Warning: This recap is positively brimming with spoilers. Proceed at your own risk
They’re baaack!
Very glad to see Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette “Bern” Manuelito (Jessica Matten) back together in the Season 4 premiere episode of Dark Winds. And I was also happy to see the returns of Sheriff Lawrence "Gordo" Sena (A Martinez) and Joyce Leaphorn (Sarah Luther), Joe’s mother (A nice touch: Mom serves her son an ice-cold bottle of RC Cola, his soft drink of choice.)
Really, the conspicuous absence of Emma Leaphorn (Deanna Alklison) was the only thing that disappointed me during the episode titled “Kǫ'Tsiitáá' Álnééh (Baptism by Fire).” For the benefit of those who tuned in late: Emma left Joe and skedaddled off to California in Episode 7 of Season 3 after learning how he violated his own moral code by causing the quietus of the despicable B.J. Vines, the SOB responsible for their son’s death.
Of course, the Season 4 premiere, which picks up a few months after the Season 3 finale, teases us with the possibility that Joe — after purging himself through spending time in a sweat lodge and engaging in other rituals to get his life back into balance — will follow her and again ask for her forgiveness.
Unfortunately, Joe is considering retirement, partly — largely? — to better concentrate on patching up his marriage. C’mon! It wouldn’t be Dark Winds without Zahn McClarnon, right? Right? On the other hand, Joe has no doubt that Bern — newly returned from her stint with the U.S. Border Patrol — could handle his job if he does indeed depart. Yeah, maybe she could, but …
In any event, before he can turn in his badge, Joe — with help from Chee and Bern, of course — must solve a case involving the disappearance of Billie Tsosie (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), a 16-year-old Navajo girl who ran away from an Indian school. Another nice touch: Bern is an alumna of the school and has a rather edgy reunion with an old adversary, Sister Anna (Edita Brychta), the stern Irish nun running the place, during her part of the investigation.
(Not to make light of the horrors that have occurred throughout North America in institutions like this, but I couldn’t help flashing back to 1923 during this scene.)
So where is the girl? As is usual for season premieres of Dark Winds, “Kǫ'Tsiitáá' Álnééh (Baptism by Fire)” kicks off with a violent flashback/flashforward: Billie and her skeevy “boyfriend,” Albert (Avery Hale), are in the wrong place at the wrong time when in walks Irene Vaggan (Franka Potente), an assassin as relentless as The Terminator who apparently takes fashion tips from Deadpool. Many shots are fired, corpses accumulate, but Billie (and the seriously wounded Albert) manage to escape.
Not surprisingly, Vaggan is determined to eliminate the eyewitness(es) to her mayhem. Even less surprisingly, she starts to keep tabs on the other folks looking for Billie. Uh-oh.
Everything leads to Joe, Chee, and Bern arriving at the diner just in time to view the bloody aftermath of Vaggan’s rampage. An effectively weird touch: Connie Francis’s iconic recording of “Who’s Sorry Now?” — first heard coming from the diner’s jukebox during the opening scene — is replayed on the soundtrack at a much slower speed (because the jukebox got shot up) while the Navajo Police survey the carnage. “Welcome home,” Joe tells Bern, sounding almost as grimly sarcastic as Jerry Orbach’s Lennie Briscoe from Law & Order.
Look closely, though, and you’ll see Joe is the one who has to briefly look away while Bern maintains a steady gaze. Perhaps she actually could take over if Joe departs. But do we want to find out?
Here are my other takeaways from “Kǫ'Tsiitáá' Álnééh (Baptism by Fire).”
Ahead of his time?
Given that Dark Winds is set in the early 1970s, Joe’s request that a woman replace him as head honcho of the Kayenta Police Station — even a woman as badass as Bern — marks him as remarkably enlightened. Well, that, or he didn’t think Chee was ready for the job.
Behind the scenes
Let’s throw a few well-earned kudos to director Craig Zisk, who keeps this episode at once arrestingly intense and enjoyably brisk. While you’re at it, toss a few more to Steven Paul Judd and showrunner John Wirth for a world-class script laced — occasionally — with comic relief. Note the reactions of fellow cops while Chee and Bern (who, by the way, have been enjoying close encounters back at her place) try to appear platonic at the police station: “You buying this?” “Not even a little bit.”
Wide awake, not woke
It’s my understanding that Season 4 was filmed last year, long before the current controversies surrounding the roundup of undocumented folks throughout the U.S. But I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that won’t stop some of the professionally outraged from claiming Bern’s burning of her Border Patrol uniform was some sort of political statement. Seriously.
Unsolved mysteries
It looks like we’ll never find out what happened to the villainous Tom Spenser and his ailing wife after they fled to Europe at the end of Season 3. But, then again, they say you should never say never, so I keep hoping he’ll return to the scene of his crimes so his hash can be settled.
Things to come
Sad to see that Gordo’s wife seems to be in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. But something tells me this is a detail that will pay off later in a plot twist during the season. That is, if they can coax guest star Linda Hamilton (yes, that Linda Hamilton) back to reprise her character
Remembrance
Classy: The tribute to series executive producer Robert Redford at the end of the episode.
