Last week’s episode of Dark Winds ended with some heavy dramatic twists.

Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) raced across a parking complex to discover his wife Emma (Dianna Allison) quaking with fear after she’d been roughed up by Irene Vaggan (Franka Potente), the nasty German assassin obsessed with the Diné culture and, by extension, Leaphorn.

Meanwhile, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) was nearing his psychological breaking point, and he’d come to accept that he won’t be healed until he returns to the rez to seek out Indian medicine. That’s a big ask for him in general, as he has intentionally distanced himself a bit from his culture, but he also seems unlikely to leave Los Angeles until he has personally secured the safety of Billie (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), the teen runaway mixed up in some complex shenanigans run by the evil Dominic McNair (Titus Welliver).

“Not you?” Joe’s FBI pal Shaw (Luke Barnett) asks.

“She has other plans for me,” says Joe.

Leaphorn’s going to need the FBI’s help with finding Vaggan. Though Shaw’s department isn’t too pleased with how their previous op went down (with Irene shooting Sonny from atop a building), he will still try to help “off the books.”

After the opening credits, Irene is helping her grandfather Gunther (played by Udo Kier) move into his Holiday Inn-looking retirement home. Does he like it?

“Nein!” the former Nazi shouts.

Even though she’s dressed him in a beige cardigan, he starts rambling about the day when the Reich finally ascends, and how she has been raised to be powerful. She tries to remind him the war is over, but ultimately leaves the room, saying she loves him.

Next, Leaphorn tells Chee to cool his heels at the hospital and take some more time to get well. He doesn’t want him out with Bernadette (Jessica Matten) as they go to look for Billie. Chee is steamed, but he doesn’t fight back as much as you’d think. Maybe he’s starting to mature a bit.

We then see Billie and Leroy’s girlfriend (whose name is Val, by the way; not sure if we knew that yet) drive to a house out somewhere green. They knock on a door and ask for Leroy. A Native American woman in what looks like a waitress uniform says he isn’t there… then realizes who she’s talking to. She is Billie’s mom.

“Billie, is that really you?” she asks.

Billie, if you remember, never knew her mother, and was told she’d died just after she was born. She kinda freaks out and runs away. Val chases her and talks her down when: BUMMMMM! goes the scary music and we see the scene through binocular vision. Irene is here.

No, it’s not Irene. It’s one of her henchmen. He darts off to a phone and calls her at her dimly lit bunker: “That girl you are looking for just showed up.”

Billie and her mom sit at a Formica table near a big plate of Navajo fry bread. Billie’s mom apologizes for not being around for “all those years” and explains that she’s now been “clean for three years” and begs for another chance. Billie says it’s too late, but she doesn’t leave the house when her mother departs for work. The two may eventually reconnect, it seems.

After a break, Irene shows up as Billie is chilling on the couch watching what sounds like The Price Is Right. (This would have been a new show at the time! The original Price Is Right started in 1956, but ended in 1965. The revival, with Bob Barker as host, returned in 1972.) Anyhow, Irene starts creeping around, but Billie senses her, grabs a lamp for protection, and hides in the corner.

We hear a car. It’s Leaphorn, Manuelito, and Shaw — they jump out, guns drawn.

Billie darts down into a basement, and Irene slowly follows her. Our three heroes of the law are upstairs checking every room, while Irene creeps around downstairs. Suddenly, she turns around and finds Shaw. She pulls out a knife and stabs him right in the neck.

“Aggggh!” Shaw shouts. (Wouldn’t you?)

Then she opens a closet and finds Billie. She drags her upstairs to her car, but Manuelito and Leaphorn see them through a window. Shots fired! There’s lots of shooting. But Irene still manages to get her automobile moving and pulls out of the driveway.

Leaphorn then books it across farmland, doing his best to keep up with the car. Leaphorn is literally leaping alongside the road to try and save Billie. What a guy! He climbs a fence to meet the road as it turns, but he just misses. He’s not pleased with himself.

Later, the cops are cleaning up at the house. Shaw is pulled to an ambulance. He’s in bad shape but reports, “I’ll live.”

Billie’s mom is back and looks pretty upset. After all, her long-lost daughter just returned and now she’s lost again. Bernadette tries to calm her down as an FBI guy gives Joe a big fat file, the dossier on Leroy. Bernadette approaches Joe and confesses that she feels they have failed, and that Billie is surely dead. Joe feels the same way. He leaves to see McNair in prison.

Once again, we see McNair receiving guests in a darkened, empty cafeteria. He’s obviously important enough to get a cleared room. Joe Leaphorn demands to know where Irene is. McNair plays dumb, then says Joe is far from home and way out of his league. Joe makes it plain: If McNair doesn’t give him Irene’s whereabouts, Joe will do everything he can to make McNair’s life miserable. McNair is unimpressed. No deal is made.

We then see Irene in her car alone. My God, did she really kill Billie? Maybe she did. Ugh, that poor kid. Anyway, she returns to her bunker to find half-eaten food on the table. Udo Kier has escaped and is puttering around outside in his pajamas, mumbling in German. Irene, with tears in her eyes, decides the most humane thing to do is to run him over. Who are we to argue? Slam! RIP Udo Kier.

Meanwhile, Manuelito visits Chee in the hospital. Chee senses that Billie is dead, but Manuelito says no one knows for sure. Chee blames himself. He realizes that entering the death hogan has caused tremendous problems, but as a result of it he has had clarifying visions of his mother. He recalls how she died of cancer, alone among strangers, because he didn’t want to return with her to the rez. This is the root of all his guilt, and all of his trauma about his own heritage. He feels that he is a false Diné, and breaks down crying. Bernadette stands by him and offers support. It’s a very touching scene.

Just down the hall at the BIA clinic, Joe is with Emma, who is back in uniform. They confess that they miss each other greatly. Emma calls Joe loyal and selfless and brave. But… she’s happy in Los Angeles now. She wants to stay. The rez is still her home, but she wants to make a go of it alone. Complicated!

After everyone takes a deep breath, Joe and Bernadette meet up in the hallway. She’s got Leroy’s file in her hands and declares she knows where Leroy must be: The rez! He’s got an FBI alias: Philip Grayson. Wait, don’t we know that guy? Several episodes ago, he was the guy hanging out in a trailer who helped the NTP find Billie. That was Leroy?

Joe goes back to the rez and pulls up to the trailer in his GMC. “Philip” continues to deny that he is Leroy, even showing his ID. Joe knows it’s fake and given to him by the FBI so he can hide out until after McNair’s trial is over. But Leroy’s handler at the FBI is now dead (this was the guy Irene killed in his garage). Leroy is in trouble if he doesn’t trust Joe! Why won’t he trust Joe?

Leroy finally drops the facade, and seems both terrified and relieved. He agrees to go with Joe to Flagstaff.

After a break, we see some gorgeous shots of the rez from a bird’s-eye view as a woman speaks in Diné. It’s the old grandma from the first season (the one who wears the dark sunglasses), and she is preparing a ceremony for Jim Chee. He has returned for Indian medicine.

Later that night, Joe is with Leroy at his trailer, prepping to leave. They have a long conversation, and at first, it seems like Leroy is just scared. But Joe senses that he’s stalling. Then he catches him in a verbal slip-up. (He confuses the name of his aunt with his mother. I didn’t catch it, but I’m no Joe Leaphorn!) Joe puts the puzzle pieces together and realizes Leroy isn’t who everyone thinks he is.

“Who are you?” asks Leaphorn.

Then SLAM!

From behind, it’s Irene. She knocks Joe out. “Leroy” thanks her for getting there on time: “He was on to me.”

She calls him Beto and instructs him to “get the rope.”

Suddenly, a wash of expository information. This guy isn’t Leroy after all, but the FBI thinks he is. Leroy is long dead; Irene killed him. And he convinced this look-alike to take his place — and to be some kind of red herring witness for the FBI. Wheels within wheels.

“The trial’s next week. You’ve got to testify in his place and McNair’s going to walk,”

As Irene hogties the unconscious Joe, she says that in the morning, he should go to the trading post and call his FBI contact in Flagstaff.

When Beto notes that his contact is dead, she reminds him that as far as the Feds know, Leroy isn’t. He should do what they tell him to do.

He then asks what about Joe?

“You’ve never seen him,” Vaggan replies.

She and Beto dump him in the trunk of her car.

“You are mine now, Joe,” she says with an icy smile.

The episode ends with a card reading “In Memory of Udo Kier.”

Tracks:

• Will Jim Chee’s medicine ceremony be the spinach to his Popeye, and get him well enough in time to free Joe Leaphorn from Irene’s evil Teutonic clutches?
• Will we discover that Billie is still alive somewhere, or is that wishful thinking?
• Will McNair get his comeuppance?
• Moreover, will we learn what, specifically, McNair did other than “criminal activity” that ensnared and exploited the Diné community?
• Will season 4 end on a cliffhanger? After all, season 5 is already in production.

New episodes of Dark Winds air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and AMC+.