‘Dark Winds’ Gives Zahn McClarnon an Overdue Spotlight: TV Review
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticEarly in the first episode of AMC’s new series “Dark Winds,” Zahn McClarnon’s Joe Leaphorn advises Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee about a way to get ahead when investigating crimes on a Navajo reservation.
Leaphorn’s been doing this for a while, and isn’t impressed by his new deputy’s credentials, or his naked ambition; sometimes, pragmatic approaches are best, so Leaphorn advises Chee to keep a carton of cigarettes around.
On the reservation, people will say more for a pack, he says, “than in an interrogation room.”It’s a nicely chosen detail — one that speaks to its setting, its time period (the show is set in the early 1970s, when the Tony Hillerman-penned book series on which it’s based first was published), and the dynamic between the pair.
Leaphorn is the wellspring of knowledge about law enforcement among the Navajo. And Chee, possessed with more ambition than street smarts, and happily ensconced in white America prior to being called back home, needs help relating to the community.
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