The fifth season of Dark Winds is now in production, continuing the adventures of Tribal Police officers Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon). However, one of season 4’s new menaces won’t be back for the new season. Dominic McNair, a sinister crime boss whose machinations drove the plot of season 4, will not return.
As revealed in a recent interview with Screen Rant, Titus Welliver will not be returning for season 5. It’s not for any lack of desire: in the interview, he praised the show for having an “amazing group of actors and writers.” Instead, it’s a matter of timing; Welliver is already committed to appearing in the fourth and final season of Netflix’s The Night Agent. He won’t rule out returning to the show for a future season, and speculates about how dangerous his incarcerated crime boss might be when and if he’s released. The 1970s-set Dark Winds is an adaptation of Tony Hillerman‘s Leaphorn and Chee crime novels; it is executive produced by the late Robert Redford and by George R.R. Martin, who was a longtime friend of Hillerman’s.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
Who Is Dominic McNair?
A Los Angeles crime boss, McNair was sent to jail as the result of an FBI investigation. However, even from jail he weilded great influence over the LA underworld; realizing that one of his underlings, Leroy Gorman, had agreed to testify against him at the behest of an FBI agent, McNair had both Gorman and the agent killed by fearsome survivalist assassin Irene Vaggan (Franka Potente). McNair intended to replace Gorman with an imposter to tank the case, but needed to eliminate anyone who knew the real Gorman; that included runaway Navajo teenager Billie Tsosie (Isabel Deroy-Olson). Her disappearance drew Leaphorn, Chee, and Bernadette Manueltito (Jessica Matten) to Los Angeles, where they eventually uncovered the scheme and sent Vaggan to jail. Leaphorn later visited McNair in jail; McNair was confident that he’d beat the charges facing him, but Leaphorn was defiant: “You know my name. You know where to find me. Come knock at my door.”
Welliver can currently be seen in The Westies, a new MGM+ crime drama with J.K. Simmons and Tom Brittney. He is also set to return as Harry Bosch in the second season of Prime Video’s Ballard; the series is a spin-off of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, which starred Welliver as the titular LAPD detective for ten combined seasons.
Season 5 of Dark Winds is now in production; no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
