SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of tonight’s Dark Winds Season 3 finale ‘Béésh Łį́į́ (Iron Horse)’
“I hope one day I can forgive him. But until that day, I walk alone.”
The Season 3 ending of AMC‘s Dark Winds tonight saw some emotionally and politically hards winds blow over Navajo County.
Devastating and magnificent, the words that Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) heard on a recording of his estranged wife in the closing minutes of the ‘Béésh Łį́į́ (Iron Horse)’ episode both sums up this year on the 1970s-set AMC thriller and what’s to come in the February announced Season 4.
“Of course, the stoic version that Zahn acted just sits so beautifully in the pocket of that emotion as he sits there and listens to that speech,” says Dark Winds writer/director Erica Tremblay of the wordless and wonderful performance by Reservation Dogs and Westworld alum McClarnon in the eighth episode of the season.
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Written by DW showrunner John Wirth and Steven Paul Judd, tonight’s ‘Béésh Łį́į́ (Iron Horse)’not only finds McClarnon’s Navajo County tribal police officer Leaphorn facing up to some hard truths in losing his wife Emma (Deanna Allison) after 24 years of marriage, the death of his son, and attacks on his people. At the same time, the finale also brings to an end archeologist Dr. Reynolds’ (Christopher Heyerdahl) dig site crimes with a chase on a moving train right out of the classics. Along with that case closing with the help of undercover FBI agent Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), drug smuggling, human trafficking and corruption among the border patrol is brought to heel by tribal police sergeant Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten).
Still, in the end, the end of the Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, Graham Roland and McClarnon EP’d series based on Tony Hillerman’s novels, left almost everyone on unsteady emotional and political ground.
Right in the middle of production on Season 4, McClarnon and Tremblay chatted with me about the season that has just ended, the season to come and putting it all out there, on-screen and off.
DEADLINE: So, how is Season 4 going?
ZAHN McCLARNON: Everything’s smooth. We’re down here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a little bit chilly. It was snowing like crazy down here a few days ago. Now it’s 65 degrees and it’s beautiful, and everything’s going smooth. We’re into Episode Three. We just started today, so we’ve shot two of the episodes already, and everything’s going smooth.
ERICA TREMBLAY: I’m in Santa Monica, California, where we have our writers’ room.
We’re actually completing our final week of the room. So it’s great to be talking about the finale of Season3 because we’re almost done breaking the finale of Season 4. It’s exciting when you get to this part of the year where you’re in production, and you’re seeing all the dailies and the directors’ cuts coming in, and then you’re still actively finishing out the season. It’s kind of good momentum to keep trudging through the next season.
DEADLINE: Season to season, that’s quite the arch, quite the evolution for Dark Winds …
TREMBLAY: You know, from when we broke ground in Season 1, and to see where the show has kind of come from then to now is kind of a really beautiful process.
We have this team, the Wheelers, that are our consultants that right now, actually, are in the other room. Jen Wheeler is talking to the room about this finale and like, what we can show of certain things and what we can’t. And I just have to say, not just because he’s here on this Zoom, but Zahn has been championing getting this right, championing all of the Native writers in the room.
Listen, I know I can pick up the phone day or night and calls Zahn and he’s going to answer and he’s going to take whatever there is to say seriously. AMC has been incredibly supportive for us to take the extra time and resources to make sure that we get all of the cultural elements correct. I’ll tell you, we spend a lot of time in the writers’ room talking about the Native experience, specifically listening to the Navajo writers in the room – it’s been a really beautiful thing to see. A lot of that comes from Zahn, the pressure on everyone to make sure that we have the right people in the room, that we have the right people directing, that we have all of the resources that we need to pull this off.
McCLARNON: You know what we’re trying to do with the show. I did want to add that we don’t represent the Navajo people. If you truly want to know more about the Navajo culture, I think you have to spend time with the Navajo people, being embedded within that culture, or being on the Navajo Nation. But if Dark Winds gets people to even visit the Navajo Nation, spend time with the Navajo people, and learn more about the culture, that’s such a beautiful thing, and that’s one of the positive things of being on this show.
DEADLINE: That is so important to you …
McCLARNON: It is. That we get to re-educate people about a culture and the values of that culture is important. That that could possibly lead to more people getting involved, politically, economically, environmentally, with education, it’s just a beautiful thing about being a part of the show for me.
Also to be able to see people like Erica write and direct, and Billy Luther write and direct and Chris Eyre and Steve Paul Judd too. To have this crew, a prop department that are all Navajo people, and to have these wonderful cultural consultants, Manny and Jennifer Wheeler, be part of the show, it’s wonderful. To have part of the camera team being Pueblo and Navajo and just it’s just a wonderful thing to open these doors up for these people. Being a part of that, and being the forefront of that, and our wonderful showrunner, John Wirth, who is such an open person that collaborates with all of us, to have that kind of a team is it’s just a wonderful experience for me as an actor and as an EP on the show, and now as a director on the show.
DEADLINE: To that Zahn, the end of the finale was heartbreaking as Joe listens to that recording of Deanna’s Emma, his estranged wife, talking to Jenna Elfman’s Agent Washington, and revealing how she truly feels about her husband, the fallout from the death of their son, so much. So much there, capturing the whole season in many ways. It’s all you, direct to camera, not saying a word, how was that scene for you?
McCLARNON: I’m usually on set anyway, all the time Dominic, even when I’m not shooting my scenes, and I watched Deanna shoot that original scene.
DEADLINE: Really?
McCLARNON: Yes, you know, there’s just a moment when lines kind of got a bit blurred for me. I realized at that moment how much Joe loved his wife, watching her do that scene with Agent Washington. It was kind of a really cool moment for me. You know, I love Deanna. Allison’s on me. I love Deanna. She’s a wonderful human being. We’re good friends, but at that moment, I just realized how much Joe loved his wife. So, I took that, that emotion, into the scene with the tape recorder.
DEADLINE: So much emotion, but so much stillness, containment too..
McCLARNON: Funny enough, you know, the first two takes, I mean, I’m just blubbering. I couldn’t stop crying.
And John, our wonderful showrunner, chose a different take where Joe was just still, and there wasn’t a lot of tears coming out of his eyes, but you could feel what he was going through. I’m really happy he chose that take, because the rest of the takes would be just blubbering, you know, I mean, just waterfalls of tears coming out of me, and that was all because of Deanna’s performance, and being able to listen to that tape while I was doing the scene helped a tremendous amount to get me to where I needed to go. But I’m glad that John used the more stoic kind of version that take than the blubbering. But it was, it was a beautiful moment. You know, actors as actors, we live for those moments, and I really enjoy doing those kinds of scenes.
“I hope one day I can forgive him. But until that day, I walk alone.” #DarkWinds pic.twitter.com/HyxfB0BNxd
— Dark Winds (@DarkWinds_AMC) April 28, 2025
TREMBLAY: It’s funny hearing Zahn talk about Emma’s speech, because I co-wrote episode seven, where she gives that speech. We knew in writing it that Joe would be listening to it. So, when she’s speaking, she’s almost confessing to Leaphorn, the things that she kind of has never been able to say to him because he’s maybe not always listening, even though he loves her so much.
When I was writing that scene, I vividly remember where I was, and I by the end of it, I was crying. I was crying as I was writing.
DEADLINE: Wow …
TREMBLAY: You always know, as a writer, that if you’re like, making your own self react emotionally, that you have tapped into something. That you’re confessing on the page as well. What it means to be a native woman, what it means to be up against a Western system, what it means to love your husband so much, but not know how to reach him.
We’re always thinking it’s the end game where we’re going to be in the finale and everything’s driving there. You have to wrap out all of the mystery elements that the people come and watch week after week. But really, what you’re doing is setting up your characters to have some sort of reckoning by the end, but then also leaving space open for the next season.
DEADLINE: Erica, a lot of space there, but a lot of minefields too, no?
TREMBLAY: Oh yeah. Yeah, we’re always driving to that in the finale. We’re always thinking about what our characters are going through, and then obviously, trying to create these moments. I remember in the room when the idea came up that he would listen to the tape and that would be something that she can’t catch him. She can’t, but she can make him have to listen to this. Which is, was, was her way of getting some sort of justice. We knew that that was the answer. Of course, the stoic version that Zahn acted just sits so beautifully in the pocket of that emotion as he sits there and listens to that speech.
DEADLINE: So, will we see Emma Leaphorn, Deanna, return in Season 4?
McCLARNON: TBD.
DEADLINE: I can accept that, but I also wanted to ask about Episode 6, the one Erica directed, and Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther wrote. It was literally and figuratively quite the trip for Joe, unearthed a lot of pain. How was that for you as an actor?
McCLARNON: Joe struggles with the death of his son, his marriage with Emma, this guilt and these moral gray areas he’s found himself in. He’s just constantly questioning the decisions he’s made and his moral compass, and this puts him in a lot of fear and anxiety throughout Season 3. In Episode 6, Billy and Max wrote a wonderful, wonderful script of this ketamine dream scenario where Joe goes into his past and reconcile some of this trauma. Obviously, it was beautifully directed by Erica, and the support and the safe space that Erica provided in there was absolutely mandatory for me as an actor, And I couldn’t have asked for more support than I got from the whole team.
TREMBLAY: You know, Zahn and I have known each other for a while now. We worked together on Reservation Dogs. Zahn was such a big cheerleader to bring me on to the first season of the show. And I think walking into this episode … when we broke it in the room, it was harrowing.
DEADLINE: Please don’t think I’m stupid or insensitive, but how was it harrowing?
TREMBLAY: As Native writers, it was a painstaking effort to get that episode up on the board, then Max and Billy wrote this incredible script. When I was assigned the episode, I was immediately terrified, but also, I just knew that Zahn and I had a level of trust and knowing each other.
I remember at one point turning to him, and we were both like near tears just in prep, talking about the scenes that we were going to be shooting. We both just agreed in that moment that if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be us.
DEADLINE: Why?
TREMBLAY: Because we both have our own experiences in the world as Native people, our own experiences with survivors and our families. That’s when the fear lifts away when you recognize that you’re the right people to tell this specific story, because you can bring an authenticity and truth to the scenes.
It was just incredible to get to work with Zahn. There was just that level of trust, not only just between Zahn and I, but also the operators and our DP and everyone. Everyone has to come together with support in that moment, to give space for an incredible actor like Zahn to do his thing. We know he’s gonna do it, and we just have to create the space for him to go in and tap into whatever well that he has that’s so deep that he that he pulls things up from. I just remember when we wrapped the episode just being so exhausted and depleted, because, you know you’re walking into very triggering ground, and you have to protect yourself spiritually and emotionally.
DEADLINE: How did you do build that protection for yourself and others?
TREMBLAY: I brought specific medicines from home so that I could regenerate myself every night as we were dealing with the subject matter.
I remember just driving back to my hotel, just exhausted and just crying from like, yes, exhaustion and, like, all of those things, but also joy that I had just like, gone through the gauntlet with Zahn, and that it created a new layer of our relationship as collaborators. And I just knew that it was special what we had just done, and that I had witnessed a master of the craft do something right in front of my eyes. That’s such a moving thing as a director to witness someone like Zahn take a truth and express it in this beautiful way that’s so stunning. It was a cathartic cry that’s like, okay, we did it. We succeeded. Now, let’s edit it and get this thing done.
DEADLINE: Zahn, with that, where is Joe for you at the end of Season 3?
McCLARNON: I think Joe and his past have reconciled, and he’s understanding more about himself, coming face-to-face with himself. Which leads into Season 4 and the decisions he makes.
TREMBLAY: Leaphorn transformation this season. I think Zahn put it so perfectly, that he’s, he’s actually finally looking at himself in the mirror and recognizing things that he’s never seen before, and what that means for him. It’s such a great launch pad to move into Season 4 with a with a Leaphorn who has a little bit more self-awareness, and what that means. So, I think it’s just a beautiful place to leave a character, and as a writer, it’s such a fertile ground to take, to take that new self-realization and see, what he does with that in Season 4.
The post ‘Dark Winds’ Season 3 Finale: Zahn McClarnon & Writer/Director Erica Tremblay On That Tape, Season 4 & Lifting The Fear Away appeared first on Deadline.
