Zahn McClarnon: Dark Winds Season 2 Has More Twists, More Authenticity, More of That ’70s Vibe
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Zahn McClarnon loves that you love Dark Winds, the 1970s-set crime/mystery drama that returns with Season 2 this Thursday (on AMC+) and Sunday at 9/8c (on AMC proper).
The warm reception that Dark Winds Season 1 received last summer from viewers and critics alike “was not necessarily a surprise to me, but I was very happy that people enjoyed watching the show,” McClarnon told TVLine during a late-June Zoom. “I mean, it’s difficult to put together a television show. Extremely difficult. And when you get a reception like that, it makes all the hard work worthwhile.”
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Based on the Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman and set in 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley, Dark Winds Season 1 followed Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (played by Fargo vet McClarnon) of the Tribal Police, and his new deputy, Jim Chee (Roswell, New Mexico‘s Kiowa Gordon), as they investigated an armored truck robbery. Along the way, viewers got wind of the tragedy that had befallen Leaphorn and his wife Emma’s son, Joe Jr.
In the six-episode Season 2, Leaphorn reunites with Chee, now a private eye, when they find themselves chasing a killer who has turned his sights on them, to “protect a secret that rips open old wounds and challenges Leaphorn’s moral and professional code.”
Also of note for Season 2, Hell on Wheels vet John Wirth stepped in as showrunner, succeeding Vince Calandra.
“Personally, I think we have a better television show this year,” McClarnon opined. “There are more twists and turns. There’s more action. There’s more of a thriller element to it.”
There’s also more… polyester?
“We did focus on trying to make it look more ‘70s this season with some of the lighting, to make it a little bit more noir, and we had a new costume person…,” McClarnon shared. “The first season we rushed into production a little, but we had a bit more time this year to kind of learn from our mistakes.”
There are also a few new — yet familiar — faces for Season 2, including A Martinez (Longmire) as Valencia County Sheriff Gordo Sena and Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Picard) as Rosemary Vines, an enigmatic woman in need of Chee’s services.
In casting the former, “We were looking for a Latino border-of-the-reservation sheriff, and the first person that came to my mind was A — and he actually was one of the first people that came to John Wirth’s mind, too,” said McClarnon. “A is such a professional and such a great actor, and not only that he’s a close friend, somebody who I’ve become close to in the past decade after working with him on Longmire. He’s a great human being and he enveloped that character of Gordo Sena quite well.”
Ryan’s Rosemary Vines, meanwhile, wheels around an oxygen tank — and looks like a million bucks doing it! “I didn’t get to work with Jeri much, but I was on-set quite a bit while she worked and she’s a wonderful, professional actress,” McClarnon shared. “She’s kind of our noir femme fatale this season, and I couldn’t ask for somebody any better than that.”
As Leaphorn, Chee and Sgt. Manuelito (Jessica Matten) deal with this season’s array of ominous new threats, Joe will find wife Emma (Deanna Allison) — understandably! — wanting to host a ceremony that will balance their recently, and repeatedly, upturned life.
“For me, the whole season is about that. It’s about restoring balance within their lives, within their relationship, and within the community,” McClarnon said. “People deal with grief differently, obviously, and I think that’s the main thing with Joe and Emma — that they handle everything quite differently. And hopefully it all comes together in the end. We’ll see. We’ll see.”
One of the few things that Dark Winds got dinged for in Season 1 was related to its inaccurate portrayal of Navajo language and culture. Chris Eyre — who is Cheyenne/Arapaho and directed four of Season 1’s six episodes and helmed three from Season 2 (including the premiere) — said at the time that the show would endeavor to “course correct.” And to hear McClarnon, who is Lakota, now tell it, such concerns have indeed been addressed.
“We brought out a bit more of the levity that happens within the community, more of the native humor that’s such a big part of native communities,” the actor said. “And for the more cultural stuff, the language was parsed out more to fluent speakers.
“It’s such a difficult language to speak, and we had some issues last year with everybody learning that language,” he explained, “so we figured we’d give the fluent Navajo speakers more of that dialogue to make it more authentic.”
“We had a great, new cultural advisor, George Joe, who came in and helped with all the cultural stuff this year,” McClarnon reiterated. “Authenticity obviously is one of our main goals for the show, and we take it seriously.”
All told, “I like what we did with Season 2,” McClarnon avowed, “and I’m hoping that everybody out there in TV land likes it as well.”
Note: This interview took place before SAG-AFTRA officially announced a strike on July 13.
Want scoop on Dark Winds, 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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