Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten in 'Dark Winds' Season 4

Dark Winds Season 4 is almost here, and change is on the horizon for the characters at the center of AMC‘s ’70s-set noir drama, especially for detectives Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon).

As fans saw in the previous season, Bernadette had gone off to work at Border Patrol, where she unraveled a drug and human trafficking conspiracy before she returned to the Navajo Nation, seemingly ready to move forward with her and Chee’s will-they-won’t-they relationship. And it appears that Season 4 will finally see the pair as a full-fledged couple after dancing around the idea since Season 1.

“She’s dealing with the trauma that she just experienced from Border Patrol and literally just brutally murdering a man,” Matten tells TV Insider on the set of Season 4. “Bernadette is in between this place of internally dealing with that struggle, and then also coming back to the love of her life. And so at the beginning of the season, we look at that dynamic of Chee really being there for her, and what does that look like?”

Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten in 'Dark Winds' Season 4

According to Matten and Gordon, that includes Chee encouraging Bernadette to return to work, which is teased in an all-new clip (below) as she returns to the station. “We really do [have] to double down on each other because it’s so easy to just run away,” Gordon says of the pair committing to one another. “This season, [when] we start off, I’m in her trailer, we’re eating breakfast, and I go to work, and I’m like, you sure you don’t want to come?”

Fans can expect a little more evidence of their romantic relationship on the surface as well, as Gordon teases, “There are a couple of scenes where we’re kissing and having a good time.”

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Matten echoes Gordon’s sentiments, adding, “It’s really nice because you get to really see this domesticated version of Chee and Bernadette, and I think that’s what a lot of audiences want to see and have been wanting to see for a few seasons now… We do have those fun kind of moments, but at the same time, as the season progresses, you see that the roles kind of reverse and that Bernadette ends up being there for Chee in a very, very big way.”

Tune in to see how they’ll be supporting one another as Season 4 unfolds, and let us know what you’re hoping to see for Bernadette and Chee when Dark Winds returns, in the comments section below.

Dark Winds, Season 4 Premiere, Sunday, February 15, 2026, 9/8c, AMC & AMC+