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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
47
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
RogerEbert.comFeb 9, 2026
Season 4 Review:
Season four allows each of its performers to deliver affecting and career-best work, proving that as long as the show’s writers continue to find meaningful cases that push its characters close to the brink, this series will continue to be a defining touchstone that withstands the test of time.
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RogerEbert.comFeb 28, 2025
Season 3 Review:
This [fourth] episode and the ones that follow prove that McClarnon is a singular performer in modern television, one who, with each season of “Dark Winds,” gives a more heart-wrenching performance than the last. .... In cracking open the emotional core of each of its characters, season three shapes up to be one of the most magnificent seasons of television released this decade.
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The PlaylistJul 24, 2023
Season 2 Review:
What’s most exhilarating about the second season of “Dark Winds” is the complete lack of desperation. This isn’t a show that needs to pander or betray its characters for ratings. It’s only two seasons in, but these characters and the world they inhabit feel fully realized and rich with stories to tell.
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ColliderJun 6, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Dark Winds is much pulpier in its origins, though it shifts into being more profound when carried on McClarnon's shoulders. It is often messy and a bit haphazard, speeding through key revelations via flashback that could have used more time to breathe. However, the enduring commitment of the performances from McClarnon and the rest of the cast ensure that the final scenes piece everything together rather poetically.
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Feb 24, 2026
Season 4 Review:
Thanks to his chemistry with his castmates, and his leaning into a boyish charm that came off as stilted inexperience in prior seasons—along with even better than ever turns from Matten and McClarnon, make season four of Dark Winds a new high watermark for this ever burgeoning crime saga.
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Mar 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
McClarnon’s magnetism has always made it difficult to look away whenever he’s onscreen, but in these eight episodes, he reveals fissures in that presence, imbuing Leaphorn with an uncertainty that makes the character feel more mortal and elevates Dark Winds’ strongest season to date.
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Mar 10, 2025
Season 3 Review:
The acting, led by the incomparable McClarnon, is unparalleled, the action is thrilling, its cinematography captures both the beauty and the bleakness of the Southwest, and time and time again it proves that the monsters that haunt us the most are often unseen. We do have one nitpick: There are cameos by two of the show’s more famous executive producers in episode one that are as distracting as Ed Sheeran’s turn in Game of Thrones.
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Mar 4, 2025
Season 3 Review:
There are grittier, hipper, more popular crime dramas coursing through the TV/streaming ecosystem – “Tulsa King,” “Presumed Innocent,” “The Rookie” — but none of those shows can match the quality of AMC’s “Dark Winds.” .... “Dark Winds” continues to feel taut and rightsized.
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Jul 31, 2023
Season 2 Review:
What matters is how the characters — and Joe Leaphorn in particular — feel about everything that’s happening, and that material lands beautifully. It cannot be overstated how great Zahn McClarnon is in this role. .... Gordon, Allison, and Matten are also excellent. Even though the series is primarily a Leaphorn/Chee two-hander, the nature of this season essentially turns Manuelito into the second lead, and she more than justifies the extra screen time.
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What's Alan Watching?May 4, 2026
Season 1 Review:
This is a well-built show, where the relatively unusual setting, plus the performance at the heart of it, breathes new life into old cliches. At this point, Dark Winds is already doing variations on its own themes. But they're good themes, and interesting variations. Change can be overrated sometimes, when you're already good at what you do.
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Feb 10, 2026
Season 4 Review:
Although the new fourth season lacks a defining episode like season three’s sixth episode, “Abidooniidee (What We Had Been Told),” featuring lead character Joe Leaphorn on an emotional, hallucinatory journey, season four manages to advance all its characters’ stories, even as they spend more time than ever off the reservation.
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Mar 10, 2025
Season 3 Review:
Chee gets a bit lost in the narrative as he travels back and forth between the two areas as a unifying element. Still, McClarnon is such an arresting screen presence, and even more so in this extra-vulnerable mode, that any structural fuzziness doesn’t much matter. [Mar 2025, p.77]
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Jul 28, 2023
Season 2 Review:
Aside from a few repetitive cat-and-mouse moments between Leaphorn and the new Big Bad, “Dark Winds” benefits from its short run because it’s not bloated like so many streaming series are these days. The show makes every episode matter and keeps up a breakneck pace that relentlessly drives the story forward.
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Jun 10, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The performances of McClarnon, Gordon and Matten shine through a fair amount of stiff dialogue and convoluted, not always convincing plotting; the role of the supernatural, in particular, feels less intriguing than simply unresolved. But “Dark Winds” has a sensibility that draws you in and compensates for the lapses in storytelling.
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Jun 10, 2022
Season 1 Review:
There are the occasional goofy twists and unbelievable coincidences. But for the most part, it’s a well-balanced, exciting mystery that tackles questions of identity, belonging, and how one can best serve their disadvantaged community, pitting radicals against reformers against alleged sellouts.
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Jun 8, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Whitover is an accent on a story that’s gratifyingly tightly told and focused on its core ensemble and their world. ... “Dark Winds” has an admirable directness of approach: It doesn’t slow down to explain itself to viewers, trusting that its milieu will come through loud and clear.
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Jun 12, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Atmosphere goes a long way in Dark Winds, a brooding crime series set on Native-American tribal land in the 1970s that's part "True Detective," and with its vaguely mystical vibe, part "Twin Peaks." Featuring Native-American talent in front of and behind the camera, it's a solid mystery that's better during its wide-open-spaces buildup than the somewhat messy finish.
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