Dark Winds Recap ‘Monster Slayer’: Zahn McClarnon stars as a veteran tribal police lieutenant in AMC mystery

Dark Winds Season 1 Episode 1

It was 1971, in Gallup, New Mexico. Three men, along with a helicopter pilot, staged a daring bank robbery. An old man living inside the sprawling Navajo Reservation looked up and saw the helicopter pass.

The old man’s name was Hosteen Tso. He started feeling sick after he saw that helicopter, and three weeks later, he went to a motel for a healing with an old woman, Margaret Cigaret, and her granddaughter Anna Atcitty. Later that night, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) was called in to the Big Rock Motel. Hosteen Tso was dead, his eyes gouged out and his liver taken. Young Anna was also dead, though of what, it was not immediately certain; there were no obvious wounds, nothing unusual except for a streak of white on her hair. Old, blind Margaret Cigaret, unable to speak due to shock, was the only survivor. 

Neither was Lt. Leaphorn’s case. Whilst he was called in as a first responder to the motel murders, homicide was a federal crime, and he was required to turn over all the evidence to the FBI. But this was a crime within the community he served, against a young woman he knew. He could not help but become involved.

‘Monster Slayer’, as the first episode, introduced the characters and laid out the setting and the case, but it naturally had few answers. What was Lt. Leaphorn’s history with Anna’s family? Anna’s father Guy almost attacked him when he came to notify the family of Anna’s death. ‘Now they’re both dead! Are you happy?’ Who was the other one who died? The young man who owned the jacket embroidered with JJ that Anna wore, the same young man on the photograph Anna’s mother Helen gave the lieutenant which caused him to tear up?

A few of Lt. Leaphorn’s men had enlisted, so that his help mostly came from his number two, Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), and a newbie officer named Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon). Whilst Chee grew up at Shiprock, he went to college and has been away for many years. His Diné was rusty, and he had to be told of some basics, like carrying a gallon of water at all times, and keeping ‘medicine’ with him.

It was Chee whom Lt. Leaphorn took with him to the morgue (a small room next to a souvenir shop owned by a man named Lester) when he met with FBI Agents Leland Whitover (High Pockets) and Phil Springer (Low Pockets). Leaphorn explained to the FBI that the Diné believed that talking about witchcraft or even speaking the name of the dead invited more death. The taking of the man’s eyes and liver was a smart way to ensure that even if people knew something, they would not say anything. 

The more mystical aspects of the story were woven seamlessly into the mystery, so that even without research it was easy enough to follow along. The healing in the motel was called a ‘sing’. Hosteen Tso had given a token, a pair of sunglasses, but it was missing from the crime scene; Chee pointed out that it was supposed to sit at the centre of a sing cloth. And, when Leaphorn later sent Manuelito and Chee on a welfare check, we got a glimpse of what could be witchcraft.

Helen’s skepticism over the FBI handling of her daughter’s case was warranted; Whitover seemed more interested in the bank robbery at Gallup. He told Leaphorn that five eyewitnesses saw the chopper head north into Navajo country. Though Leaphorn called it white people’s problems, he did somewhat agree to the trade; he told Whitover he would pretend that the bank robbers were Navajo if Whitover would pretend the murder victims were White.

Whitover’s interest in the bank robbery ran deep, and he did more than encourage the lieutenant to help. He was the one who sent Chee, also an FBI agent, to work undercover inside the reservation. He told him the helicopter was last seen headed into Canyon de Chelly, and that the bank robbers were Navajo radicals and members of a group called Buffalo Society. They were within Navajo jurisdiction, but if Chee found a lead, like a possible ID or location, the FBI could negotiate a joint task force and get involved. He promised Chee that if he found the helicopter, he could get any assignment he wanted afterwards.  

The helicopter was closer than any of them realised. When Leaphorn went to Hosteen Tso’s house to speak to his grandson, a priest named Benjamin Tso, he found the house empty and followed a trail of water that led to a nearby lake. Under the lake was the missing helicopter, along with a body and a white helmet with the initials C.W.

‘Monster Slayer’ is an intriguing beginning, and with just six episodes in the first season, this should be a quick binge. It was nice, though, to watch it slowly, to linger on the details, to appreciate how carefully it laid out the story. This is one of the finer mysteries I've seen in a while, and I look forward to seeing more of it.

Rating: A-

Strays

⛰️The series is based on Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee novels. Its producers include George R.R. Martin and the late Robert Redford.

⛰️Lt. Leaphorn’s first scene showed him making a thief dig a hole and place the artifacts he stole back onto the ground. Jim Chee was introduced as a young man cockily driving into town, who did not bother to stop when people with a broken down vehicle tried to flag him down. 

⛰️Leaphorn’s wife Emma was a nurse who worked at a local clinic. When a pregnant young woman came in for a checkup, she translated for the White doctor, and warned the girl, Sally Growing Thunder, that if she delivered at the clinic, the doctor would perform an operation so that she could not have children again. This horrifying detail is historically accurate. 

⛰️Emma was concerned when she saw bruises on Sally’s wrists, like she had been tied, and that Sally refused to name the father of her baby. She gave Sally’s address to her husband, who sent Manuelito (later accompanied by Chee) on a welfare check.

⛰️At Sally Growing Thunder’s house, Manuelito went to the front door whilst Chee checked out the back. The woman who later said she was Sally’s mother initially lied and claimed Sally did not live there, but Sally came to the door, and Manuelito was able to speak to her. A sound came from inside the house that made Ada Growing Thunder usher her daughter in. When Manuelito tried to follow, she cast some sort of spell that stopped her from entering. She also tried to touch or get something from Manuelito, but the young cop was able to snap out of the trance and step away.

⛰️A man with a scar on his cheek and a gun watched Chee from inside the house as he checked out the back. Chee’s life was probably saved when Manuelito called for him.

⛰️As they drove away from the Growing Thunders’ house, Manuelito stopped and performed a ritual. 

⛰️Benjamin Tso told Leaphorn there were no other family members to be notified of his grandfather’s death. 

⛰️Lester’s wife had a new hobby, painting cactuses, and whilst he clearly did not think much of them, he claimed he sold six last week.

Episode Title: Monster Slayer

Teleplay By: Graham Roland

Directed By: Chris Eyre

Original Release Date: June 12, 2022

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