Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito uncover new clues to the missing girl’s whereabouts in the wake of a deadly shooting.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) has had quite enough of death.
Early on in “Bikéé' Doo Éédahoozįįdę́ę́góó (Toward Their Unknown Paths)” — Episode 2, Season 4 of Dark Winds — he, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette “Bern” Manuelito (Jessica Matten) are where we left them at the end of the Season 4 premiere, investigating the horrific aftermath of a shootout at a local diner. And seeing the bloody corpses of owner-operators Lucius and Gladine — two of his old friends — has hit Joe hard.
“I had this badge for four goddamn years before I saw my first corpse,” he tells Bern. “Now it just feels like every day …”
His voice trails off, as though too weary to continue. But then he manages to continue.
“It’s just hard having to hold it all. I’m sorry I’m asking you to.”
Is Joe having second thoughts about retiring and turning his job over to Bern? Maybe, maybe not. For the moment, though, he’s apparently still planning to turn in his badge, partly to follow his wife Emma (Deanna Alklison, once again conspicuous by her absence) to Los Angeles, where she moved after leaving him in Season 3. And yes, partly because the body count is getting to be too high for him.
In the meantime, though, Joe, Chee, and Bern are concentrating on the matter at hand: finding Billie Tsosie (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), a 16-year-old Navajo girl who ran away from an Indian school with the help of her ne’er do well criminally inclined cousin, Albert Gorman (Avery Hale). The pair was last reported seen at the diner. And from what the Navajo cops can surmise after surveying the crime scene, they managed to escape after the shooting started.
It’s a bit funny to hear how the cops immediately assume the shooter was a man. They change their minds pretty quickly, however, after talking with a couple of folks who may have seen a mysterious blond woman in the area. As they investigate, Joe unwittingly walks right into the crosshairs of Irene Vaggan (Franka Potente), the killer who’s intent on tying up any loose ends — i.e., Billie and Albert — and eliminating anyone else who might tie her to the corpses back at the diner.
But she doesn’t shoot!
How come? Does she take one look at Joe and start crushing on the guy? (Hey, judging from the email and post responses I get from female fans of Dark Winds, that’s entirely possible.) Or are we to assume this is a mirror image of Joe’s hesitation to kill a deer in his sights during the Season 4 premiere?
In any event, Vaggan continues to pursue Billie and Albert, even as the seriously wounded Albert continues to bleed copiously in the back seat of their car. Desperate to save her cousin, Billie drives to the Indian Health Services clinic, tells him to wait in the car — like, yeah, otherwise he might jog around the parking lot, right? — and slips inside to swipe morphine and other stuff out of the supply closet. The good news: Joe, Chee and Bern — let’s just call them The Dynamic Trio for short — get to the clinic just in time to catch Billie. The bad news: Albert, despite his weakened condition, drives away.
Where does he go? Billie initially doesn’t want to even guess at his whereabouts. Eventually, though, The Dynamic Trio trace Albert to the hogan (cabin) of Billie’s grandfather. Trouble is, by the time they get there, he’s already very seriously dead. Chee crawls through a hole someone — Vaggan? — hacked in the wall of the cabin, to inspect the blanket-draped corpse. As he uncovers the corpse, however, Chee flashes back to a traumatic event from his youth: His discovery of his mother’s similarly covered body.
Not surprisingly, Chee is badly shaken. But bad memories alone probably would not be the cause of his sudden nosebleed. Is there some kind of toxic gas lingering in the hogan? Or is Chee, too, reaching the limit of his ability to deal with death? Guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out.
Here are my other takeaways from “Bikéé' Doo Éédahoozįįdę́ę́góó (Toward Their Unknown Paths).”
New directions
Zahn McClarnon himself directed this episode, and he did a mighty fine job of it. I was especially impressed by his ability to sustain the suspense and narrative momentum even during scenes devoted to character development.
Love will find a way
And speaking of character development: Chee can’t help noticing that Joe has been acting — well, a little strange lately. And not just because his wife ran off. When he sees Joe and Bern confabbing in private, in a manner that suggests they’re exchanging confidences, he is — well, intrigued. We know what he doesn’t know: Joe is planning to hang up his guns, but he doesn’t want anyone but Bern to know about his plans. At one point in the episode, Chee suggests to Bern that, since it seems everyone knows they are lovebirds, they should move in together. I hope that’s because he truly wants to make a commitment, and not just to keep tabs on her.
Lonely guy
During an early visit to the Indian Health Service clinic, Joe talks with Helen (DezBaa'), a friend and former coworker of Emma's, and asks if she’s heard from his runaway wife. She has: Emma has signed a lease for a place in Los Angeles. Helen suggests that Joe call Emma to apologize. It should be noted, though, that she doesn’t give him his wife’s phone number.
A pinch of the Ponderosa
A key scene unfolds while, over in the corner, a vintage episode of Bonanza can be seen on a TV screen. I can’t explain why, but this made me smile. Perhaps because this is the closest thing to comic relief we get in “Bikéé' Doo Éédahoozįįdę́ę́góó (Toward Their Unknown Paths).”
A woman of many parts
Vaggan repairs her shot-up van quite handily, hiding the bullet holes and patching up the radiator in the brisk, self-assured manner of someone who has performed similar tasks many, many times before. Should we assume that, when assassin gigs are slow in coming, she works as a mechanic? Of course, mechanic is a slang word for “hired killer,” so maybe she’s just versatile?
What’s opera, doc?
By the way, Vaggan’s clearly an opera buff: She listens to the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” from the third act of Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser while working on her vehicle. Of course, hardly anything ever happens on this show without a reason. And, well, Hitler also was a fan of Wagner. Dark Winds is set in the early 1970s. Not that long after the end of World War II, right? And in this trailer for Season 4 of Dark Winds, we get a quick glimpse of someone wearing a gas mask. Maybe that’s Vaggan pumping something toxic into the aforementioned hogan?
