‘Dark Winds’ Season 1 Ending Explained

The Big Picture

• Dark Winds
  is a 2022 TV show based on a series of mystery novels, mixing crime-solving with native culture and mysticism.
• Season 1 follows Leaphorn and Chee as they solve a double murder case tied to a bank robbery, with strong character development.
• The budding romance between Chee and Manuelito sets the stage for future seasons, offering sweet yet imperfect chemistry.

Based on the hit series of mystery novels by Tony Hillerman and his daughter Anne Hillerman, AMC’s Dark Winds is a hard-boiled thriller set on the Navajo Nation in the 1970s. Following Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Officer Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), the series dives into a murder mystery that is tied to a local bank robbery. With Dark Winds recently finding its way to Netflix, there’s no time like the present to catch up on the killer neo-Western, which has been renewed for an upcoming third season. But if you’re new to the Leaphorn & Chee game, then Season 1 is the best place to start, adapting the Hillerman novel, Listening Women, to the television screen. Here’s where the first season wraps up.

‘Dark Winds’ Season 1 Brings Leaphorn and Chee Together

Despite only Joe Leaphorn appearing in Tony Hillerman’s Listening Women, Dark Winds brings the iconic literary duo of Leaphorn and Chee together right off the bat. Jim Chee is inserted into the Navajo Tribal Police when his FBI handler, Leland Whitover (Noah Emmerich), forces him undercover to find a connection between a bank robbery in Gallup, New Mexico and a group of Navajo radicals called the Buffalo Society. Soon after the robbery, an older man named Hosteen Tso (Harrison Lowe) and a young woman named Anna Atcitty (Shawnee Pourier) are found murdered in a hotel room, a double homicide that promptly takes up all of Leaphorn’s attention. Though Leaphorn and Chee each set their sights on different aspects of the crimes at play — Leaphorn on solving the murders, Chee on dealing with the bank robbers — they end up connecting seamlessly in the end.

Along with Leaphorn and Chee is Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), a character introduced much later in the Hillerman novels but who is just as important as the trademark Dark Winds duo. Bernadette is often paired with Chee throughout the first season, and the two regularly find themselves debating the merits of Navajo spirituality. Chee doesn’t see the value in it, nor does he believe in supernatural curses or otherwise, but “Bern” is especially attuned to those elements of her people’s shared history and faith — so much so that when she encounters Ada Growing Thunder (Amelia Rico), the mother of the young Sally Growing Thunder (Elva Guerra), she believes that she has actually been cursed by the witch. Later episodes imply that she may very well have been.

But things get especially tricky for our heroes when Leaphorn and his allies find the helicopter used in the robbery is the late Hosteen Tso’s, well before his grandson, James Tso (Jeremiah Bitsui), arrives on the Rez pretending to be his Catholic priest brother, Benjamin. The charade works for a while until Leaphorn and Chee discover that James (who has been living with Ada Growing Thunder) wears glasses while Benjamin doesn’t. It turns out that James is actually the extremist leader of the Buffalo Society, and he’s been using locals such as Dan “Devoted Dan” DeMarco (Rainn Wilson) to launder the money he stole to finance his operation. After some stellar detective work, Leaphorn tracks James and his accomplice, Frank Nakai (Eugene Brave Rock), across the desert to a hideout in the mountains, all while Chee does some investigating of his own.

Chee Discovers His FBI Handler Is the Real Villain in ‘Dark Winds’ Season 1

It turns out, Chee’s FBI handler, Whitover, is also involved in this bank-robbing conspiracy and covering up the hotel murders. Having discovered that James Tso and his Buffalo Society were the culprits behind previous robberies throughout the American Southwest, Whitover strong-arms himself into the gang, receiving a cut of the earnings for keeping the feds off their backs. James doesn’t tell Nakai this though, and he and Whitover keep this dirty little secret. Whitover also covered up the death of James’s grandfather, Hosteen, who the radical bank robber despised because he had once sent James back to a Catholic boarding school against his wishes. This also meant that Whitover covered up Anna Atcitty’s murder, who was essentially collateral damage.

When Chee confronts his former superior red-handed, Whitover doesn’t try hard to deny it. Instead, he offers Chee deal after deal before recognizing that the young Navajo agent isn’t going to play into the old FBI man’s games. But before Chee can take Whitover in, the turncoat makes an off-handed comment about Anna that ticks off a nearby Guy Atcitty (Ryan Begay), Anna’s father, who kills Whitover suddenly and without hesitation. Guy had stumbled on the conversation after helping a Mormon man who had been kidnapped as collateral by James and Nakai. Judging wisely that something terrible would occur if he didn’t step in, Guy took it upon himself to step in.

Rather than let Guy take the fall, Chee convinces Bernadette to help him hide Whitover’s body (and the stolen money) back in the case that James had been hiding out in, a deception they keep even from Leaphorn. When they blow the cave up, they consider the evidence covered. It’s not until months later that Chee learns that Nakai (who they thought had been killed by Whitover) had survived his wounds and made out with the money. Despite one Buffalo Society member still in the (dark) wind, Leaphorn and Chee could rest knowing that the murders had been solved and the FBI traitor had been dealt with.

The Leaphorns Grieve a Loss of Their Own in ‘Dark Winds’ Season 1

One of the biggest plot points in Dark Winds is the death of Leaphorn’s son, Joe, Jr. Junior was involved in a jobsite explosion at the local Drumco mine which cost him his life. But what really irked Leaphorn was that Guy was given a prophetic warning about the mine explosion and only warned a select few, which didn’t include Joe, Jr. — despite the fact that Junior was dating his daughter Anna. This apparent betrayal sparked a thunderous conflict between Leaphorn and Guy that continued throughout the first season, though by the end, the two come to find peace with their respective (and similar) situations, each having buried their own children. But as Joe Leaphorn and his wife, Emma (Deanna Allison), grieve their son, another youngster finds her way into their home. Well, two, actually.

While working as a nurse, Emma meets Sally Growing Thunder, a pregnant teenager who had clearly been abused. When Emma asks her husband to investigate, Sally’s mother intimidates Bernadette. Believing the girl to be unsafe, Emma convinces Sally to move in with her and Joe, but is frightened when James Tso shows up at the Leaphorn household. It turns out, James is the secret father of Sally’s unborn child and had abused her unbeknownst to anyone. The season finale reveals that James himself had been abused at the Catholic boarding school, and thus became an abuser as a result. Recognizing his own moral failings, and that his plots have been foiled, James kills himself in the end, ignoring Leaphorn’s pleas for his life.

But before the climactic finale, Sally gives Leaphorn Frank Nakai’s name following James’s surprise visit. With this information, Leaphorn is able to make the impossible connections between James and Nakai, helping him to put the whole buffalo-sized picture together. Having lost a child of their own, Joe and Emma decide to take in Sally, who no longer has any safe family to help her through her teen pregnancy and into her future. Grateful for their help, the young mother notes that, once her baby is born, she wants to continue to stay with them, a wish that Emma Leaphorn is happy to grant her.

The Chee/Manuelito Romance Begins to Spark in ‘Dark Winds’ Season 1

One other important aspect of Dark Winds Season 1 is the budding relationship between Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. In the Hillerman novels, these two eventually marry and become the driving force of the mystery series once Leaphorn retires. This happened in the books once Anne Hillerman took over the series from her late father. But here on Dark Winds, all of that gets started right away. Despite their continual arguments about what it means to be a Navajo, there’s an undeniable attraction between these two that makes their love story so sweet, albeit imperfect. When Bernadette discovers that Chee is actually undercover FBI, the revelation both shocks and disgusts her, feeling betrayed considering how close they got. But in the end, Chee comes through and helps save her life.

There’s one beautiful moment in the finale that solidifies the bond between these two, and it’s when Bernadette confronts Chee concerning why he would come back after originally leaving the Rez. “You didn’t have to come back,” she tells him. “I know. But you’re here,” he tells her, echoing the same sentiment that she had offered him once before. Though their relationship isn’t exactly in the most healthy place following their shared deception and cover-up of Whitover’s murder, there’s a translucent connection here that we all see and instantly cling to. No doubt, the Dark Winds writers are trying to keep us invested as long as possible.

Season 1 Is Only the Beginning of the ‘Dark Winds’ Story

The Season 1 finale “HózhóoNaasháa” (which means “I walk in beauty”) is a major turning point for Dark Winds. Not only does it conclude the six-episode mystery, but it teases us concerning the show’s future. Leaphorn offers Chee a position on the Navajo Tribal Police, and having quit the FBI, the former agent is certainly interested (albeit a bit too non-committal). On the other hand, Leaphorn proves himself an excellent detective once again, revealing that he knows about Chee’s cover-up concerning Whitover’s death. Though he doesn’t bust him for it, or intend to, he understands the decision and still extends an open hand of friendship.

If the first season of Dark Winds does anything, it makes us wish that these seasons were longer. Six episodes is not enough, and though the entire mystery technically works, the season finale feels a little rushed in getting all the pieces together. Many of the show’s contemporaries, such as Longmire and Joe Pickett, had at least 10 episodes a season, giving us more time to digest these characters and exist in the world they inhabit. Of course, even in wishing there was more, Dark Winds Season 1 gives us just about everything we could ask for from a Navajo-centric mystery thriller, leaving plenty of doors open for more.

Dark Winds is available for streaming on Netflix.

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