New Netflix Show Hits Peak Popularity On Its Third 100% Rotten Tomatoes Scored Season

‘Dark Winds’ has been a bit hit with critics and audiences.

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Making a show which earns a 100% critics score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is no mean feat. Doing this for three consecutive seasons sets an even higher barrier but the latest Netflix show has done just that. There’s already evidence that this will translate into heavy traffic for the streamer.

The show is Dark Winds, an American psychological thriller which follows three Navajo tribal police officers in the 1970s Four Corners area of the American Southwest. They investigate crimes with supernatural elements which put a modern spin on traditional Navajo myths.

The show is based on the novel series by Tony Hillerman and although its mostly Native American cast isn’t well-known, it has A List talent behind the camera. Executive producers include the late Robert Redford and George R. R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels which were adapted into HBO’s blockbuster Game of Thrones series.

It is Redford’s final work both behind-the-scenes and as an actor as he has a cameo in an episode of the third season of Dark Winds. However, his performance isn’t the one that critics have raved about.

“McClarnon is a singular performer in modern television, one who, with each season of Dark Winds gives a more heart-wrenching performance than the last,” wrote RogerEbert.com critic Kaiya Shunyata in her review. Collider added that “Dark Winds is as riveting as ever, with a third season that continues to exceed expectations.”

Despite this praise, audiences have only awarded the third season an average of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s higher than the 68% rating for the second season and the 77% for the first but would still usually raise the question of whether its popularity is waning. Not this time.

Since Dark Winds debuted in 2022 each season has been shown first on AMC with the third premiering in March this year before dropping on Netflix earlier this week as part of its deal with the theater chain. A fourth season will debut in February 2026, towards the end of AMC’s winter season. This model shines a spotlight on the show’s popularity.

It is revealed in data from Google which processed more than five trillion searches last year giving it a 90% share of the market. Its Google Trends service analyzes the popularity of top queries though the results don’t reveal the number of searches for a specific term. Instead, they show the volume of search inquiries over time with 0 being the lowest point and 100 being the maximum relative interest rather than the absolute number of searches.

The results are presented on graphs with each point relative to the others so a score of 50 means that there were half as many searches for a term on that date than there were when it hit 100. That represents peak popularity for the term whereas a score of zero refers to the lowest number of search enquiries during the given time.

The graph above shows that worldwide interest in Dark Winds hit an all-time high in March this year when the third season was released on AMC. It is followed closely by the number of searches in July 2022, the month after the first season launched. Interest in the second season lags in third place reflecting it having the lowest audience score of the series on Rotten Tomatoes. If the third season follows this trend, Netflix will have another hit on its hands.

Additional reporting by Christian Sylt