
Throughout each season of Dark Winds, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) is deeply disturbed by the cruelty, insularity, and violence he witnesses from white people, and he makes a point of resolving to be different. While this theme has always been present, the fourth season takes a new approach. This time, Joe is confronted by a strange and obsessive German assassin who is fascinated by him and Navajo culture, and her bizarre behavior genuinely throws him off balance. McClarnon delivers a fantastic range of reactions – shock, disgust, confusion – to her antics, culminating in a particularly absurd moment in the third episode, “Ahááldláádígíí (That Which Has Been Torn Apart),” when she holds him at gunpoint… and kisses him! It’s a wonderfully unexpected turn, and both McClarnon and Franka Potente deliver captivating performances in a thoroughly engaging season.