‘Dark Winds’ Stars on Season 3’s ‘Twilight’ Love Triangle With Chee, Bernadette & Ivan

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Dark Winds Season 3 Episode 4, “Chahalheel (Darkness Falls).”]

Dark Winds made way for a new love triangle as Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) found herself caught between Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) and new colleague Ivan Muños (Alex Meraz) in Season 3’s latest installment, “Chahalheel.”

After Bernadette’s official border patrol photo is found amid a crime scene, Chee calls her up and conveys concern about the situation, noting that she could be targeted by whoever is behind the apparent drug trafficking scheme. While all signs point to Tom Spenser (Bruce Greenwood), everything is merely speculation until the investigation uncovers anything further.

While Chee’s phone call is taken into consideration, he takes his concerns to an extreme by driving out to visit Bernadette at the border hundreds of miles away. Unaware of Bernadette’s kindling romance with coworker Ivan, Chee drops in on her at work, and she indicates he should follow her to the weigh station for her shift.

There, they chat about the details surrounding their potentially overlapping cases and catch up on life as old feelings linger under the surface. As viewers will recall, the duo briefly had a relationship and parted ways with an emotional kiss in Season 2, but Ivan’s arrival in Bernadette’s life has shifted her focus.

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When Bernadette and Chee bring their reunion to the local bar, Ivan stops by their table to introduce himself, with Chee somewhat unaware of the man’s role in her life. The crossing of paths for Gordon and Meraz onscreen may be a first for their characters, but is more of a reunion for the actors who memorably made a splash as part of the Wolf Pack in Twilight‘s sequel, New Moon.

Playing Embry and Paul in that film franchise’s other sequels following their New Moon debut, Gordon and Meraz find themselves in the leading love triangle now.

“It’s so funny. It’s almost come full circle. Bella and Edward, and Jacob were in their love triangle, and look at us now,” Gordon marvels. “Now we’re in our own love triangle.” For those who need a refresher, Bella (Kristen Stewart) was a teen girl at the center of a love triangle between vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) in the supernatural romance blockbusters from the 2010s.

As for going toe-to-toe with his costar Meraz in this latest season of Dark Winds, Gordon says, “I love the dude. He’s been an older brother to me every step of the way. And it’s really cool to see us play on something again. And it’s on this show, which is just so great and very serendipitous right now,” Gordon adds.

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“Yeah, I feel like I finally got to be… like Rob [Pattinson] and Taylor [Lautner]… We had to do our little Twilight version of it, but it was fun,” Meraz echoes. “I enjoyed it. I love Kiowa, he’s like just family.”

When it came to this trio, Matten recalls chatting with costar Zahn McClarnon about the casting, “I was like, it would be really cool to bring the two Twilight wolves into this, right? That would be an amazing throwback to the Twilight fans of having two of those wolves here and having this love triangle with Bernadette. And it worked out brilliantly,” Matten gushes.

As viewers see in the episode, Bernadette eventually confesses to Chee that she and Ivan have started a relationship of sorts, and initially, he’s seemingly accepting of the situation, until he bursts into her room that night to beg her to come home with him and leave the border. She refuses and ultimately ends up knocking on Ivan’s door before the episode concludes.

The irony Gordon points out is that Chee isn’t able to see the romantic tension between Bernadette and Ivan, and doesn’t perceive the man as a threat. “I don’t even realize that he’s the new guy in her life until later, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have been nice. I shouldn’t have shaken his hand at all.'”

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So, where does Bernadette’s heart really lie? Fans will have to wait and see, but Matten admits, “She doesn’t know which way to go… She’s not fully trusting anyone here. And yet at the same time, she so desperately wants to open up to them, she wants love, and she’s just hitting this place of confusion of not knowing who to trust.”

While Meraz believes Ivan’s “sincere,” he admits there’s “a little mystery” to him. “I’ve been playing bad boys and villains and stuff, so it was kind of scary to play a love interest guy,” Meraz says. “I had no idea how to play it without being cheesy. It was fun.”

His costar, Gordon, on the other hand, praises his work onscreen as a romantic interest, “It’s perfect for Alex to really flex his charming muscles that he has. And with Jessica, she’s just a riot all the time. And they were just goofing around a lot, especially when I came around, they’d always tease me.”

So, while there may be some competition onscreen, Gordon promises, “It’s so fun to play, and I’m just grateful that we get to do that with the people we love.”

Dark Winds, Season 3, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+

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