second example comes in episode three during a conversation between Leaphorn and Emma about their son, who died in an explosion a few years earlier — an event referenced in season one that becomes more prominent in the season two plot. As Leaphorn and Emma talk unfocused in the background, the camera pans down a doorframe in the foreground where the parents marked their son’s height as he grew through the years. It’s poignant, resonant and effective.
There’s no question McClarnon is a fine actor — see season two of “Fargo” as Exhibit A — but it’s gratifying to see him in a leading role that allows him, in some moments, to be an action star. Yet it’s the quieter moments of contemplation about his son’s death, grieving with his wife or reconnecting with his father (Joseph Runningfox) that display McClarnon’s depth and range.
While some viewers are turned off by shows with short episode orders, “Dark Winds” makes a case for the six-episode season. Aside from a few repetitive cat-and-mouse moments between Leaphorn and the new Big Bad, “Dark Winds” benefits from its short run because it’s not bloated like so many streaming series are these days. The show makes every episode matter and keeps up a breakneck pace that relentlessly drives the story forward.