Dark Winds Is Officially The King Of Cliffhangers

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Dark Winds season 4.One of AMC’s best shows, a blend between Western and crime thriller, is also demonstrating how to do episodic cliffhangers perfectly. That show, Dark Winds, has long been a dark horse of television. Dark Winds has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes across four seasons, thanks in no small part to great reviews for Dark Winds. It also boasts some of the best acting performances on television, yet it has never even been nominated for an Emmy Award.

As if its list of accolades wasn’t long enough, Dark Winds season 4 has added a new title to its belt: it’s the king of cliffhangers. Episodic cliffhangers have mostly gone the way of the dodo thanks to the streaming age, but Dark Winds releases weekly. That, plus its murder mystery format, allows it to end each episode on a mini mystery of its own. That’s not unique in and of itself, but what is unique is how well Dark Winds handles its cliffhangers.

Dark Winds Has Established Itself As TV’s King Of Cliffhangers Right Now

No other show on television handles cliffhangers the way Dark Winds does. Dark Winds ends each episode with a development that significantly changes an aspect of the show. The ending of Dark Winds season 4, episode 7, for example, ended with Joe Leaphorn being captured by his enemy, Irene Vaggan. The entire season is perfectly structured to leave audiences wanting more at the end of each episode.

It’s really remarkable what Dark Winds‘ cliffhangers accomplish. Not only does it create tension, suspense, and excitement between episodes that release weekly, it also makes each episode flow smoothly after each other. It’s great for watching while new episodes release, but it also makes the entire season feel like a continuous story while binge-watching.

Dark Winds‘ genre, which is primarily a mystery thriller, also helps make these cliffhangers so memorable and effective. When an episode ends, it’s usually following an episode where little bits of the mystery started to unravel. Then, the cliffhanger comes in and introduces a new twist that keeps viewers on their toes. It helps keep Dark Winds from feeling like an overly long mystery and more like a twisty path viewers are being led down.

Some of Dark Winds‘ contemporaries, like The Pitt, have small cliffhangers between episodes, but they’re rarely life or death. Dark Winds‘ cliffhangers are simply more exciting, and they help make each episode more anticipated. Other shows, like Apple TV+’s Murderbot, have cliffhangers that happen just as the episode is getting good. Dark Winds, however, places its cliffhangers right at the sweet spot, after a full hour-long episode that significantly drives the plot forward. Dark Winds simply does cliffhangers better than any other modern show.

Dark Winds’ Cliffhangers Find The Right Balance Of Being Thrilling Without Causing Frustration

A huge reason the cliffhangers in Dark Winds work so well is that the show has found a way to make them thrilling without making them frustrating. There are two opposite extremes of cliffhangers. If they go too big, like The Walking Dead season six or Game of Thrones season 5, which both teased major character deaths, they end up frustrating viewers. If they go too small, there’s no thrill involved.

Dark Winds, however, has found the sweet spot. Each episode of season 4 ended on a cliffhanger that was just right. Episode 4, for example, saw Joe Leaphorn ambushed by unknown attackers. Nobody thought Leaphorn would die, but not knowing what kind of situation he would find himself in the following week created tension and a sense of intrigue. It’s the perfect balance of creating excitement for the next episode without making the wait unbearable.

Historically, Dark Winds also reserves its cliffhangers for mid-season episodes. The ending of Dark Winds season 3, for example, provided a complete resolution to the show. The mystery of the Ye’iitsoh was solved, the main characters were safe, and any loose threads, like Joe’s relationship with Emma, weren’t the type of cliffhangers that cause fans to pull their hair out. By only doing episodic cliffhangers, Dark Winds only forces audiences to wait a single week for answers instead of a year or more for a new season.

Even if Dark Winds did do a cliffhanger ending for an entire season, it has an advantage over many of its contemporaries. Dark Winds started in 2022, and it has released a new season every single year in the vein of traditional broadcast television. Severance, by comparison, forced fans to wait three years to find out what happened to Mark S. If Dark Winds season 4 ends on a cliffhanger, fans can rest easy knowing they won’t have to wait too long for answers.