Dark Winds season 2 episode 2 recap: Joe makes a shocking connection
NOTE: this post contains spoilers for Dark Winds season 2 episode 2, "Wonders of the Unknown."
Joe (Zahn McClarnon) desperately tries to drag Chee (Kiowa Gordon) to the road to find help. Even though the gunshot wasn't fatal, Chee is bleeding badly. When Joe finally gets Chee to the road a trucker stops to help.
The suspect, Colton Wolf, (Nicholas Logan) was wounded when Joe shot at his vehicle. He goes back to the trailer to sew up his wounds. Later he plants a bomb inside one of the creepy dolls filling the trailer. Colton boxes it up with a bow. He leaves the box outside of the Charley home.
Colton also calls the hospital, pretending to be an FBI agent. He tells the nurse he needs to interview Chee about his injuries. The nurse gives him Chee's room number. What is he up to?
Emma keeps Navajo traditions alive
Emma (Deanna Allison) is trying to keep Joe and everyone close to her grounded in Navajo traditions and beliefs. She insists the family needs a ceremony because they are surrounded by so much unnatural death. She helps Sally (Elva Guerra) learn the ways of a Navajo mother by teaching her Navajo stories that Sally can teach to her son.
At the health center, Emma tells women they should have their babies at home, because doctors at health centers for indigenous people were secretly sterilizing indigenous women. That's not just part of the story; indigenous women were sterilized as part of The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970. Mary Landon (Jaqueline Byers), a reporter from Los Angeles, comes to the Indian Health Center to speak with Emma about it, but Emma refuses to talk to her.
A big choice for Bernadette
When Chee is ready to make a statement, Joe sends Bernie (Jessica Matten) to take it. Chee apologizes for how things went down at the cave in season 1, but Bernie has moved on.
Latter, she receives a letter saying she's been selected for an interview with the Border Patrol in Arizona. When she tells Joe he's not happy and wants her to stay. But she tells him that there's no future there. She wants the chance to move up the ladder in her career. Joe supports her, but it's clear he doesn’t want to lose another person he considers family.
The Charley's connection to the People of Darkness
After finding JJ's belt buckle, Joe goes to see B.J. Vines (John Diehl), who is central in this mystery. Vines is uncooperative. He questions why Joe is even involved when his wife, Rosemary (Jeri Ryan), only hired Chee.
Vines tells Joe he knew Dillon Charley, the head of Indian church, and his family. Whatever is going on, the Charley family is intimately involved somehow.
Still trying to make the connection between Vines and the People of Darkness, Joe meets with Gordo Sena (A Martinez). Sena gives Joe a copy of the police report Vines' filed detailing the contents of the box. Sena tells Joe to talk to his father about the People of Darkness.
Reluctantly, Joe visits his parents. Joe's father, Henry Leaphorn (Joseph Runningfox), also used to work for the tribal police. Henry tells Joe the People of Darkness were "peyote freaks" who broke Navajo laws and went rogue. Then he tells him to talk with Margaret (Betty Ann Tsosie) to find out more.
Margaret explains Dillon Charley was the founder of the People of Darkness. They brought outsiders in and sold the experience of having vision quests and participating in sacred ceremonies. She thought the group had died out when he did. But Joe knows that's not the case.
When Joe visits Chee in the hospital he asks exactly what Rosemary told him about the box and the connection to the People of Darkness. Chee says Rosemary thinks Dillon Charley gave something to Vines, but Emmerson Charley wanted it back. Emmerson sent his son Tomas to steal it. Then Emmerson was killed.
New information shakes Joe to his core
Joe takes Bernadette to the site where he and Chee found the buckle and bag up the other items there. Bernie finds some burned papers that have the Drumco logo on them. They also find Tomas Charley, dead in a ravine.
Bernadette and Joe go to Tomas' home. His son, Benny (Jet James), is there alone, sitting with the wrapped box Colton left at the house. Benny thinks Tomas has left the box. When Joe helps Benny open the box he sees a wire from the bomb. He tells Bernie to get Benny out of there and to send for Henry, who is able to defuse the bomb.
At the police station, lots of people have gathered to watch the moon landing. Joe tells Benny astronauts used to train on the reservation. Benny says he saw an astronaut last week near their house. He points to the TV and said the astronaut looked like the one on TV, except he was blonde.
When he told his grandfather, Emmerson told him to stay away from the man, that the man was bad and he had blown up that well. Joe realizes Colton Wolf was responsible for the death of his son. But how can he prove it?
Meanwhile, the episode ends with Colton stepping off the elevator at the hospital, disguised as a doctor. Is he on his way to kill Chee?
New episodes of Dark Winds season 2 air on AMC Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT, as well as stream on AMC Plus.
