Season 4 of Dark Winds has been quite the rollercoaster. From beginning with a series of bodies on the Rez to the journey to ’70s Los Angeles, the trio of Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) has been thrown for a serious loop. But after this week’s episode, “Shíká Nidanitáhą́ą́ (Those who were searching for me),” the budding conflict between Chee and Manuelito finally comes to a tipping point. Ahead of this week’s episode, Collider caught up with Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten, who shared their thoughts on where these two lovebirds are headed — and how Season 4 will change them forever.
Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten Explain the Tension Between Chee and Bern in ‘Dark Winds’ Season 4
COLLIDER: It’s no secret that fans have been hoping for a full-blown Chee/Bernadette since Season 1, but there’s still plenty of drama and tension between them this season. Were either of you surprised at Joe’s decision to choose Bern as his successor or by your characters’ respective responses to that decision?
KIOWA GORDON: Yeah, I think Chee was very surprised. She was surprised, too, in the episode.
JESSICA MATTEN: Well, I, in real life, was surprised because that doesn’t happen in the novels. Right?
GORDON: Yeah.
MATTEN: So that was a way to integrate Bernadette’s character into the [Leaphorn] and Chee novels. So, I was just kind of like, “What?” And I was like, “Oh, this is an interesting turn.” You know, so. [Turns to Gordon] I don’t know if you want to…
GORDON: Oh yeah. It was a surprise, but a welcome one for sure.
MATTEN: Well, not really to Chee.
GORDON: Not to Chee but to me personally. I was like, “Yeah! We could do that.”
MATTEN: We’re just rooting for each other. I saw that Kiowa had this big story arc this season, and I was like, “Good!”
GORDON: Yeah, the trade-off. She got the position, I got the meat. [Laughs]
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MATTEN: But it’s cool. It’s a team effort, and I think it’s important that the individual characters all get their arc, and get a moment to shine…
GORDON: You’re gonna get yours this [upcoming] season…
MATTEN: Am I? I don’t know, because you get to invest more into the character, and I think that’s what audience members are craving. I know when I watch shows, I want to go into the depths of the soul…
GORDON: Yeah, you dive deeper into it, and it’s amazing.
MATTEN: Yeah, and just how it works is that person gets that time on screen. But I think it’s very important, and in the end, it benefits us all. As a team.
Jessica Matten Reveals How Bernadette Manuelito Deals With Her ‘Dark Winds’ Trauma
Speaking of that, in Episode 6, Bern has this heart-to-heart with Emma that I think really highlights the mother-daughter dynamic between them that’s honestly been missing a bit from the last few seasons. Jessica, considering where Joe and Emma have been over the years, is there a part of Bern that maybe doesn’t want the job? Maybe she’s afraid of her and Chee falling down that same path of slow compromise?
MATTEN: 100%. And, as we were saying earlier… Bernadette is coming from a place of protecting their relationship. She also is very conflicted because she just experienced this post-traumatic stress of murdering someone [in Season 3], and she’s trying to deal with her own emotions still and process how to cope with that. Because this is the ’70s, it’s not like there are mental health clinics saying, “This is how you deal with your trauma.” Right? So, she’s trying to hold this all in on her own and remain solid, not just for her own safety but for Chee’s safety, for the person that she loves.
So, yes, and thank you for pointing out that scene with Bern and Emma, because I was talking to the writers and I said, “I feel like there’s something still missing in the arc of Bernadette dealing with her trauma and trying to heal from cold-blooded killing someone for the first time.” If you go back to Joe Leaphorn’s arc for the first two seasons — or three seasons — it was about his trauma [resulting in him] killing a man, essentially, but the man just freezing to death. Where Bernadette straight up stabs a man in the freaking jugular…
GORDON: In the neck!
MATTEN: And I was like, “I think we need to continue this arc and not let it go just in Episode 1.” So, our writers, Tom Brady and Max [Hurwitz], they beautifully incorporated this small but powerful scene between Emma and Bern. Emma is the mother she never had, so this is why that scene held so much weight. And it was beautiful to just connect with Deanna as a person and actor, and to have that moment because you’re right, we don’t have a lot of those matriarchal moments in the show.
And it’s a shame, honestly.
MATTEN: Yeah! And that’s why it was so beautiful to have that moment. It really helped shape not only her character arc for the season for Bernadette, but you see that beautiful river, that flow, go into her next scene, which is with Chee. And that scene is really powerful too.
‘Dark Winds’ Season 4’s Ghost Sickness Arc Has Changed Jim Chee to His Core
You guys mentioned earlier that Chee really gets the spotlight this season. Much of his arc in Season 4 has centered on the ghost sickness, which is one of the most interesting elements. In Episode 6 specifically, Chee encounters this harrowing vision of his mother, which is really chilling to the viewer. Kiowa, did you feel like this moment has been a long time coming for Chee? Is this ghost sickness almost a blessing in disguise for him to deal with these things?
GORDON: Yeah, it has to, otherwise he’s just going to stay stagnant, really. It’s really, it’s an opportunity for him to grow like he’s never grown before. To have the people at his back that he has… It’s the only moment that really saves him, because if he were to have to go through this darkness alone, I don’t think he would’ve ever saw the other side of it. So, to have Bernadette, to have Joe, to have Emma, and Toby Shaw, and [Sheriff Gordo] Sena, and Margaret Cigarete… without that tradition and culture, he would’ve been lost to the ages. So, it’s a nice thing to have him thrust through this and, of course, to have to deal with it in the here and now and not put it off any longer than he has been.
I don’t know if you remember this, but when we spoke at Camel Rock Studios last June, I compared Bern and Chee to Mulder and Scully from The X-Files due to their respective “believer” and “skeptic” roles on the show. In what ways, if any, do you think that those roles have been challenged this season?
GORDON: Yeah, I think [his] skepticism is a little wavering now. It’s like, “Oh, maybe I should dive deeper into the culture and the traditions and ceremony that I was supposed to have been brought up in and taught. And that should’ve been my firm footing. And to learn songs and all this stuff. To be a healer.” So, I think he’s trying to open up his mind towards that aspect now.
MATTEN: I think the writers did a brilliant job… I was excited for Kiowa, because, literally, ghost sickness is a reflection of, psychologically and spiritually, the pain a person is going through, and, within the Navajo culture, showing that physically, how it comes to life and what it looks like. There’s also the thing about Chee being jealous about Bernadette getting the position over him. I would like to think that part of his ghost sickness is also the bad medicine that he’s holding onto about that as well. All the demons coming to the surface come into this physical form. Everything that’s suppressed in the body. And I think it’s kind of a good lesson to the audience on a very subconscious level… It’s like it has to come out from somewhere, otherwise, it does come out in your body. Stress, cancer, disease. Dis-ease.
GORDON: Dis-ease.
MATTEN: Oh, fun part! Kiowa is so brilliant [in] just his commitment to just going there, but in between takes, you yell “cut,” and he’s back dancing and shaking it. [Laughs]
GORDON: Oh yeah, in my gown! [Laughs]
MATTEN: Yeah, he’s in his gown!
GORDON: I told them, “Can we just tear up the back real quick and just have my butt cheeks flapped open, you know? No underwear. That would be so funny.” He’s like, “This ain’t no show. We don’t need that.”
MATTEN: He’s doing this big dance in between… And then another scene we were shooting too, our director for an episode, Jim [Chory], he was like, “You’re one crazy motherf-cker. I don’t know any actor who could just like be joking around 30 seconds [later],” [because] you put out a really amazing performance crying.
GORDON: Yeah, that’s so wild.
MATTEN: So, as dark as our show gets, bless Kiowa because he keeps our energy elevated and light.
GORDON: But it’s just about finding that flow state and then having access to it immediately is really what I try and strive for. I guess that’s what it is.
So, Season 4 gag reel is what I’m hearing?
GORDON: I wish, dude! I don’t think anybody does that anymore.
MATTEN: Oh, that would be amazing.
GORDON: But I wish. That’s what I’m always hoping for every project I ever do. I’m like, “Where’s the bloopers?”
MATTEN: Even Zahn happening to be behind the screen and then going “[gagging noise]” whenever we have a “kissy scene” or whatever. Yeah, it’s just funny. We should have a bloopers’ thing.
Dark Winds airs Sundays on AMC and AMC+.