Dark Winds
Growing up in my house there were a few authors whose books would always be found on our shelves, Tony Hillerman was one of them. Both my parents loved the Leaphorn and Chee series and it was a big event in our house when Mystery! adapted three of the books as Skinwalkers: The Navajo Mysteries with the brilliant Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn. I remember one day my mom and I were trying to thin out our bookshelves and she decided it was time to finally let Tony Hillerman go. We got rid of the books and about a week later she bought a new copy of The Blessing Way. Because, as I've stated before, Tony Hillerman is always on our shelves, even if we attempt to change this. After the paperback repurchase I offered to get all the books for her for her Kindle, so that is now where our Tony Hillerman collection resides. Though I'm still kind of pissed we ever culled them in the first place. Never make decisions you may regret for expedience because there's nothing more comforting than an old familiar paperback, especially one that has strategically placed evidence as to who read it last. Hint, it was usually my grandmother because she'd use Halls wrappers as bookmarks, she was chaotic good. Therefore much excitement was felt in my household by the announcement of a new series based on Hillerman's books. And not just because I love Zahn McClarnon so much, though this ubiquitous actor was a major bonus. I was excited because the book series started in the 1970s and it was revealed that this adaptation would be a period piece. This was a seventies cop drama! My grandmother, she of the Halls wrappers, instilled in me that the pinnacle of televisual experiences is the seventies cop drama. The Rockford Files is ALWAYS at the top of the list, everything else follows, with Stephen J. Cannell shows ranked higher than others. But also in a far more important development, and I'm not talking about the big producer names, Redford having produced the earlier Mystery! series as well, I'm talking about the writers's room being all Native American. I mean, about fucking time! This is their story and they should be the ones to tell it. I mean, props to Hillerman for writing the books, but while he might have known Native Americans and gone to school with them and everything else, he isn't one of them. I feel with Dark Winds and Reservation Dogs Native Americans are finally getting to tell their stories for themselves and this is so long overdue. The first season was actually based on the third and forth books, Listening Woman and People of Darkness but they conveniently have Leaphorn and Chee pair up way earlier than in the books series. It wasn't groundbreaking for it's mystery, dealing with missing money from a bank heist, it was groundbreaking for how it was told and who told it. The second season continues the storyline from People of Darkness, delving into the cult that takes Native rituals and dumbs them down for mass consumption by white people, and is of course now run by corrupt white people. But it also continues a storyline thought resolved, the death of Joe and Emma Leaphorn's son which ends up making these six episodes feel like the second half of the first season. But a very satisfying second half. We get big emotions, danger, and, in the end, resolution and acceptance. If the show ends up not getting a third season, this was a beautiful ending. Of course I actually need this show to run for years and years for my sanity.
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