Our NTP trio are out of uniform and in Los Angeles.
Key Points
Chee's ghost sickness is rapidly taking over his body.
Leaphorn reconnects with Emma.
Udo Kier and Titus Welliver have entered the chat!
We come to the fourth episode of the fourth season ofDark Winds, "Ni' Ániidí (The New World)," with a great many gears in motion.
We left offwith Billie (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), the Diné youth that our heroes are trying to protect, having slipped away from Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) and on a bus to Los Angeles to find her mysterious cousin "Leroy," whom her other now dead cousin Albert was also looking for. The wacko assassin played by Franka Potente (who is, according to publicity sources, called Irene Vaggan, but we've yet to hear her name) is officially playing mind games with Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McLarnon), having interrupted a customarysweatwith violent threats followed bylewdness! Also, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) is officially letting some male chauvinist B.S. torpedo his relationship with Bern, though it is important to remember that this series is set over 50 years ago. Dr. Phil wasn't on TV yet.
The episode kicks off with a classicDark Windsdeployment of deep cut classic rock. "End of the Night" by the Doors (from their first album) plays as the assassin (I will keep calling her this until she formally introduces herself) is in her van, tinkering with weapons and surveillance equipment. She makes her way to a mansion (after subduing guard dogs) and starts snooping around, yanking papers from a filing cabinet. She freezes when a Clark Gregg-like-looking dude (not Clark Gregg) comes into the house with a paper bag full of liquor bottles. He sees a reflection of her and grabs a golf club, then enters another room where the assassin has spray painted "The Truth Dies With Me." In red! And all caps!
He makes to grab the phone, but she lunges out from the shadows. Next we see him awaken in a car swiftly filling with carbon monoxide. His wrists are tied to the wheel, but the assassin approaches wearing a gas mask.
He coughs out, "You tell McNair, I'll see him in hell!" and then he drops dead.
Who is McNair? Why has he hired the assassin to do all this? How does Billie fit in?
As the assassin drives off, the camera pans to reveal that she is near the Hollywood sign — and not on the rez.
After the credits, the music budget onDark Windsreally kicks into gear: "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin (a group that, for decades, refused to license any of their work beyondFast Times at Ridgemont High, which in itself wasa whole saga) thunders on the soundtrack to imagery of the Hollywood Hills. Jim Chee (shirtless!) is in a motel room applying first aid to a stomach wound, looking a bit dazed (probably from his increasing ghost sickness).
Bernadette and Joe are at the same motel, too. Hopefully, there are no crimes back at the rez during this excursion, because the brain trust of the Navajo Tribal Police is all out of office.
Joe takes a deep breath and calls his wife, Emma (Deanna Allison), whom we haven't seen since she ditched him at the end of last season. She is working at an L.A. clinic and doesn't seem too upset to hear from him. It's a brief call, but at least they've made contact. They make plans to meet for lunch.
Then the three detectives, all a little sore at one another, gather outside the motel out of uniform, wearing cool sunglasses. Chee reports that his FBI contacts don't seem too willing to devote resources to a 16-year-old runaway. They are on their own. He suggests they head to a spot called"The Indian Center," as everyone from the rez eventually ends up there. He gets in his El Camino and speeds off, leaving Leaphorn and Manuelito in the dusty GMC truck.
"There's a map in the glove box," Leaphorn says, definitely annoyed that Chee didn't give them directions.
After a commercial break, more expensive music: "All Down the Line" by the Rolling Stones from their 1972 masterpieceExile on Main St.We're treated to classic shots of Hollywood, and Manuelito looks a little gobsmacked by the city. Jessica Matten is, of course, a gorgeous woman in sensational period clothing, so I would not be surprised if, at some point in this episode, she is approached by a casting director asking if she has an agent. Leaphorn tries to give Manuelito some "detective lessons," and she lets him know that if she is to one day lead the NTP, he's going to have to let her do things her way.
Inside the social services Indian Center, Chee has flashbacks to his early teen years, when he first arrived there with his mother after they left the rez. His nose starts bleeding so he "hits the head," while Leaphorn and Manuelito approach a desk. When they say they are from the NTP, this unflappable woman sighs, "Oh, that's cute."
She looks at a photo of Billie and says she hasn't seen her, then refers her to another room.
There, abilagáanain uniform is similarly of no help.
"You have a warrant?" he asks.
Manuelito explains how Billie's life is at risk and Leaphorn says there must be a way to skip the red tape.
The officer, with a big American flag patch on his shirt, replies, "This place ismadeof red tape."
Out on the street, Chee's schnozz is bleeding all over the place. A guy named Sonny (Chaske Spencer) offers him a handkerchief and seems a little suspicious. Chee gives him a fake name and backstory (he's just back from 'Nam, no work on the rez) and Sonny tells him there's no real work in Los Angeles unless he wants to play an Indian on TV. Sonny walks away, but not before telling him where his office is (a bar), leaving behind some seriously sketchy vibes.
Chee presents this as a first lead to the others, because he was wearing the same type of ring Albert had on. (I did not notice this! This is why I am not a detective.)
Chee goes solo to the bar, where several American Indians are hanging out shooting pool. "Red Dirt Boogie, Brother" by Jesse Ed Davis — a Comanche rock musician of the era who played with John Lennon, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, and others — is on the jukebox. Sonny, who seems happy to see Chee, gives him a drink while rummaging through Polaroids of cars. Chee pretends to be a former tour guide at Monument Valley ("white people like their rocks") and Sonny asks if Chee can drive a car.
Chee mentions that a friend, Albert Gorman, used to dress like Sonny. When asked if the name means anything, and if he knows Albert's brother Leroy, Sonny shrugs it off. Sonny then gives him some cash for new threads and invites him to a party.
Gee, how come whenever I go to a new town and stand on the street with a bloody nose, no one ever approachesmewith dough and party invites?
Chee heads out to the others waiting in their truck, confident that Leroy will be at the party. (Note: A theater marquis displaysJeremiah Johnson, an of-the-era classic starringDark Winds' late executive producer,Robert Redford. Nice touch.)
Back at the motel, Chee inspects his wounds, which appear to be growing. Manuelito knocks on his door, and tries to be sympathetic to him, what with L.A. being a painful memory from his youth. He blows her off, then they start arguing over the job situation, and she tells him he's being a jackass. (He is!)
Meanwhile, Joe heads to his lunch date with Emma, at a spot called the Source. (This was a pretty legendary "healthy" eatery back in the day, and was satirized in the movieAnnie Hall.) He's brought Emma some ceremonial sticks that she left behind, and she says that working at Indian Health Services in L.A. isn't that different from the rez. She asks for gossip from back home. He says he doesn't have any, except that he's retiring after this case. She seems skeptical, but also happy for him. He then gives her a bag of "her" tomatoes. She sniffs them, smiles, holds his hand, but is then interrupted by a call on the payphone. There was a traffic accident and she has to head back to the clinic.
Meanwhile, the assassin is roving around under cover of night in her green van. She enters a gated area while listening to some raving right-wing radio host. She pulls into a garage loaded with tools, then heads down a secret doorway. She calls out "Grandpa?" in German as we look around this eerie, dimly lit bunker filled with weapons.
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In another room, an old man (Udo Kier? My God, it's the late actor Udo Kier!) in a Nazi uniform is painting, just like Hitler! When he hears the assassin, he cries out "intruder" and fires a gun at her. Quite a welcome!
She subdues him, and says, "It's your granddaughter Irene."
Okay, now we can call her Irene. Officially.
He says, "Don't you know who I am? I am Gunther Vaggan!"
Eventually he calms down, and asks for forgiveness.
So now we have an armed ex-Nazi battling dementia on the scene. This ought to go well.
Later, Irene, finally wearing something other than ninja clothes, soothes her grandfather as he watches TV and mumbles about how they'll have good American food once the war ends. Later, she puts a picture of Joe Leaphorn up on her mirror and looks at it lustily. This is one nutty household!
Chee then heads to Sonny's party at a large club, with Leaphorn watching via binoculars from a nearby abandoned factory. Bernadette is keeping an eye on things from the truck, but dressed appropriately, should she need to enter.
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Sonny finds Chee (still posing at "Mike") and offers him pills and booze.
Meanwhile, Irene is buzzed into a not-maximum security prison where, in a darkened cafeteria, she meets a man and tells him, "It's done."
In the shadows, we seeTitus Welliver, looking pretty haggard. He says he "didn't order Albert Gorman." Irene says Albert was a problem for him, and that she will soon take care of "the girl." (Even though he is inside, he's aware that there's a 16-year-old "flapping her gums.")
This mysterious man — I guess this is McNair? — says his trial is in a week, and he is worried about loose ends.
"If that girl talks, this whole thing unravels," he says.
When Irene says she wants to get paid, the nasty guy just tells her to "get a mop and clean this up." (They did not have Venmo in 1972.)
Irene heads to her van and is so angry, she starts smashing it up, knocking the mirror off.
Back at the party, Bernadette spots Billie. She radios Joe, who says she should let Chee deal with it. She ignores him and heads in, where everyone is grooving to James Brown's "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine."
Billie approaches some girls, asking if they know Leroy. They brush her off, but another girl catches her eye.
Elsewhere at the bash, Chee starts stumbling thanks to whatever junk is now in his system. (Sonny scoffs at him, "Are you loaded?")
The girl who perked up at hearing Leroy's name and Billie head to a quiet corner. She knows Leroy and Albert, and doesn't seem too surprised to learn that a white woman in a green van killed Albert. She tells Billie that she doesn't want to be here, that she's gotten involved in some serious business (no duh!). The girl shows that she has a gun in her purse, and says she should leave unless she, too, wants to end up dead.
After a break (and with "Slippin' Into Darkness" by the great Los Angeles band War on sound system), Leaphorn is still watching from afar. He then notices that there is a gun barrel pointed from elsewhere in the factory toward the club.
Inside, Chee is looking wobbly, and presses Sonny for more info about Leroy. He races off to go barf (quite graphically, might I add), which Bernadette sees from the bar. She keeps her eye on Sonny, but senses Chee is having real troubles. Inside the bathroom, he takes off his bandages and his ghost sickness wounds are shown all over his stomach. He bleeds everywhere and passes out.
Then Bernadette barges into the bathroom and… aha! The blood is just in his mind. He's definitely a mess, but it's not as bad as he thinks it is. As War grooves on, she escorts him from the place, with Sonny watching from afar.
"I love you," he mumbles to her, which is nice.
Back in the abandoned factory, Leaphorn snoops around, lit by flickering fluorescent bulbs. He is jumped from behind by some dude who kicks the snot out of him and the episode concludes.
Will we find Leroy? He's alive and somewhere in the area.
Will Sonny put a hit out on Jim Chee?
Will we finally find out just what this McNair fella did, and what Billie knows?
Is there going to be more rambling Udo Kier?
What classic rock gems are in the queue for next week? (The Jessie Ed Davis and War tracks were a particularly nice touch.)
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