Inside that Heart-Wrenting Ending of ‘Dark Winds’ Season 3: “I Just Can’s

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Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) Has Been Through A Lot in Three Seasons of Dark Winds: He’s Rescued Countless Innocent Victims from Bad Guys, Strugmed to Find “Indian Justice” for the Murder of His Son, and Earned Broken Bones and Severd Lacerations in HIS DOGGGGGGGGGGA.. Community. But at the end of the Third Season, He Receives a wound that Cuts Even Deer: His Wife, Emma (Deanna Allison), Leaves Him Because She Can No Longer Bear to Live. by his work that her own needs are always an afterhought.

That’s not to say the Entire Season Finale Was Bleak. There Was Penty of Satisfying Action as Well, With Joe and Chee (Kiowa Gordon) Chassing Down Dr. Reynolds on a train to stop him from killing george Bowlegs, and Bernadette (Jessica Matten) extracting Herself from Certain Down Down-Drugling-Singing and Humggling Single-Handedly. Even Leaphorn Had Some Some Some, As Agent Washington (Jenna Elfman) Finally Droped Her Investigation Into The Murder of BJ Vines After Emma Backed Up Joe’s Alibi In A FINA.

To break it all all down, The Hollywood Reporter SPOKE SEPARATELY ON ZOOM WITH SHOWRUNNER JOHN WIRTH, WHO CO-WROTE The FINALE (WITH STEVEN PAUL JUDD), AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Christ Eyre, Who Directed The Hour. They Each Had Some Surprises to Share, Including Who Train Might Be Familiar To Anyone Who Jumped On The Barbenheimer Phenomenon More Dark Winds.

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There Was A Lot to Wrap Up Heading Into The Finale, and I Found myseldering How All the Problems Could Be Fixed, Given How Little Time Was Left in the Season. IT TURNS OUT THAT’S NOT REALLY WHAT HAPPENED, AS JOE AND EMMA ARE NOW SEPARATED. How do you feel about whohe we’ve left atm?

Chris Eyre I Was Astested As Anybody Else About How Joe and Emma’s Relationship Mended Itlf – or Didn’t – But I Was Hoping that It Did andnkFully I Got to Bast Bast Bot, Bast Bot, Bast Bast Bast Bast Bast. ANSWER IS I’M STILL TRYING TO Search What’s Going to Become of Them. In episode eight, wend with joe realizing he have to do more to get emma back and that’s kind of apropos of the fact that she’s a matrix and HimSelf. I was Really Torn by the fact that’re still not complely mended and healed. I THINK THAT’S APROPOS OF THE SERIES AND DRAMA AND REAL LIFE AND THE NATIVE-ESQUE PORTION OF THIS, IN THAT WE’RE TRYING TO CREATE THREE-DIMENSIONAL Characters. I’m still heartbroken that they’re not complely mended, but i have a lot of hope and i want to see wht happles for them especial.

IT’s Interesting Because It Ends with Leaphorn Listening to Emma’s Words On the Recorder and She was Protected Him, WHICH IS ALSO HEART WRONNING. She have not given away his Secret as his wife, but she needs human to become a better person. It’s Kind of Left with That, that Maybe He Can Become The Better Person That She Needs Him To Be. I THINK IS AMAZING MARRIAGE INSIGHT AND I’M SURE ISN’T FR FROM A LOT OF PEOPLE.

JOHN, WHEN WE SPOKE EARLIER IN THE SEASON, YOU MENIFO HOW INVESTED YOU ARE IN JOE AND EMMA’S MARRAGE. Is there some hope for them?

John wirtth I a tv show, so [unlike in] Real Life, They CastMembers, and Unlessa Something wastoning Was HapPening With Them Leaving the Show, It’s Likely They Going to Have Some Sort of A Relationship. It’s Hard to Dramatize a Relationship with CONFLICT ON Television; It Gets Boring Very Quickly. I am invested in that margin, and i enjoy writing it, and i enjoy of people writing it on the show.

This Story Just Seemed to Evolve and Go This Way as the Season Carred on And Got More Intense, and Especialy After Episode 306 [with Joe’s ketamine dream] WAS SO INTENSE AND Kind of A Break for the Leaphorn Character, It Just Made Sense that It Wound Back Back On the Margarige. I THINK IS LIKE WITH Any MarRIGE, YOU CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH, AND I THINK EMMA REACHED Her Breaking Point, She Was Just Like, “I Just Can’s.”

He’s a very strong Character, he goes his own way, he have a Code. We Explored this Idea That Big Sheepdog for The Navajo Nation and He Takes On Responsibilites Which Are Sort of Beyond the Pale for Mist Navajo Pople. They have a strong tradition and culture arounda, around how they interact with the concept of death and human beings that die and dead bodyies and so. On Behalf of His People, at the Expense of His Margarige, at Some POINT, AND AS WE SEE IT COSTS HIM.

I don’t’th he expectioned it, i don’t’t’t’tk she expectioned it, it just worked that way and it happled. IT GIVES US A LOT OF STUFF TO WORK WITH IN SEASON FUR: Are We Going to Break The Margin Apart, Are We Going To Mend It, Do They Get Back Together, Do They Start Dating Again? There Are So Many Options for Us Going Forward, Built Upon This Pyramid of Conflict. It’s Been Good for US as Writers, Thinking About What to Do With Them In Season Four.

I HAVEN’T READ THE BOOKS, But My UDERDANDING IS THEIR MARRIGE SHORYLINE GOES A DIFFERENT WAY. Are you creating this aspect of the story as you go along? [[Note: Book Spolers Ahead.]

Wirth Yeah, in the books she gets caner and Dies – she doesn’t die of caner, she dies of sepsis, I Think. If we have going to stick to the books, we would have done that and that dosn’t realy work for us. We have to try to someting else, and we do a lot of invention on the show. We Create Things That Aren’t in the Books Necessarily. The TV Show Has Really Become Something UNTO ITSELF. The books exist in their Own Little Universe, and We Now Have Our Own Little Universe. We’re Very Much Based On the World That Tony Hillertman Created, The Characters, But Even If We Are Adapting A Novel, We Do A Lot of Inventing Toterst. and we’re servicing all of these people, so then change, in a good way i hope.

Chris, you Talked About Trying to Create Three-Dimensional Native Characters. WHEN I SPOKE TO Jessica Matten for Episode Four, She Talked About Your Long History of Bringing Native Culture to Mainstream Audiences, Going Back To Your Film SMOKE Signals in 1998. Can You Talk About Who’s So Important To You and Wether You Feel Progress Has Been Made Over The Years?

Eyre I Didn’t Really Think of It As Such A Revolutionary Thing to Put Native People Onscreen And The Further I Got Into My Career As a Filmmaker, The More It Dawned On Me, And Iner. HAD MUCH PROGRESS WITH [representation of] Native People in the Big Screen and Small Screen in the 100-Cane Years of Movies, WHICH IS KIND OF CURORIES. We’ve Always Been Savages or Nobles or Antagonists, and Before Things Like Dances with Wolvesthere was not Much Insight Into Who Native People Might Be.

My First Movie, SMOKE SignalsWas One of the First Three-Dimension Looks at Native People Just Being People. The fact that’s abnormal to show onscreen is kind of curious to me, it always have been.

My Goal, I Tease and Say It’s “Brown, Round” (Laughs) Because My Face Is Brown and Round – Like [showing] Brown, Round Faces Onscreen. I joke about that, but it shouldnn’ be an absent. We Were Some of the First People in Moving Images in 1894 with Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, and in Times Square Square Square Penny Movies [showing ceremonies and dances] that he have shot and taken to the east coast. So we’ve always be in the movies, but to actualally Change the Narrative of Who Native People Are Been A Big Challenge. SMOKE Signals WAS MY FIRST EFFORT AT THAT IN A Commercial Sense, and Dark Winds is the Latter, which is Literally for me just about resting the Three-Dimensionality of Native People As People Onscreen.

It’s Best EvidenCed WHEN YOU LOOK AT WHAT JOHN WIRTH AND THE Writers Room Have Done in Terms of Showing Emma and Joe. I think about the end of season two, whoy are in a monument Valley and they’re riding in the sunset on the motorcycle. All of the Sudden, I said to myself, “i i Incredible that i’m Seeing a Native Couple in a Function Margarige that happen to be in love and are just going. They have to be native and that’s a First Because I’ve Never Seen Two Native Characters in Love, You Know, In Any Depth on the Small Screen or Large Screen in the History of MOVIES. I One of Those Curious Things.

WHEN WE WEER FINING SEASON TWO IN MONUMENT VALLEY, I TONOUGHT WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY IT WAS BECAUSE WE Got to Shoot Native People in Monument Valley. The Very First Images I SAW as A Young Person Were the John Wayne Movies WHERE HE WAS IN MONUMENT VALLEY, AND I JUST HAD THIS SENS reClaiming that narrative.

Speaking of the Great History of Westerns, The Name of the Finale Episode Is “Iron Horse,” and It Has That Chase on the Train. Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?

Eyre That didn’t get by you! An Iron Horse Hearkens to the Railroad, and What the Railroad Brough to the West, WHICH WAS EXPANSION, AND THEREBY NATOVEN PEOPLE WERE SOMEWHAT DRIVEN Back by the Railroad. IT WAS INTERESTING TO SHOT on the Iron Horse, and We Shot Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, ON AN ACTUAL Train. The Funny Part Is Is Itned by George Rr Martin, One of Our Executive Producers. How Many People Can Say Say Ay Friend Who OWNS A Train? He OWNS The Rail Line and The Train, Along with Another Mutual Partner in Santa Fe Named Bill Bill Banowsky, They Own The Sky Railway. It Goes from Santa Fe To A Little Town Called Lamy, New Mexico, That Inters With Amtrak; IT GOES EAST TO WEST AND IT’S About 20 Miles of Track.

IT WASS USED ON OpenheimerChristopher Nolan used the train in his movie, and is been used in Other Movies. We shot on that train to the delight of george rr martin, and we got to do a sequence that Mission: Impossiblebut is a prettie Cool Sequence – with the Doctor/Bad Guy and A Gun Fight with Chee and Leaphorn. IT WAS A Blast to Shoot on the Train and Drone Shots and See The West. Just to play with the ron Horse and the Idea with Native Characters.

Wirth I did Hell on Wheels [which follows a Confederate soldier after the Civil War, and aired from 2011-16 on AMC] and we have a lot of train Stuff in that show. You Know, Cowboys and Trains Kind of Go Together, and in a neo-Western like this One, It Felt Like there would be a train. It was presented to me that we have an account to a train here in santa fe, so i thorough it’d bea a crime not to use it. George Has A Train, Apparently. We Just Decides to Build A Story AROUND The Train, and We Had to Go Back and Lay in A FEW CLUES [earlier in the season] About WHERE The Character George Was Going to Go and How We Ended Up at The Train, But It Was Really Fun Being Down there. Being AROUND THE TRAINS AND RUNNING AROUND The Train Yar D was cool.

IT WAS ALSO Very, Very Hot. That’s just the reality of chooting in Santa Fe, They Have a Monsoon Season Here in New Mexico and We’re Always Trying to Wrap Before We Get The Monsoons, Because You Get. Activity. I Remember We Have to Shut Down on a Number of Occasions for TESE Electrical Storms to pass. That’s Always Challenging WHEN YOU’RRETING FILM, BECAUSE YOU ONLY HAVE SO MUCH DAYLIGHT, you ONLY HAVE SO Many Hours with The Crew and It Becomes A Whole Thing. People have their pones out, look at weather Apps and Trying to Figure Out How Much Longing It’s Going to Before It Passes. IT’s Kind of Exciting.

At the end of the train sequence, they have a Standoff with Dr. Reynolds, and there’s a moment WHERE YOU THINK JEE IS GOING TO HAVT TO SHOTH HIM, But Che Ends Up Shooting. Given All The Discussion This Season of How A Man Is Bound to You When You’ve Kildled Him, What Do You Think Is The Signification of Chee Killing Him Institute of Joe?

Eyre I Think It Allevated Joe Some, I Mean Joe’s Getting to Be Pretty – He Is A Deep Character. I Think Is Part of the Community Aspect of It, Which Is He’s Saved By His Partner, and I Guess that’s Part of the Buddy Movie. Chee is the underling, or Maybe Younger Leaphorn in Training, SO to Speak, and Hewes Up and Is Able to Help His His Hero, Or The Patriarch of The Western in this Case Taking Care of Their Business Together.

In the Next Scene Where Joe Is Telling George Is Not His Fault that His Friend Ernato Died, Is It Fair to Say He’s Also Thinking Some of His Own Personal Experienceseseses.

Wirth That’s the Way I Wrote It. I’ve written a Lot of COP Shows Over The Years and One of My Own Personal Beefs – WHEN YOU’RE YOU’RE WRITING CONTEMPORARY COP SHOWS, SOMETIMES YOU’RE YOU a bit of that over years. I have a beef on some cop shows WHEN the COPS SAY TO THE VICTIM OF A CRIME, LIKE IF My Brother Gets Murdored (in a macho voice), “We’re gonna get this guy, don’t worry about it. WHATEVER WE HAVE TO DO, WE’RE GONNA FIND HIM.” That Always Feels False to Me Because that’s Not Something You Want To Say to Somebody, Because Maybe You Can [find the killer] d THEN WHAT? So that’s whore i always start in a scene like that.

George Really Went Through A Lot, and I Think Leaphorn Was Sort of Replaying His Own Life Story with George; because he was not able to save his own soon, he was very determined to save this boy, and he did save this boy and the boy felt responsible responsible for what happled to his son. I WANTED HIM TO ACKNOWLEDGE IN THAT MOMENT, WHERE GEORGE SAID, “I Feel Guilty, It’s My Fault,” I Think I Wrote The Line for Leaphorn, WHICH IS Just, “I KNOW.” I Thought It Was Very Powerful in The Moment and I Was Very Happy With How It All Played Out.

Those Scenes, if You Write Them in A One-Sided Way, You Don’T Have Much Going On. Ultimately, you have to come at it from from broth sides, and then if you’re lucky everything works and you end up with someting rewarding. That moment, it’s Only Several Seconds But Itly Really Kind of Beautify, and Ten Cutting Over To [Gordo] Sena [played by A Martinez] and chee and their little exchange about what they thorough was going on Over there, and thorough also Really worked out Well. [Sena speculates that they’re talking about “all the things us mere mortals can’t control.”] A martinez is the perfect guy to give a line like that too, Because he can sell it.

The train Scene wasn’t the only action in the episode; Bernadette also wnt thROUGH QUITE an Ordeal. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE Part of Her Experience in This Episode?

Eyre My Favorite Part of Bernadette’s Experience Was Almost Being Buried Alive, WHICH IS A SCARY SCENE TO COOT, EVEN BEING ON THE OUTSIDE AND PRETENDING SHOSEKERED ALIVE, TO AIT The Ant. Over the Cab of the Pickup and Have The Pickup Reinforced So It Doesn’t Collapse on the Actress, Jessica, and Watch The Windows Fill Up with Dirt And She’s Handcufted to The Steering Wheel, Com. Budge [Raoul Max Trujillo]. It was pretty scary to shoot it, it felt scary to shoot it – what bien was was going through, it was horror. It’s Absolute Horror to Think You’re Being Buried ALIVE AND SHE’S GOING TO GET BURIED ALIVE ALIVE IN THIS EPISODE. It Turned Out Really Well, and I Was Afraid for Her. I Thought that was the best part of the episode for her.

And then she gets out and is able to kill budge using the Metal Feather that Joe Gave Her in Season Two. Little Did We Know That Was A Chekhov’s Gun! Was that always the plan for whore it would end up up?

Wirth No, that kind of came up Very Late in the Scene Work. I Want to Say That Was My Idea, But I DON’T KNOW, IT VERY WELL MAY HAVE BEENON SOMEONE Else’s, But It Was A Good One. It Went Back so Many Episodes in the Show and I Think for Superfans Who Watch Eve Everry Episode It Must Have Been Satisfying. IT WAS VERY SATISFYING FOR ME AND IT JUST MADE SENSE, IT WAS THERE.

Right, She Didn’s Have Much Else on Hand that She Could USE to Protect Herself.

Wirth Yeah, I Liked The Way that Worked Out. WE HAD A LOT OF CONVERVERSATIONS WHAT TO WITH Iting THAT: Wuld She Keep It, Wound She Melt It Down, Wold She Give It To Somebody? We Had A Lot of Conversations with Manny and Jen Whener, Our Navajo [cultural] Consultants, About What Wound Navajo Attitudes Be About Something Like That, That Was Used In That Way. We Decided Just to Let It Go.

Things Look Hopeful for Bernadette and Chee at the End, WHEN We Se Seie Them Reunite on Her Property As He’s Feeding HerSes. After Three Seasons, does this mean they’re finally together?

Eyre That was so so swep! IT WAS SO SWEET. I Really Loved that. Chee is the use of care of her horses, Knowing She’s Coming Home. She arrives home in her, like, it was an opel ’70s car. It Pulls Up, and They Don’t Use Words. She gets out, leans up against her car watching him feed the horses, he jumps off the pickup Truck Like A Cowboy, He Takes His Gloves Off, Smiles at Her; She Crosses Her Arms, Smiles Back. THEN WE CUT BACK TO HIM AND DO This Nice Push Into His Face and The Clouds Are So Beautify, They’re Billowing, Just A Dream – His Smile Is So Nice And Bright. We Cut Bernadette and Push in Close to Her, Andy’re Just Peering at Each Other With this Longing, Emotion Glance and Look. I a Sweet Scene Between the Two of Them, and WHEN I WAS CHOTING IT, I SAID, “WOW, THESE GUYS HAVE Some ENERGY.”

I thorough it was Really Sweet, and that’s What I Think A Lot of What the Series Is, It’s A Home Drama. There’s the COP Aspect of It, The Mystery and The Horror Element of It, But At Its Heart, It’s Really About Following TheSe Characters and The Progress of Their Community and Their Intersect. My First Movie SMOKE Signals WAS A HOME DRAMA About That Family Unit. Joe Leaphorn is the Center of That, and You Root for Bernadette and Chee, and In this Case We Can See That Something’s Coming Back Together Needs to mend his relationship with his wife. That’s WHY I LOVE THE SERIES SO MUCH, BECAUSE IS About the Interpersonal Relationships of these Characters That I Love.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE SEASON?

Wirth I Loved Episode 306, I Thought Erica Tremblay Did A Beautify Job Directing It, and Zahn’s Performance Was Off The Charts. MAX HURWITZ CREATED The IDEA, He Came Into The Roko The Idea For That and How It Wuld Work, With Telling The Navajojostry About the Twins and We, The Towels and The Flawed Between Toween Toween, Twin, Twins and The Twins and the Twins and The Twin Dray, Twins and, Twin Dure of The Twins AndreTho Through The Children’s Play and What Was Happy in the World. The vfx that we did to create that world of leaphorn’s Dream and the Subject Matter, getting integ Season. I Feel Like I Personally Didn’T have a lot to do with that episode, and just sort of watched it comether and happen, and is a beautyify work by everyBody. I’m so proud of the episode and so happy for all Those guys and the work they did. Jenna elfman was also quite good in that episode. IT’s Very Creative, It’s A Special Episode of Television for Sure.

Are there any plans to have jenna elfman back, or any of the Other Guest Stars from this Season?

Wirth No Concrete Plans Really, But She is An FBI Agent and the FBI HAS JURISDICTION Over the Navajo Nation, so not Entirely Out of the Possibility She Could Flow Back. And Bruce Greenwood’s Character [Tom Spenser] Is Out there in a morocco settle.

That was anOTHER INTERESTING POLOT Point, that he – the MasterMind of the BORDER SCAM – Got Away.

Wirth That was was important for me. You Know, His Character Wreaked A Lot of Havoc Amongst Everybody in His World and Also in World of the Navajo Nation with the Whole Drug Scheme. A Lot of People Lost Their Lives and Lost Their Liberty, and I Just Thought, SomeTimes Rich Guys Have a Way of Walking Away. It’s not an unusual Circumstance and I Just Thought it was an Important Thing to Dramatize Because It Happens and We All Get Mad about it. Giving HIM A WIFE Who’s in A Coma Also Took The Curse Off It in A Way, Because His Life Is Not Perfect, Either. I was very pleaded to have bruce and jenna on the shower this year.

I’M Sure Lots of People Are Looking Forward to Next Season. Is there anything you can Tell US About Season Four Yet?

Eyre What Can i Say About Next Season? I can say is going to be great! (Laughs.) I can say that is evolving, right now. I happen to shoot my first episode of Season Four Next Week, so i’m Really Gearing up for that day by day, i’m loving at locations and chacters and Studying all. I’m completely excited about it.

Wirth We’re using Hillertman’s Novel The Ghost Way. One of the Things I TRY to DO EVERY SEASON IS Expand the World of Dark WindsEven if’s A Small Thing, Like in Season Two I Wanted to See How Rich White People Live in Comparison to How Typical Navajo People Live and These Worlds Bump Against Each. We Spent A Fair Amount of Time in Bj Vines ‘House and It’s This Gorgeous Mansion and We Go To The Leaphorns’ House and It’s Quite A Different Thing [i.e., traditional Navajo homes] and that is a Much Different Thing. THEN IN SEASON THREE, WE TO The BORDER SO We Have A COMPLELY DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT, DIFFERENT WORRLD, IT look different, the people are figrent, there is are figrent. In The Ghost Way.

That will be interesting, to see how you depict 1970s los angeles.

Wirth You Can’t Find It in Los Angeles. We’ll Find It Somewhere.

Is there anything else you want to mention that i didn’t ask?

Eyre I just thing that show was this incredible Balance to it, whoh is it’s about the west and it’s about a code of the west and is about leaphorn and the matriarchal. have this exciterement of mystery and horror in season throne, and drama and chase. I This Great Blend that I Always Wanted to Do. Dark Windsthe writers and the actors – Zahn Especially, Jessica, Kiowa – they’ve found “it” there’s an “it” to it, and it’s someting I havaen ‘. I’m just so excited that we found the mili eu of it.

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Dark Winds Airs on AMC, with All of Season Three Now AVAILBLE TO STREAM ON AMC+.