Joe Leaphorn confronts his troubled memories and deepest fears when he risks his life while attempting to prevent another murder.
Warning: This is an overview of Episode 6 for Season 3 for Dark Winds, so there will be scads of spoilers here. We strongly recommend that you not read this if you have not yet watched the episode on AMC or AMC+.
Joe takes a bad trip down memory lane. What are we to make of this? Here are our five takeaways from “Ábidoo'niidę́ę́ (What We Had Been Told),” Episode 6 of Season 3 for Dark Winds.
Takeaway No. 1
Well, that certainly was something, wasn’t it? A bit more like Outer Range — or even Twin Peaks — than what we’re used to seeing on Dark Winds, eh? But here’s the thing: What has always set this show far apart from your garden variety police procedural are the intimations of mystical and supernatural elements reflective of Navajo culture. In this particular episode, the undercurrents rose to flood tide as Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon at his most Emmy-worthy brilliant) wandered through a surreal dream/hallucination inspired by the Native legend of the Navajo Hero Twins and their battle with the monstrous Ye’iitsoh.
A genius touch: Director Erica Tremblay (Fancy Dance), working from a script by Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther, cut back and forth between Joe’s visions (and his current, real-life predicament) and scenes from what appeared to be a grade school pageant illustrating the same legend.
Takeaway No. 2
As for the current predicament: We finally got the payoff for the flashforward in this season’s Episode 1, where we saw Joe battered and bleeding on his back in the middle of the nighttime desert, desperately radioing for help. Turns out someone — or something — had fired a dart into his neck just as he located the elusive George Bowlegs. While he drifted in and out of consciousness as George frantically tried to awaken him, Joe drifted through a dreamscape littered with scenes from his past, after-the-fact deductions of what happened way back when, fantastical representations of his current real-life troubles — and, ultimately, a realization that, yes, he is very much his father’s son.
Takeaway No. 3
Chief among those fantastical representations: FBI Special Agent Washington, decked out in a slinky red dress and beckoning him to dance, warning him that as a lawman, he really should not take the law into his own hands by killing anyone, not even a pedophile priest. (More on that later.) Joe: “That man is a monster.” Washington: “Nobody said he was perfect.” (By the way, did you notice that Washington arrived with a metronome in hand, a wink-wink allusion to the bomb-making mad killer of Season 2?) Elsewhere, Joe’s wife Emma appeared with a bunch of rabbit-nibbled vegetables in her hand. And he seemed to blame Joe for spending too much time at his work, and not enough time protecting her veggies. (Of course, we were meant to take this symbolically, not literally. Presumably.)
Takeaway No. 4
Gradually, inexorably, Joe was jolted back into remembering that, during his childhood, the priest in his family’s parish (Robert Knepper) was molesting, among other youngers, Joe’s cousin Will. It’s wasn’t quite clear whether Joe, too, was one of the predator’s victims. Either way, however, Joe remained sufficiently peeved to misremember that he killed the priest because he figured, not without just cause, that no one would believe either him or Will if they reported him. But no: The priest — who went missing and was presumed dead, though the case was never solved — actually was knocked off by Joe’s father, Henry Leaphorn (Joseph Runningfox, pictured above with Zahn McClarnon), who never wanted Joe to grow up to be a lawman like himself.
“I wanted you far away from this place,” Henry explained in the dream/hallucination. “From this job. Because it’s impossible being a lawman when our people get the punishment without the protection. And people like [the deceased priest] take what they want and walk away free. We only have one choice in a world like that.” All of which might explain why, when Henry realized Joe had carried on the family tradition by killing BJ Vines, he never really evidenced any signs of disapproval.
Takeaway No. 5
Back to reality: Joe awakened from his troubled slumber and rose, albeit shakily, to pursue his assailant. At first, he feared he was dealing with the real-deal Ye’iitsoh. But as soon as he noticed a bloody handprint near where he had fired at the “monster,” it finally hit him: “It’s not a monster, Jim,” he radioed to Chee. “It’s just a man.” A man, however, who remained at large as the episode ended.
Bonus Takeaway
There have been great choices for songs to underscore the action throughout this entire season. But none more appropriate than Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” for the final minutes of Episode 6.
