Lt. Joe Leaphorn is on the hunt in a new trailer AMC released Thursday for the upcoming fourth season of its ’70s-set noir thriller Dark Winds, which premieres Feb. 15.
The trailer follows a previously released teaser and opens with Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) tracking a buck in the wilderness of the Navajo Nation. “Right when I was about to pull the trigger,” he says in the ominous voiceover, as the scope of his rifle is shown zeroing in on the buck, “it was like he understood it was his time.”
It then shows Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) welcoming Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) back to the Navajo Tribal Police after she worked for the Border Patrol last season. The following scene introduces the case that will drive the season: a 16-year-old girl who is missing from her boarding school. Leaphorn and Manuelito then discover multiple bloody bodies.
The case will take the stars out of their element and into Los Angeles, “in a race against the clock to save [the missing girl] from an obsessive killer with ties to organized crime,” according to a press release from AMC.
From there, the pressure ramps up, with glimpses of Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito in pursuit as the missing girl flees from danger.
Only a glimpse of Leaphorn’s wife, Emma (Deanna Allison), is shown in the trailer, after she left him at the end of season three. “It gives us a lot of stuff to work with in season four,” showrunner John Wirth previously told THR of the breakup. “Are we going to mend it, do they get back together, do they start dating again?”
Season four consists of eight hourlong episodes, similar to previous seasons. The show is based on the Leaphorn & Chee novels by Tony Hillerman, and is executive produced by George R.R. Martin and the late Robert Redford, whose final screen appearance was a cameo in Dark Winds season three. Star and executive producer McClarnon makes his directorial debut this season.
The cast also features A. Martinez as police chief Gordo Sena, with Franka Potente (The Bourne Supremacy) joining the season four as Irene Vaggan. No details are provided about her character, but there seem to be some hints in the newly released photos below. Other new castmembers include Isabel DeRoy-Olson (Fancy Dance) as Billie Tsosie, a Navajo teenager who finds herself in over her head with only her cunning and resilience keeping her alive; Chaske Spencer (The Twilight Saga) as a recruiter for a crime ring who lures young men from the reservation to Los Angeles; Luke Barnett (The Crossing Over Express) as FBI special agent Toby Shaw; and Titus Welliver (Bosch) as a ruthless L.A. crime boss.
Graham Roland is the show’s creator, and Wirth is the showrunner. The executive producers are Redford, Martin, Roland, Wirth, McClarnon, Chris Eyre, Tina Elmo, Jim Chory, Thomas Brady, Max Hurwitz, Vince Gerardis and Anne Hillerman.
Dark Winds airs on AMC and streams on AMC+, with new episodes airing weekly on Sundays, starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Feb. 15.
Franka Potente as Irene Vaggan in Dark Winds season four, episode one.
Michael Moriatis/AMC
Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee in Dark Winds season four, episode one.
Michael Moriatis/AMC
Franka Potente as Irene Vaggan in Dark Winds season four, episode three.
Michael Moriatis/AMC
Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee and Jessica Matten as Bernadette Manuelito in Dark Winds season four, episode four.
Michael Moriatis/AMC