‘Dark Winds’ Season 3 possibly provides the best episode of the year of TV

Joe Leephorn (Zahn McClarnon), Navajo Reservation Cop I Amcs Terrific Seventies Period Mystery Series Dark windis described by his long -time friend and colleague Gordo Sena (a Martinez) in the premiere of the third season as “the most skilled person I have ever met.” This is not hyperbole from a pediatrician; Everything we saw of Joe in the first two seasons, a figure suggested as indomitable – and for that matter as visually striking – as the sandstone buttons giving the show’s Monument Valley, which puts its name.

Therefore, it is so shocking and effective for season three to begin In Media’s resWith Joe in the middle of the desert at night, wounded, confused and afraid of a kind of monster to him. What could possibly have happened to this flinty statue of a man who has so thoroughly broken him?

Those who looked at Dark wind Season two – specifically the part near the end where Joe led the Millionaire BJ VINES, the man he held responsible for his son’s death, in the same desert at night and left him there to die of exposure (or worse) – already has an idea. Joe comes into the new season after committing the kind of crime he has dedicated his career to preventing. And even though he could justify it, or now, it clearly weighs on him and makes him far more likely to mistake than the master undermining we thought we knew so well. It gives a more unpredictable season and a new kind of showcase for McClarnon, who continues to give one of the best dramatic performances you’ll find everywhere on TV.

Once again, Dark wind Combines the plots of several Tony Hillerman novels with a combination of Lephorn, his partner Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) and his Protégé Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) – this time, DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD and Creepy pig. Because Manuelito spends the season in a new job, and in another place working as a border agent for the customs department, the mix of the stories – the one involving the murder of a boy on the reservation, the other about a shadowy businessman (the reliably Sleazy Bruce Greenwood) is smuggling across the border – is a little less grace than previous attempts. Chee is a little lost in the narrative as he travels back and forth between the two areas as a unifying element.

Still, McCLarnon is such an arresting screen presence, and even more in this extra-vulnerable state that any structural fuzziness doesn’t mean much. Other characters come and go from the story, including Jenna Elfman as the FBI agent trying to convince Joe’s wife Emma (Deanna Allison) to refute her alibi at night to Vines’ death, and Raoul Max Trujillo as Budge, a murderer from the Manuelito sub -plot that is styled as something of a dark Lephorn. But the attention always returns, as it should, to the actual LEACHORT, which is undergoing a rather dark phase at the moment.

The first two seasons were lean and swallowed at six episodes per day. But there is something to be said for the room area in a longer TV season, and by expanding this to eight episodes, Wirth and Co. Take breaks from the plot to deeper to explore both Joe’s Psyche and his Navajo Spirituality – in a show that has always taken the latter topic very seriously. The sixth chapter of the season is absolutely amazing as a wounded Joe either suffers from an extended hallucination or visits a long visit to the spirit world to count on a dark secret from his past that binds into several of the problems he has recently brought to himself. We are still pretty early in 2025, but it is definitely a challenger to this year’s episode.

With sequences filmed throughout the Navajo Nation, this is still one of the best prominent shows today. And the creative team continues to find great joy in placing classic Western tropes in a more native oriented context, like a scene where Chee runs to his partner’s rescue on horseback, the scoring sounds like something that wouldn’t be out of place in the classic films, the legendary John Ford (StageCoachAt The searches) Once shot in this same region.

When we see a frightened joe in the opening of flash-forward, he comes on the radio and asks for the police sender, “Send All. Now. “At that moment he needs help. But as the protagonist of this excellent series he requires no backup to take command.

The third season of Dark wind Debuts March 9 at AMC and AMC+, with episodes that release weekly. I’ve seen all eight episodes.