Dark Winds Season 4 Is Its Most Intense Yet

Season 4 of Dark Winds pushes the neo‑Western crime drama into darker territory while keeping the show’s core: a small tribal police unit in 1970s Navajoland led by Zahn McClarnon’s Joe Leaphorn alongside Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee and Jessica Matten’s Bernadette Manuelito.

The series, which has been renewed for Season 5, leans on strong performances and tightly plotted mysteries as it expands its scope. A recent set visit found the production working out of Camel Rock Studios, a facility north of Santa Fe off U.S. Highway 84 that was once a casino operated by the Tesuque Pueblo and repurposed into a studio at the urging of filmmaker Chris Eyre, who is directing three episodes this season.

The production benefits from a 17,000‑acre backlot where the crew builds locations like the Leaphorn house and a diner constructed in two weeks; a splatter of blood on that diner’s floor hints at an explosive early sequence, and Zahn McClarnon directed and was the first to shoot there.

United States, Santa Fe