Not only isDark Windsseason 3 the most overtly supernatural story of the hit AMC series yet, but it has also expanded the narrative universe by relocating Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) to the border. She is a crucial element of the main triumvirate, but since her departure, Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) have had to investigate crimes on the Navajo reservation alone. However,season 3, episode 3offered an opportunity to link their cases together by way of a photo of Manuelito recovered at a farmhouse Chee and Leaphorn raided.
Whileeach season ofDark Windsis based on a differentLeaphorn & Cheenovel by Tony Hillerman, showrunner John Wirth deviated from the norm for season 3 by combining the premises of two books into one. Bernadette has been able to branch out on her own with her drug ring and human trafficking story, but the writing team needed some TV magic to tie her tale back to the murder mystery on the Navajo reservation. One photo opens up new avenues of investigation into both Tom Spenser and Ernesto Cata’s killer.
So, Bernadette’s New Dark Winds Season 3 Romance Is Definitely A Bad Guy, Right?
Bernadette is moving on from Jim Chee in Dark Winds season 3 but there’s definitely something off about her new colleague & love interest, Ivan Muños.
ScreenRantinterviewed Wirth about how he approached Bernadette’s storyline and how the writers combined the respective novels into one cohesive narrative. The showrunner also hinted at positive changes for the Manuelito and Chee romance, explained his choice to cast Jenna Elfman as a major antagonist, and gave important context for theYe’iitsoh haunting Leaphorn inDark Winds.
Dark Winds Showrunner Breaks Down Bernadette Manuelito’s Season 3 Storyline
ScreenRant: What kind of research did you have to do, or how different was your approach, for Bernadette’s story on the border?
John Wirth: We base our seasons on the stories that are presented in Hillman’s novels, but for season 3, we did a mashup of two different novels. One is Dance Hall of the Dead, which takes place on the Zuni Reservation, and that’s the murder mystery of the boy that we see in this season. And then there’s a later novel called The Sinister Pig, where Bernadette is actually down at the border working for Border Patrol, and she gets involved in a drug ring investigation.
The trick for us this season was trying to figure out a way to meld those two stories and pull them together so that they were in fact one story. Even though they were living in different places and working for different law enforcement agencies, our Navajo cops and Bernadette are actually working in some respects on the same story that brings them back together.
We use the novels as our superstructure, but we do a lot of invention. Season 3 is a good example of that because the two stories exist unto themselves in separate novels, but we’ve made them into one story. We’ve had to do a lot of invention in order to make that happen.
ScreenRant: Bernadette and Jim Chee left off on a bittersweet note at the end of last season, and while they’re further apart than ever this season, there is still that pull between them as seen by emotional phone calls and more. When will I get my ship, and how slow will we burn?
John Wirth: She can’t stay away from the reservation forever, so you can wipe your tears and not worry too much. There’s a very promising beat to their story at the end of season 3, which I think will leave us longing for what’s going to happen in season 4.
They’re like young people everywhere, who are attracted to each other and trying to figure out how they make that work.
John Wirth Explains The Origins Of The Ye’iitsoh In Dark Winds Season 3
“This Monster Was Already Embedded In Leaphorn As A Child”
ScreenRant: This season feels perhaps the most supernatural or spiritual of all, especially as Leaphorn is haunted - both metaphorically and physically - by what he did to B.J. Vines. How will that affect not only him but the entire community?
John Wirth: This monster that is haunting him, which is called Ye’iitsoh, is a concept that comes from his childhood.
This monster lives in the arroyos. A lot of Navajo parents were concerned because their children loved to go out and play in these arroyos, which are subject to flash floods and stuff, and it’s a very dangerous place to be. There’s a Mexican-American mythology similar to this, La Llorona, which is also a creature that lives in the arroyos and kills children.
This monster was already embedded or implanted in him as a child, and as he begins to become haunted by what he did to B.J. Vines in the previous season, it manifests into this monster that he knows so well. The more intense this haunting becomes through the season, the more he tries to exorcise that monster from within him. Until it suddenly appears as a physical thing in the world. It’s his own personal haunting as part of his spiritual journey, but it’s rooted in Navajo culture.
Why Jenna Elfman Makes The Perfect Adversary For Leaphorn
“The Bigger The Threat That She Poses, The More Intense His Haunting Becomes”
ScreenRant: He’s also being pressured from the outside with Jenna Elman’s character. Can you talk about casting her as FBI Special Agent Sylvia Washington and making her a capable adversary?
John Wirth: When the writers and I were conceiving the character, I wasn’t picturing Jenna Elman. Sometimes I do picture an actor, and I think, “Yeah, this is like that person or that actor in that movie.” But the more we kind of began to peel the onion on who this character was, I realized that we needed somebody who had special skills. Somebody who could be disarming, not in a funny way, but in a way that keeps them from being taken seriously. Others may not take her ability to threaten their lives seriously, and that requires an actor with a deft touch.
The more we started thinking about who could play this part, the more Jenna began to make more and more sense. She has very serious dramatic chops, but she also has a very disarming approach that can take you by surprise. That was kind of the concept for the characters: she shows up, and she’s a fish out of water.
There were maybe one or two female FBI agents at that time in the country, and there were very few Caucasian law officers on the reservation at the time. The idea was that she got shoved to the backwater assignment by her bosses in Washington, DC because nobody wanted to go out and spend time on the Navajo reservation. It was like, “Let’s just get her out of our hair for a while.” Upon her arrival, she seems like a person who is not really going to be much of a factor, let alone a threat. But it becomes clear as time goes on that she is actually more capable than they think, and she’s starting to pick at and dig through some stuff that everybody wishes could just stay buried.
Her investigation into the murder of B.J. Vines actually dovetails with Leaphorn’s haunting because the harder she pushes on him, and the bigger the threat that she poses to him, the more intense his haunting becomes.
Check out our otherDark Windsseason 3 interviews here:
New episodes ofDark Windsseason 3 premiere on both AMC and AMC+ Sunday nights at 9pm ET/6pm PT.
