Dark Winds EP Says Zahn McClarnon Fought to Change Season 2 Finale’s Climax: ‘He Saved Us From Ourselves’

Matt Webb Mitovich
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The following contains spoilers from the Season 2 finale of AMC and AMC+’s Dark Winds.

As Dark Winds Season 2 drew to a close, Joe Leaphorn got his man — but what he then did with that man was the result of some debate between the acclaimed drama’s writers and star Zahn McClarnon.

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Leaphorn and his team uncovered how B.J. Vines had falsified a land survey after arranging for the oil well to be blown up years ago, resulting in several deaths — including that of Joe and Emma’s son, Joe Jr. And though “white justice” threatened to prevail and by getting Vines sprung from jail, Leaphorn showed up at Vines’ home to serve up some form of, as his father Henry would say, “Indian justice.”

Leaphorn cuffed Vines and drove him out that night into the vast, snowy desert. After pulling over in the middle of nowhere and leading Vines out of the car, Joe held the unrepentant baddie at gunpoint. But rather than shoot him in cold blood, miles and miles away from any witnesses, Leaphorn holstered his pistol, got back in his truck and drove away — leaving Vines, in no shoes and just his pajamas, to brave his own version of “The Long Walk.” But surely perish along the way.

Dark Winds executive producer Chris Eyre told TVLine, “There was so much more at stake” in this finale than Season 1’s, both of which he directed.

“The thing that really was interesting to me is that in the second season we were really finding the characters, in particular Zahn’s character,” Eyre noted. But McClarnon, too, had gotten to know Leaphorn, and his limits, quite well.

As Eyre recalled, “We had an internal conversation about what he does at the end of the season, and Zahn was the one who rightly said, ‘Leaphorn wouldn’t do that'” — meaning, shoot Vines dead out in the desert, as originally scripted.

“We all said, ‘But it’s written that way, this is what he does’ — and I was so for it,” Eyre shared. “But Zahn was so brilliant in saying, ‘Well, Leaphorn wouldn’t do that.’ He couldn’t pull the trigger. So, Zahn saved us from ourselves, or at least he saved me from me. It was written that Leaphorn took vengeance, but he is the moral compass of the story — the uncle, father, grandfather that you want, and it was so right that he didn’t go for it.”

Music played a big role in the Season 2 finale. To cite one example, there was Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” playing as Leaphorn turned his late son’s belt buckle into a feather that he would later gift to a departing Bernadette.

“One of the favorite things I have done is when Zahn smelts the belt buckle, and it’s snowing, and you have that song playing…. It’s just a melancholy feel,” Eyre explained. “You realize that Leaphorn has made Vines go on The Long Walk, so to speak, and to have that song is amazing.”

Next, there was Neil Young’s “Birds” setting the scene as Bernadette and Jim Chee shared a parting kiss, both commenting on the near-miss that was their almost-romance.

Lastly, as Bernadette drives away from home, job, and Chee, “she turns on the radio and it becomes this song that has levity to it” — Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain? — “and her character just smiles a hint,” Eyre noted. “It’s like, ‘She’s going to be OK.'”

That scene then shifted to a different roadway, where Joe and wife Emma were on a motorcycle, smiling at the new balance found in their recently complicated life.

“I mean, talk about love story,” Eyre effused. “When you see LEaphorn and Emma on the motorcycle at the end…? It’s just magical.

“Who gets to see Monument Valley in the winter? And when you see them, you realize, ‘Oh, these people are from there, they live there, and it’s a love story.'”

Read more about Dark Winds‘ Season 3 prospects and whether Manuelito is indeed gone.

Want scoop on Dark Winds‘ possible Season 3, or for any other TV show ? Email your question to InsideLine@tvline.com, and it may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!

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