Stream It Or Skip It?
Tulsa King ended its second season with Sly Stallone’s character, Dwight Manfredi, being brought to a black ops site and being told “you work for me now.” There was online speculation that the cliffhanger could have been related to some of the things that went on in Season 2, especially with Neal McDonough’s “big bad” character Cal Thresher. But, it turns out, the explanation was pretty straightforward, as we see withing the first five minutes of the third season.
TULSA KING SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Lights switch on in an interrogation room where Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) is being held.
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The Gist: An FBI agent named Musso (Kevin Pollak) walks in; first, he tells Dwight that Margaret Deveraux (Dana Delany) is safe back at her ranch; she was in bed with him when a tactical team busted in, guns drawn. Musso’s informant was the guy that Dwight killed 25 years ago, the incident that got him thrown in prison.
Since Dwight has gotten out, according to Musso, the FBI has been clued into everything Dwight has been doing, and the crew he’s put together. In other words, they’ve got him by the short hairs; he can keep operating as long as he responds when Musso calls him looking for information. If not, everyone in his crew, including Margaret, will go to prison.
Musso releases Dwight, and one of the first things he does is go to the ranch, apologize to Margaret, and tell her that she shouldn’t be with him anymore because of the danger he puts her in. Later, he finds out that Margaret is made of tougher stuff than he realizes, and she’s all in on their relationship.
Dwight gets summoned to New York by the boss of the five families, who offers him the territory that he was denied when the Invernizzis sent him to Tulsa. Dwight refuses, which is when he’s encouraged to “share,” i.e. retire and give New York everything he’s built.
Dwight is definitely not shy about telling his crew, including Goodie (Chris Caldovino), Tyson (Jay Will) and Mitch (Garrett Hedlund) about the federal pressure he’s under. When Mitch comes to him, though, he has a business opportunity. At the car dealership, Mitch got a visit from Cleo Montague (Bella Heathcote), an old flame. Her father is selling the family distillery, and is being strong-armed by a local businessman, Jeremiah Dunmire (Robert Patrick). Mitch thinks that this is a great opportunity for Dwight, and it will give Mitch a chance to get away from working at the dealership. The only issue is how they can get a liquor license, since they’re both ex-cons.
At first, Cleo’s dad says he’s honoring the handshake deal with Dunmire, with whom he’s had a rivalry for decades. But Dwight promises that he can stay in control and still live in his family home. Given that level of respect, he agrees to sell to Dwight, knowing he’ll be subject to Dunmire’s wrath.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Tulsa King, which is part of Taylor Sheridan’s growing roster of series, is a cross between The Sopranos and Yellowstone.
Our Take: Tulsa King has basically established itself as a series of businesses Dwight and his crew can get into, and then they tussle with whoever opposes him in that business. In Season 2, it was a pot farm and Cal Thresher (Neal McDonough). This year, it’s a distillery and Jeremiah Dunmire. It feels like the show revels in giving Dwight a new “big bad” to defeat every season, and at times it almost feels cartoonish in execution.
It’s not like the old enemies aren’t still around. McDonough is still part of the cast, as is Frank Grillo as KC boss Bill Bevilaqua; a subplot in the first episode has Bodhi (Martin Starr), Tyson and Grace (McKenna Quigley Harrington) deliver Bevilaqua’s cut of the pot money, but Bodhi’s highlighter-toned EV runs out of juice, and the supposed pacifist somehow ends up holding a gun to the head of the KC thug that killed his friend Jimmy (Glen Gould).
And a season of Tulsa King isn’t complete without having Dwight deal with multiple villains at the same time. We have to admit, the scenario with Musso was less than what we — and online scuttlebutt — thought it would be after the third season cliffhanger. There is no conspiracy or anything like that; simply, the feds know everything and they want Dwight to hand them information on demand. That’s it. But Pollak is his usual funny, game self as Musso, so it’ll be fun watching him and Sly interact throughout the season.
But the series, which is being run in season 3 by Dave Erickson, with Terence Winter coming back into the fold for its just-announced 4th season, has a bad habit of picking up stories and then either dropping them completely or concluding them in a rushed and perfunctory manner. That’s what happened with the Season 1 cliffhanger, and how Dwight settled things with Thresher, and it feels that the Season 2 cliffhanger got the same treatment.
It’s almost as if Stallone, who co-wrote the first episode with Erickson, gets bored with certain stories and tries to wrap them up quickly in order to move on to the new, shiny stories. It’s a tiresome pattern that we hope doesn’t continue much further in Season 3.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Dunmire reacts to his rival, Montague, selling his distillery to Dwight.
Sleeper Star: We’re looking forward to seeing Samuel L. Jackson as New Orleans gangster Russell Lee Washington Jr., as a precursor to his NOLA King spinoff. We like that Annabella Sciorra continues to be around as Dwight’s sister Joanne, who regularly calls her brother out on his BS.
Most Pilot-y Line: Bevilaqua calls Dwight after the incident with Bodhi, and when Dwight says “Hello,” Bill responds with, “Fuck you, hello.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Tulsa King continues to be a bit cartoonish and ridiculous, with stories that are introduced and dropped with increasing frequency. But Stallone is still entertaining as Dwight, as is the crew around him, and that may be enough for this show.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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