Generally, American police series have a monstrous amount of episodes, each more frantic and less believable than the next.1 Not so with Dark Winds. The producers, including George R. R. Martin and the late Robert Redford, have done a good job creating an atmospheric, slow burning show. But it is still a very American show. In fact, it plays in the Navajo community2 and follows the tribal police officers in their work.
In the first episode of the third season, there is a little scene which is entirely irrelevant to the plot. Two prisoners are playing a game of chess through the bars between their respective cells. The prisoners are played by Redford and Martin. They have arrived at this position:3
This reconstruction is correct, except perhaps the identity of the piece on d6, which is almost completely obscured by the black royalty. Redford, who has black,4 is getting impatient:
Redford: George, the whole world’s waiting. Make a move!
Yes, the whole world would like him to finally finish his A song of fire and ice cycle, but it’s not going to happen. In this series’ universe, however, George does make a move. Admittedly, he only does so after the local police lieutenant prompts him:
Leaphorn: Bishop to king’s rook five.
George indeed plays Bh5 and rightfully claims checkmate. It’s very strange, though, that he got to this position and then needed help. The message is, I think, that George R. R. Martin needs someone to tell him how to finish what he started.
Realism: 1/5 The positions of the kings, in front of their armies, are several thousand years out of date. And there’s the bishop entombed on g8, and the two e-pawns passing each other like ships in the night. This is the least plausible thing in the whole show – and there’s a witch in the first season!
Probable winner: White. Or red, rather. You could write a think piece about the significance of the white pieces being red in this scene but, like most think pieces, it’d be shit.
1. [That’s how the expression goes. But it’s usually the other way around: the episodes tend to get less believable later in a show’s run.] ↩
2. [Whence also the episode’s title, which apparently means ‘big monster’ in the Navajo language.] ↩
3. [In the dark winds of our time, there is still the gentle breeze of a good diagram editor.] ↩
4. [And the other pieces are red! What a missed opportunity.] ↩