Dark Winds season 3 is going even darker. Things open at a secluded spot on the reservation at night. There’s a small beam of light from a flashlight on the ground. It illuminates Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) lying on the ground with a dart in his neck, the kind used to tranquilize animals.
Joe wakes up and pulls the dart from his neck. Injured and shaking he manages to crawl to his radio on the ground and tells the dispatcher to send help. He hears whistling and drags himself behind a rock. Then he hears footsteps that stop just on the other side of the rock. Slowly, Joe pulls himself up to look over the edge of the rock. He sees a skeletal face wrapped in a black blanket peering at him.
An ominous start. Here’s a full recap of Dark Winds season 3 episode 1.
A new case
From there the story rewinds to seven days prior. It’s morning and Joe is making breakfast. Emma (Deanna Allison) comes into the kitchen. Joe gets a call telling him it’s time to go to work.
He meets up with his deputy Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) and Sheriff Gordo Sena (A. Martinez) as his team are processing a potential crime scene. A 14-year-old boy, Ernesto Cata (Alonso Rappa), is missing. He spent the night with his friend George Bowlegs, but George turned up at school and Cata didn’t. They found a bike, with hatchet marks in the frame, and a lot of blood. Their primary suspect is either Shorty Bowlegs (Derek Hinkey) or his son George.
Chee and Leaphorn go to the school on the reservation to talk to George, but he gives them the slip and runs out of the school before they can talk to him, taking off on his bike.
Bernadette working Border Patrol
The story shifts to Hachita, N.M., where Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) has joined the Border Patrol. She sees a suspicious van sitting on the side road near the border. After calling in her position she approaches the van, gun drawn. There’s no one in the van, but she sees a mother and her young daughter running.
Bernadette goes after them. The woman pulls a gun, so Bernadette slowly takes off her gun belt and tries to communicate to the woman that she won’t hurt them. The woman runs again and Bernadette follows.
Eventually she catches up to the woman and her daughter. She brings them back to her vehicle to take them in, but her gun has been stolen from her gun belt on the ground. The white van drives off.
In the Border Patrol field office, Bernadette tells her boss (Terry Serpico) that she wants to question the woman and the girl more, but he tells her that they are being deported the next day and that the case is over.
Bernadette sneaks into the cell where the mother and daughter are to try and question them because she thinks they were being trafficked and she’s concerned other women are also in danger.
The mom and daughter don’t speak any English, and Bernie only knows a few words in Spanish. The little girl draws a symbol on a piece of paper and says “pig,” But that’s all the information Bernie can get.
The next day Bernie can’t let go of the feeling that there’s more going on, so she goes out on her own to try and find the white van.
The past returns
Leaphorn and Chee go to see Shorty Bowlegs and find out if he knows where George is. Shorty and Chee have a bad history, so Shorty is not inclined to cooperate.
When Chee and Leaphorn return to the police station, they meet FBI Agent Sylvia Washington (Jenna Elfman). She’s there to look into some cases on the reservation for the FBI, including the disappearance of B.J. Vines (John Diehl).
That night, Joe has a nightmare about a frozen B.J. Vines in the snow. Once awake, Joe notices the animals are very disturbed. He takes his gun outside thinking it’s a coyote, but there’s nothing there. Leaphorn is spooked. He hears a whistle, and he turns to see a skeletal figure wrapped in a black robe. At that moment Emma calls him, and the figure disappears.
Finding Ernesto Cata
The next day, Joe returns to the Bowlegs house to try and find George. George’s younger brother tells Leaphorn that Ernesto and George have been hanging out at an archeological dig site on the reservation. So, Leaphorn and Chee head up there.
The boys aren’t there, but researcher Teddi Isaacs (Carly Roland) knows them. She said the head researcher fired the boys after they fought and contaminated part of the dig. Teddi explains they are searching for lance points made by the Folsom people that would connect the Folsom and the Navajo.
Back at the police station, Leaphorn stares uncomfortably at his desk while Agent Washington works nearby. Sena calls with a lead on Ernesto Cata, so Joe meets him on a section of the road where a red truck possibly connected to disappearance was spotted. Together they trace the truck tracks and look for evidence.
Leaphorn finds a drainage tunnel with tracks near it. He and Sena crawl through the tunnel from opposite ends. Inside they find the body of Ernesto Cata, with a lance point in his mouth.
New episodes of Dark Winds season 3 premiere Sundays on AMC at 8 pm ET/PT. They also stream on AMC Plus.
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