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AMC’s hit show transports viewers to the 1970s
NEED TO KNOW
- Dark Winds is set in the early 1970s
- The AMC thriller series references real-life events
- The TV series follows a different timeline than Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee books
Dark Winds may feel timeless, but it revives a bygone era.
The AMC thriller series is set in the early 1970s. Based on author Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee books, the show — which has officially been renewed for season 5 and was recently added to Netflix — follows Navajo Tribal Police detectives in the Southwest.
Throughout the show, the storylines are rooted in Indigenous history in the United States, including the forced sterilization of Native American women. Specific events mentioned in the series, like the Apollo 15 moon landing in 1971, also shape its setting.
Hillerman wrote 18 Leaphorn & Chee novels across a few decades before he died in 2008. His first, The Blessing Way, was published in 1970. While both are set in the ’70s, the TV series has a more condensed timeline than the books.
Here’s everything to know about when Dark Winds takes place.
Dark Winds is set in the early 1970s
Dark Winds transports viewers to the early 1970s.
“As you saw in the first season, the books provide a pretty good spine for a plot of a season of television,” Dark Winds series creator Graham Roland told Variety in July 2022. “So the narratives held up fairly well, mainly because we kept them in the time period that they were written.”
The series features older cars and ’70s style, and there are no smartphones in sight. It was primarily filmed at Camel Rock Studios, the first Native American-owned film studio, in Santa Fe, N.M., per Variety.
While set in the ’70s, Dark Winds touches on themes that feel relevant today.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same, as we go back in history and develop stories based on things that actually happened,” showrunner John Wirth told The Credits in May 2025. “In Dark Winds, we have a chance to do episodes about what’s going on today through our characters, and that gives the show some of its power.”
Dark Winds mentions a real-life event from 1971
Dark Winds season 1 establishes its timeline through real moments in history. In season 1, a storyline is tied to the forced sterilization of Native American women, which lasted for decades throughout the 20th century.
The character of Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) was raised in a forced assimilation boarding school, which was a real method for separating Indigenous children from their cultural roots.
In season 2, Dark Winds further establishes its place in time when characters gather around televisions in episode 3 to watch the 1971 Apollo 15 moon landing.
Tony Hillerman’s books have an expanded timeline
Most of Dark Winds takes place in 1972.
“For four seasons now AMC Networks has provided us with the opportunity to entertain audiences through the unique lens of a traditional crime story set on the Navajo Nation in 1972,” Wirth said in a press release in February 2026. “We are one of one and never take this strong support for granted.”
The books, however, span across more time than the series. They’re largely set when Hillerman published each of the 18 mystery novels in the series, starting in 1970 until his death in 2008, according to the Pioneer Library System.
Throughout the books, Leaphorn’s career progresses as he becomes a lieutenant in Skinwalkers (1986) and eventually retires in The Fallen Man (1996). So while the book series chronicles Leaphorn’s life after the ’70s, the show continues to focus on that decade.
Since the series is condensed, it has expanded the characters’ ’70s storylines. “Out of that came the idea that Leaphorn had a deceased child, which was not a part of the books and also, in Tony’s books, I think Jim Chee had applied to the FBI but he was a Navajo tribal police officer,” Wirth told Variety in July 2022.
Season 1 largely drew from Hillerman’s Listening Woman (1978); season 2 from People of Darkness (1980); season 3 from Dance Hall of the Dead (1973) and The Sinister Pig (2003); and season 4 from The Ghostway (1984).
Dark Winds will continue to be set in the ’70s for season 5
There’s no official synopsis for Dark Winds season 5 yet, but the series will likely pick up where season 4 left off in the early ’70s.
Season 4 featured storylines drawn from Hillerman’s novel The Ghostway (1984), which Wirth confirmed to TV Insider in April 2025.
The season ended with the shocking murder of Leaphorn’s friend and the former Scarborough County Sheriff, Gordo Sena (A Martinez), so season 5 may revolve around the police force solving Gordo’s murder.
Read the original article on People
