It can be thrilling to watch an actor who understands that showy performances aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. That smaller, more nuanced choices can hold the screen with just as much magnetism. Sometimes even more. That’s always been one of Zahn McClarnon’s underrated strengths, and after a long career of standout supporting roles on “Westworld,” “Fargo” and “Longmire,” he has rightfully assumed his place as a leading man playing Lt. Joe Leaphorn on AMC’s “Dark Winds,” back for a third season.
The 1970s-set police procedural, based on the crime novels by Tony Hillerman, is also a moody and atmospheric psychological thriller that takes advantage of its dusty Southwest setting. The Navajo Tribal Police are called out to one such barren location, where a boy’s bloody bicycle has been found. What happened? As Leaphorn tries to find out, his efforts are complicated by the arrival of an FBI agent (Jenna Elfman) who can barely hide her condescension when she tells him, “I’m just here to button up a few open cases on the reservation.” But Leaphorn has other distractions as well. His marriage is becoming increasingly strained thanks to a skeleton in his closet — or more literally, a body in the desert — that threatens to come out. There’s a terrible memory from his childhood that refuses to stay buried, as well.
All of this comes to a head on a dark night of the soul that is foreshadowed in the season’s opening moments. David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” plays as the camera slowly pans through the darkness, a fallen flashlight providing the only light. And then we see Leaphorn, sprawled on the ground, a dart in his neck. When he’s finally able to crawl to his radio, he gasps: “Send everyone. Now!”
The show (created by Graham Roland, with executive producer Robert Redford popping up for blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameo) flashes back one week to the discovery of that bloody bicycle. Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) is Leaphorn’s loyal, if sometimes hotheaded, right-hand man. In a parallel storyline, their former colleague Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) is now working several hours away as a Border Control officer, where she’s stumbled upon a trafficking operation. Could be people who are being trafficked. Could be drugs. Either way, her supervisor isn’t keen to have her investigate for reasons that are murky.
Her narrative is the weakest of the season (which draws from two of Hillerman’s novels, “Dance Hall of the Dead” and “The Sinister Pig”). How does this Diné woman feel about working for an agency enforcing borders that have been involuntarily foisted upon Indigenous people? I wish the show had explored some of those contradictions. But at least it offers this brief observation about police work more generally: “It’s impossible being a law man when our people get the punishment without the protection,” is how someone puts it.
Leaphorn is forever trying to keep everyone’s tempers in check as he goes about his day. He’s driven by curiosity rather than a need to prove his dominance over others. Tonally (and perhaps unexpectedly), “Dark Winds” has more in common with, and the deliberate pace of, British procedurals than it does your average American cop show. The quiet sounds are tantalizing, of boots walking on dry, rain-parched dirt and gravel, accompanied by the subtle jingle of the police equipment fastened to Leaphorn’s work belt. Occasionally, there are moments that verge on ironic humor. A man is suffocated with a plastic bag printed with a smiley face and the words “Have a nice day.” At one point, when Leaphorn pulls up at work, he sees his wife chatting with that suspicious FBI agent and his spouse cheerfully waves. He just stares back, dreading whatever is in store for him. It’s a droll moment. “You make a new friend?” he asks sarcastically when they’re alone.
“Dark Winds” can feel somewhat airless when McClarnon isn’t on screen. It’s a performance that carries the show, especially with Leaphorn so haunted by his choices. “When we are visited by monsters,” an elder tells him, “it’s a sign that something is out of balance in our lives.” But a vision from his dead father offers a different point of view: “There’s no such thing as monsters. There’s just people who do bad things, and other people who do bad things to stop them.”
“Dark Winds” Season 3 — 2.5 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: 8 p.m. Sundays on AMC (streaming on AMC+)
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
