Navajo Nation cop Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) is in the middle of Monument Valley, and a storm is brewing. With him is a biker, sweating as he digs what, initially, appears to be a grave. This looks like frontier retribution, a criminal buried in the desert following some locally imparted justice until you realise the biker is being forced to bury stolen artefacts. Although Leaphorn’s manner suggests, this could easily have gone another way.
At the same time, in New Mexico, a small team of bandits hold up an armoured car and make off across the Navajo Nation in a helicopter, while in a grubby motel room, an old man and a teenage girl are brutally killed.
It is quite the opening to this 1970s-set drama and perhaps one the series struggles to live up to.
That everything is connected is no surprise, but Dark Winds treads a rather convoluted path towards resolution. Many pieces and plots are in play, from the death of Leaphorn’s son some time previous to his new partner Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), an ambitious FBI agent with an agenda. We’re introduced to a preaching, promiscuous car salesman fronting a money laundering scheme and the Buffalo Society, an extremist Navajo group.
There’s a lot for one season to manage, and you may sometimes wonder which thread you’re currently watching, but Dark Winds is atmospheric stuff. Every character with their differing motivations feels real. The Native American community, their challenges, beliefs, and fight for justice as engaging as it is relevant.
Maybe there really is something in the wind.
DARK WINDS Season One is out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
