{"id":116654,"date":"2022-07-18T08:28:43","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T02:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/dark-winds-creators-talk-season-one-finale\/"},"modified":"2022-07-18T08:30:04","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T03:00:04","slug":"the-finale-of-season-one-discussions-with-the-dark-winds-creators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/the-finale-of-season-one-discussions-with-the-dark-winds-creators\/","title":{"rendered":"The Finale of Season One: Discussions with the ‘Dark Winds Creators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Spoiler Alert<\/strong> Do not read if you haven\u2019t watched \u201cH\u00f3zh\u00f3oNaash\u00e1a,\u201dThe Season 1 finale of \u201cDark Winds,\u201dWatch streaming on AMC+<\/em><\/p>\n

After a slow boil the first season, \u201cDark Winds\u201d ends with a bang \u2014 quite literally. The finale wraps up the case of the armored truck robbery that underlaid the six episode first season of AMC\u2019s neo-noir series, which took its plot from Tony Hillerman\u2019s 1978 novel \u201cListening Woman.\u201dThe episode ends with Joe Leaphorn (Zahn Mclarnon), and Jim Chee, Navajo police officers, in a tense standoff in a cave in which the robbers had hidden their money and hostages. And after plenty of twists and turns \u2014 including the revelation that Joe\u2019s FBI ally Witover (Noah Emmerich) was actually allied with the robbers the entire time \u2014 the stand-off concludes with Jim and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) setting off explosives to bury the money and the bodies in the cave.<\/p>\n

But while the show\u2019s robbery plot wraps on a fiery note, the real key to the ending is the emotional arcs of Joe, Jim and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), which are on full display in the episode. Bernadette and Jim had a brief romance that ended when Bernadette discovered Jim was an FBI agent. They then began to heal their differences by joining forces against Whitover during the stand-off. Joe \u2014 after a dramatic conversation with one of the robbers that ends with his suicide \u2014 is able to begin living with the pain of the loss of his son Joe Jr., burning his varsity jacket in a Navajo ceremony. And in the quiet final scene of the short but action-packed episode, Joe and Jim come to silently acknowledge how much their bond has come to mean to them in the short time they\u2019ve known each other.<\/p>\n

Chris Eyre and Graham Roland, series creator, spoke to us ahead of the finale. Variety<\/em> about adapting Hillerman\u2019s original books, where the show will go in its next season and why you can\u2019t tell a Western story without Indigenous voices.<\/p>\n

What were your biggest changes when adapting the Leaphorn\/Chee novels?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Graham Roland<\/strong>The books serve as a solid foundation for television plots, as you will see in the first series. Because we kept the books in the same time period they were written, the narratives performed well. The character work was what I concentrated on. Kind of \u201cHow do you take these characters and make them compelling enough to sustain a TV show for many seasons?\u201d Out of that came the idea that Leaphorn had a deceased child, which was not a part of the books and also, in Tony\u2019s books, I think Jim Chee had applied to the FBI but he was a Navajo tribal police officer. I took his name and made him an FBI Agent first. He was then allowed to enter the Navajo tribal Police Department and kept that secret from his fellow contemporaries. This made their stories a little more fleshy. You had a guy trying to investigate a case while also still\u00a0 processing his own child\u2019s death and this guy who\u2019s returning to the reservation, caught between two worlds. Now that I have this, I can kind of see the similarities between these characters. This is what makes for a great long-term television series.<\/p>\n

The season is filled with nods and allusions to Westerns of every kind, including classic Westerns like Westerns. \u201cStagecoach.\u201dWhat’s the relationship between the show & classic Westerns? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Eyre<\/strong> You can\u2019t have one without the other. You can\u2019t have the Native American Buffalo society without the U.S. government. And you can\u2019t have the Western both sides of the West. I know people do make Westerns without natives and I\u2019m always like, \u201cHow can you do that?\u201dYou must have one of each. Zahn wearing the cowboy hat embodies the same thing, he\u2019s an Indian cowboy in a certain way. We hearken to all these things that we recall from classic cinema, it\u2019s just part of am inextricable marriage of two cultures that are colliding. And basically, you know, that\u2019s what this world is about, there wouldn\u2019t be the reservation without the over-culture. It creates richer conflicts.<\/p>\n

When we talk about the last episode, it starts by revealing that Whitover had been lying to Joe & Jim about his motivations. How did you balance that twist to make it both surprising and also feel earned? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong>It was a difficult task. Noah Emmerich had been told about the role before he accepted it. \u201cHey, it doesn\u2019t read this way in the pilot, but you end up being the big bad.\u201d And his big concern right out of the gate, which was all of our concern, is you don\u2019t have a lot of white characters in the show. How can you make his character which is antagonism’s force, look more real? \u201cOh, he\u2019s the bad guy.\u201dIt was a delicate and beautiful dance. We owe it to the actor for making it so. Chee was one of the things we tried to do. That wasn\u2019t manufactured. While he was trying to use him, if it had all gone his way, I believe he would have brought Chee along with him to Washington and fulfilled all of the promises he made. He truly loved the kid and wanted the best. But at the end of the day, that didn\u2019t trump his own motivations<\/p>\n

Was the final episode shot in a cave or on a soundstage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eyre:<\/strong>A practical cave entrance was created. We then shot some more complex stuff in the cave that we had created.<\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong>That you even asked me that question is amazing. That it doesn\u2019t look totally fake, that makes me feel very good.<\/p>\n

The episode’s climax is the scene in which Joe meets the robber at the shed. This leads to the robber suicide. How did that feel like a natural ending to Joe\u2019s story? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Eyre:<\/strong> For me, when I think of Joe Leaphorn, he\u2019s living in these two worlds, and he\u2019s law enforcement, but he aches for this guy who\u2019s so damaged that he does the act that he does, which is horrible. Indian country, there\u2019s some high suicide rates. Leaphorn tells Leaphorn not to go to the door and he then puts his head down. All he can do is pray. Then it becomes this beautiful prayer, as the writers did. It transformed it into something greater. It\u2019s kind of cathartic for me.<\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong>The prayer went through several iterations as a piece of writing. I think I\u2019m right about that, Chris, in the sense that there was the first version that came out. It is clear that those writers put a lot of effort into that scene. It took a lot of teamwork to achieve that result. It was a team effort to not only get it right, but also to make it authentic.<\/p>\n

Eyre: <\/strong>To me, it shows everything we\u2019re talking about, Leaphorn walking between these worlds and he sees the duality of his job and he puts it into this prayer.<\/p>\n

How much consultation did the Navajo Community provide on your show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eyre:<\/strong>For language and culture, we had Navajo experts on set. Then we had the added benefit of having Navajo elders for background and people such as Betty [Ann Tsosie] who plays the grandmother, and Harrison Lowe, who\u2019s in the beginning of the show. We were able to use the help of fluent Navajo speakers. Sometimes, the problem is that dialects can be very different. Language can also become more slang over time as it evolves through generations. So there\u2019s traditional Navajo, and there\u2019s a looser Navajo. And there was a lot of different influences, but we\u2019re lucky to have all those people as contributors that helped us. And the Navajo people that I\u2019ve talked to love the series. There\u2019s always room for us to improve every season, which we\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n

Roland: <\/strong>We also had Navajo writers in our writers room, which was very helpful because they not only could they answer a lot of our questions, but if they didn\u2019t know they had a community of people that they could go to to ask so at every point in the process.<\/p>\n

What do you think it is about the journey that Joe went on that he was able to begin the process of moving on from his son\u2019s death? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong> I don\u2019t want this to come across as he\u2019s found Chee, so he\u2019s found a replacement for his son. But I think Chee filled a big hole in his life, so that\u2019s one part of him being able to move on. It is also about realizing that the grief he was holding onto was hurting him as well as the people he loved. It was for his sake as well as for his wife and those who loved him.<\/p>\n

Eyre:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think he\u2019s moved on. I think that he\u2019s learned to live with it. And the poetry of it is that he gives up this jacket finally, that he\u2019s taken one step. And it\u2019s very poetic that, you know, we opened with the jacket in the first episode, and at the end, he\u2019s able to do what he\u2019s supposed to do. One episode he even said “It’s a good idea to have a jacket.” \u201cShe\u2019s not supposed to be wearing that jacket\u201d when he\u2019s talking about Anna. It is just emblematic of letting go and he just decides to burn it like he\u2019s supposed to or bury it culturally. And he does what he\u2019s supposed to do finally, after the season and arcs, and it\u2019s just the poetic act of believing he is going to move forward.<\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s a very interesting point, Chris brought up. Most Americans and most people in the audience believe that when someone dies, you want to keep those things that are close to your heart. However, the Navajo culture has a different view. It was a way to let go of grief and to get rid the possessions of the one you have lost. There\u2019s something really beautiful about that.<\/p>\n

Jim almost tells Joe some things in the last scene, and Joe just responds. \u201cI know.\u201dThe episode then cuts to credits. You wanted to end the season with this conversation hanging on. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong> So what happened was the the writers had written the first draft of the finale, and I read it for the first time and liked it, but it didn\u2019t have a scene that ended with the two leads. Because I felt it was lacking this, I went back and pitched that scene. It was necessary to resolve the emotional journey they had gone through. But what about this particular line? it really wasn\u2019t meant to be some sort of mystery. It was intended to be an emotional thing. Joe and Jim were both very slow to express themselves. Jim would have offered his apology if he had continued to speak, apologizing for lying about everything that had happened. Joe, however, seems to have said it. \u201cI know\u201dHis way of saying, “Let him off the hook” was his way to say, \u201cIt\u2019s not necessary. We did this together, we\u2019re in this together. And you don\u2019t have anything to apologize to me for.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, how did you think about developing their relationship together since it\u2019s really the core of the show. What was your approach to developing that chemistry from both a writing and directorial perspective?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong>It was fortunate that Kiowa Zahn and Zahn knew each other before the show and had previously worked together. So we had that going for us, the chemistry wasn\u2019t necessarily something that needed to fake because they already had it as two working actors and two people. It was an important part of the show, and it was something that we all hoped would be on screen. We never intended this to be a buddy cop and I don\u2019t think this is a buddy cop show, but when we started to get some of those dailies back of their first scenes together, I remember thinking \u201cWow, this is a whole layer of the show that I hadn\u2019t been looking for.\u201dThe scene was set up and the actor joined it, and it just jumped off the screen. It was difficult for me to find that balance between the father and son dynamic, and to be able to work with cops on a murder investigation together, while still keeping their points about their own culture, their history, and their community.<\/p>\n

The second season of the series is already confirmed. Are you going to tackle a book? Are you a fan of a particular book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland:<\/strong> We do. We spoke a lot about the second series, even though we were only halfway through the first. And what book would we tackle next. We’ve already chosen one. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m allowed to say what book it is. I don\u2019t want to step on the new showrunner\u2019s toes. But that\u2019s kind of our model, one book a season.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spoiler Alert Do not read if you haven\u2019t watched \u201cH\u00f3zh\u00f3oNaash\u00e1a,\u201dThe Season 1 finale of \u201cDark Winds,\u201dWatch streaming on AMC+ After a slow boil the first season, \u201cDark Winds\u201d ends with a bang \u2014 quite literally. The finale wraps up the case of the armored truck robbery that underlaid the six episode first season of AMC\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":116655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Dark-Winds-Creators-Talk-Season-One-Finale.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116656,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116654\/revisions\/116656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}