{"id":659092,"date":"2026-03-16T06:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/659092\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T06:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:23:19","slug":"dark-winds-recap-season-4-episode-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/659092\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Winds recap: season 4, episode 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

As truly fun as it is to watch Joe Leaphorn do actual detective work, tonight\u2019s episode of Dark Winds, \u201cAt\u00edda\u2019ahiilya\u00e1g\u00ed\u00ed (Those Who Harmed One Another),\u201d is the first one that made me wonder if this season is too long. The first two batches of the show were six episodes each, and the production expanded to eight installments for seasons three and four. While it\u2019s hard to have \u201ctoo much\u201d Joe Leaphorn, Bernadette Manuelito, and Jim Chee, this chapter shows signs of repetition. Part of that could be due to the fact that a show that gains so much of its identity from its unique setting is spending a lot of time away from its Navajo home this year. This season should play like a tense cat and mouse, and the extra 90 minutes threaten to water down the suspense. Luckily, they haven\u2019t yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most interesting stuff this week centers on assassin Irene Vaggan\u2019s obsession with Joe, who seems almost invigorated by getting his ass kicked in the prologue by a couple of useless FBI agents. They warn Joe to go back to Arizona, which is itself a bit of a theme this season in that Irene also told him to walk away. Joe Leaphorn is the kind of guy who doesn\u2019t leave before a job is done, and he\u2019ll only dig in more if you try to push him away.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another tender scene between McClarnon and Deanna Allison when his character ends up at IHS after the rib-kicking given to him by an agent named Frank Welles (Micah McNeil, doing a lot with a great mustache). Emma moved 600 miles from home, but she\u2019s still patching up her husband, who\u2019s too stubborn to get an X-ray. When she points that out, he relents to the radiation, perhaps a sign that he\u2019s softening enough for her to come home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Jim Chee connects the dots from the antacid-popping G-man to someone he worked with when he was in the FBI, our three heroes go to the government to figure out what they know. At first, Welles & co. seem to be blowing off Leaphorn, but it becomes clear that they both have information that can save lives. Welles reveals what I guessed last week<\/a>: A crime lord named McNair, who is awaiting trial, has hired Irene to take out potential witnesses, and Albert Gorman was one of them. While the FBI confirms stuff I kinda already knew, Joe tells them about Irene, a killer in a green van who Welles thinks may have knocked off one of his colleagues the other night (that was the murder that opened the last episode with the Manson-esque spray paint on the wall). It\u2019s so fun to watch the trio doing legit investigative work like asking to see photos and determining known associates, although it\u2019s a bit manufactured that the FBI would be so protective. It\u2019s clear that the Navajo PD is closer to solving the case than they are.<\/p>\n

The biggest turn in the episode comes as Billie is hiding out in Leroy\u2019s apartment and gets nosy, going through a box of photographs, where she sees a familiar face, one that looks a lot like her own. She discovers that her mother didn\u2019t die right after she was born like she was told and might even still be alive. Isabel DeRoy-Olson is excellent in this scene as the awareness of what she\u2019s looking at in that photo washes over and turns into uncontrollable emotion on her face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More great procedural work unfolds at the site of the murder that opened the last episode. Bern finds a matchbook that Irene left there from the Kayenta Trading Post while Joe finds a ration key outside by where the van was parked, indicating that Irene ate German rations while on a job. Both pieces of evidence feel likely planted. Irene is a professional who wouldn\u2019t leave those kinds of clues behind unless she wanted them to be found, and we know she has an increasingly unhealthy obsession with Mr. Leaphorn. The sly smile on her face as she watches Joe find the key through binoculars adds weight to that theory.<\/p>\n

Jim continues to tag along with Sonny, hoping it will lead them to Leroy and Billie. They end up at a strip club called the Pink Carousel, where a dancer offers Jim Chee some solid advice. After all, she did get a degree in psychotherapy. He tells her that Bern lied to her, and the stripper says something true: There are two kinds of lies, those meant to hurt and those meant to protect. You can find wisdom in the strangest places in the City Of Angels.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Sonny stumbles out, wounded by a gunshot. Jim makes their escape and sets about trying to patch Sonny up back in his apartment. When Sonny passes out, Jim looks up Leroy\u2019s address in a handy address book (remember those?) and leaves a message at the motel for Joe and Bern to meet there. After sneaking into Leroy\u2019s apartment, and finding the photos that sent Billie running to what could be her mom, Jim is hit by his ghost sickness again, seeing a vision of his dying mother under a blanket. He doesn\u2019t even hear Sonny sneaking up on him and isn\u2019t ready when he points a gun at him, screaming, \u201cWho the fuck are you?!\u201d<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/b><\/p>\n