Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for the Dark Winds Season 3 finale.
With Dark Winds wrapping up its explosive third season, we can only wonder what’s next for Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten). Collider spoke with executive producer and series director Chris Eyre, who offered some additional insight into the Season 3 finale, “Béésh Łį́į́ (Iron Horse),” and those cliffhangers to hold us over until the highly anticipated Season 4.
‘Dark Winds’ Season 3 Could Have Ended Quite Differently for Joe and Emma

Image via AMC

COLLIDER: I want to start by commending you on such an excellent finale. Dark Winds has always had really solid finales, and this one was no exception. What I really liked about it was that we ended on more of a somber note this season. Why was it so important that Season 3 ends with Joe being alone?
CHRIS EYRE: It was important that it ends with Joe being alone, because there’s more to come. We’re shooting Season 4 now, and there was kind of a hunch at the end of Season 3 that this was so good — meaning the family drama, the history, the show — [that] we were hoping there was a Season 4. And we’re doing a Season 4. But we’re able to, with John Wirth and the writers, look at it from the viewpoint of, there’s more to come. So, we can take the risk of ending on this note where we haven’t resolved Leaphorn and Emma.
As a fan myself, [Laughs] a total inside fan, I want to know what happens to them. I want to know what happens, what John Wirth and the Native writers’ room come up with. It’s hard, because at its heart it’s really a story about the community and the marriage between Joe and Emma and the matriarchal compass that insulates everything that’s good in that home through Emma, and through the grandmothers, and this whole lineage of women. Basically, I just want to know what happens to that unit, and the next part of that is to Chee and Bernadette and their relationship, and it goes out from there into the people that we’re looking at in the community.
I didn’t notice it at first, but when Joe began playing the recording of Emma’s interview in the finale, I realized that Deanna Allison wasn’t even in the episode. What was the thought process behind ending her arc in the penultimate episode instead?
EYRE: Well, I have to confess—and this is John Wirth and the writers’ territory, which is the crafting of the scripts—that there was, at the very end of the script, a scene with Emma and Joe. I actually shot the scene with Emma and Joe where Joe goes to Phoenix and knocks on the door, and Emma opens the door to her sister’s home (where she’s staying) and it concludes with Joe walking into the house to try and have the conversation (which we never see), to try and rectify, resolve, find the solution to his marriage.
But, rightfully so, in the edit room, AMC and John Wirth and myself and the producers all found the tape recording where Emma defends her husband, and doesn’t tell the secret, and stands by her man, so to speak. And then it’s a matter of him realizing he has to do more to reclaim his relationship with Emma, and he just keeps playing the message back, which is that he needs to become a better man, and she needs him to let go of the past. So, basically it ends on that note, and we don’t have the resolution. That’s what’s so great and appropriate about it, because we have to look to Season 4 and their arc, and [wonder]: how does he make this whole again?
When I spoke to Zahn McClarnon at the beginning of this season, he told me that the relationship between Joe and Emma is essentially the heart of Dark Winds, and I think you really feel that heart breaking this season. I think you made the right decision in not including that deleted scene, and instead leaving it with Joe and making us just sit with that. Was there any pushback from anyone involved about cutting her out of the finale, or was it a unanimous agreement that this was the best way, story-wise, to approach this?
EYRE: As filmmakers, we’re doing the same thing as the characters are trying to do in their community, which is [that] we’re trying to do what’s best for the whole. And as filmmakers, what was best for the finale was [that] there was more here, and to leave the relationship cliffhanger of, “I don’t know how they’re gonna solve this issue between Emma and Joe,” That’s the appropriate place to leave it if we want more. If you want more. As filmmakers, and Deanna included, it was a choice regarding what’s best for the whole, and what’s best for the whole is [that] we want to continue to understand these people and their dynamics and their relationship. So, to leave that as a dangling part of unresolved drama was the right thing to do for the whole so we could go on to Season 4 and figure this out.

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“He’s Not in It for Himself Anymore”: ‘Dark Winds’ Kiowa Gordon Reflects on Jim Chee’s Evolution and Previews What’s Coming in Season 3

Gordon also reveals how the Chee torch was passed to him as a child and his personal history with the Rez.

Chris Eyre Teases More for Chee and Bernadette in ‘Dark Winds’ Season 4

Image by AMC

Speaking of unresolved drama, I think in every finale since Season 1 there has been a Chee and Manuelito tease. We know that from the books they eventually get married, but on the show, we’ve never quite seen that romance play out. What makes this tease at the end of Season 3 different from previous hints, and how did the events of this season give them a new perspective on what they truly want?
EYRE: At the end of Season 3, when they stand there staring at each other… Chee with the billowing clouds and the horse behind him, and Bernadette against the 1970s—I call it an opal car because I had one of those—that ’70s classic car and her sweater or blouse she has on. She smiles at Chee, and Chee smiles back, and they just have this electric chemistry. By the end of Season 3, when they do that, we’re in for a new ride, which is [that] their ship has finally come in, and their relationship is about to burst. So, in Season 4, I do know that their relationship goes further than it’s gone in the past, which is nice because I think we owe it to the fans to capitalize [on] that relationship a little more than [we have]. It’s great to see them and their chemistry together coming up here.
Well, as one of those fans, I can tell you that we greatly appreciate it.
EYRE: They finally get there, you know? We’ve been waiting for three seasons for it to really kick off. At the end of Season 3, those looks tell it all, which is, “It’s gonna happen.”
Chris Eyre Teases the Future of ‘Dark Winds’ After Season 3

You worked on the Adam Beach/West Studio Leaphorn & Chee adaptations back in the day, and I’ve always been curious if you approached the characters on Dark Winds any differently than you did when dealing with them on PBS. Is there any crossover in your mind between them, or are they completely separate?
EYRE: I think they’re separate. Most of all, because the writers are different, and the performers are different. I’m a different filmmaker, as a matter of fact. But they’re singular and they’re separate. They’re two different things. The Dark Winds we have of 2025, with AMC and that support — and a budget that’s different than what I was able to do in the early 2000s — really makes the difference. Of course, Zahn [McClarnon] is incredible, as Wes Studi was, and Kiowa Gordon’s incredible, as Adam Beach was. [Jessica Matten’s] incredible, and Deanna [Allison]. It’s really a matter of… this was the right series in the right time and place, because they’re similar, but this one is certainly 2025, and it plays to a contemporary audience. A lot of the parallels are things like the sterilization of Native women and the trafficking and the border issues. All these things are still relevant, and I think we touch more [on] those universal things than I did 20 years ago when I did the series.
So, it’s been refined. The writing is great, with John Wirth and the Native American writers. Certainly, the Native American writers have given this a dimension of authenticity that I don’t think was as built out in the series 20 years ago. So, I think the writers have really amped it up and leveled it up to an authenticity without being egotistical about it. Without being, “This is what it’s about, culturally.” It just kind of slides in terms of all these characters [understanding] who they are and where they are and where they come from that they don’t have to pronounce it in the scenes or wear it on their sleeve. I think that’s a tribute [to] not only to the performers but the writing. So, I think it was time; post-Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls and Smoke Signals, my own movie [from] 25 years ago. It just became this great moment in time where we were making TV series about characters. That’s really what it’s about, it’s about the characters.
Could you offer us a final tease about what we should expect from Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito in this next season? Maybe what Tony Hillerman novel you’re planning on adapting?
EYRE: [Laughs] A final tease… for Season 4?
Oh, yeah!
EYRE: Okay, my tease for Season 4 is Franka Potente.
Dark Winds is available for streaming on AMC+.