Dark Winds took a dangerous turn for the people Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) cares for most in the world, as the obsessive killer Irene Vaggan (Franka Potente) inched closer to the investigator in the latest episode, “Shíká Nidanitáhą́ą́ (Those who were searching for me).” Fair warning that there are spoilers for Dark Winds Season 4 Episode 6 ahead!

As Leaphorn’s search for Leroy Gorman continued, Chee (Kiowa Gordon) found himself in a precarious position as he was held up by criminal Sonny Bear Heart (Chaske Spencer), and ultimately rescued by Bern (Jessica Matten) and the Lieutenant as his ghost sickness worsened. This led them back to IHS with Emma (Deanna Allison), who helped Chee better understand his ongoing struggles.

But as Joe set his sights on Vaggan, he realized through small clues that Vaggan had another person in her crosshairs: his wife. As Emma approached her truck to leave IHS for the day, she was confronted by Vaggan, who snuck up behind her in the parking garage. “I think it comes down to where sometimes work can come too close to home,” Allison tells TV Insider.

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“Sometimes work can be too close to home, and that’s why sometimes for Navajo people to have a profession in law enforcement or even as a nurse to deal with dead bodies… those kinds of things [can start] following you back home,” she continues. But, this case is particularly unique in that Vaggan is utterly infatuated with Leaphorn, and that led to a threat from Vaggan, who was slapped by Emma in an intense moment.

While a specific cut in the scene leaves viewers to wonder if anything bad happened to Emma, we quickly learn she was untouched but completely rattled by the encounter. “When she faces [Vaggan], she feels like, ‘Oh, this woman does not mean good energy,’” Allison points out. “I think that’s the time she realizes this particular case is getting too close to home, and there’s something also that this woman has attached to Leaphorn.”

Despite the threat of Vaggan, Emma’s matriarchal ways shine through in the episode as she helps out Bernadette and Chee amid their relationship turmoil and his ghost sickness. “Even though there’s also a distance between Leaphorn and Emma, at the same time, that’s still the mother figure to Bernadette, and the first person she goes to for comfort is the only other person that she knows in LA,” Matten shares.

“It’s so great to have that interaction out in LA,” Gordon concurs, “For Emma to be there, because if she wasn’t, she’d be back in the Res and we wouldn’t have those moments where she clears the air for us,” he adds, noting of her role in helping Bern and Chee sort out their complicated romance.

But, as Matten puts it, “It shows the other dynamics of how Natives really do interact once they’re off Reservations. They find each other because you’re trying to find that sense of community again.”

Will they be able to maintain that sense of community as the threat of Vaggan looms? Tune in to find out as Dark Winds Season 4 continues, and let us know what you thought of the latest developments in the comments section below.

Dark Winds, Season 4, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+