The season four finale of "Dark Winds" ended with a shocking murder. The final episode, "Ni' Hodisxos," saw Joe Leaphorn and Billie protected by Irene Vaggan from Vaggan, who manipulated them into believing they were part of a family. Joe managed to free Billie and himself, and also unraveled Vaggan's plot to have her boss, Dominic McNair, cleared through false testimony. Meanwhile, Chee (Kiowa Gordon) found healing from his ghost sickness after a ceremony. The show's showrunner, John Wirth, explained that the character of Vaggan was originally portrayed as a man in Tony Hillerman's book "The Ghostway," which inspired this season, and that the writers created a backstory that made sense for her in terms of being raised in Germany during the war.