Paramount+ will premiere the fifth and final season of “Mayor of Kingstown” on Friday, January 15th, 2027. The streamer announced the date on October 20th and released first-look photos with it. Variety reports that Paramount+ shared 15 images. The last run has eight episodes, two fewer than each of the first four seasons. Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) still keeps the peace between criminals, cops and prisoners in Kingstown, Michigan, and warden Nina Hobbs (Edie Falco) is back across from him. Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon created the series, and Paramount says it will total 48 episodes once it ends.
The photos tease a new threat. FBI agent Russell Hardy (David Morse) arrives in Kingstown this season. Paramount’s logline says “A true lawman, Agent Hardy threatens to unearth all of Mike’s sins and secrets, and disrupt Kingstown’s tenuous balance of power.” Morse joined as a new series regular when filming started in Pittsburgh in March. Variety describes Hardy as a “seasoned FBI agent sent to Kingstown.” The new season picks up in the wake of the season 4 finale, which aired on December 28th. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for season 4 of the series.
The last run has eight episodes, two fewer than each of the first four seasons.”
Season 4 ended with Merle Callahan (Richard Brake) dead. The Aryan prisoner had escaped and murdered Tracy (Nishi Munshi), the wife of Mike’s brother Kyle (Taylor Handley). In the finale, detective Ian Ferguson (Hugh Dillon) brought Callahan to Mike at the railyard, and Kyle shot him. ComingSoon quotes Renner telling Entertainment Weekly that the killing helped “forge a path for healing” after what Callahan did. Deadline says the finale also brought the gang war in Kingstown to a violent climax. AOL adds that Hobbs was doing the Colombians’ bidding to protect her daughter and that their hitman, Cortez (Derek Rivera), escaped. That is the wreckage Hardy walks into.
One detail in the logline stands out. It has Hardy searching for a “fugitive” Callahan, with the word in quotation marks. Callahan did not survive the finale, so Hardy is hunting a man who is already dead. The quotation marks suggest the show knows it. Paramount says Hardy arrives “following the murder of Mike’s sister-in-law” Tracy. The railyard killing looks like the obvious sin for him to find, since Mike, Kyle and Ian were all part of it. That is a reading of the logline, not a Paramount statement. The logline does not say what Hardy knows when he arrives.
The rest of the ensemble returns. Paramount’s cast list includes Cindy Stephens (Laura Benanti), Deverin “Bunny” Washington (Tobi Bamtefa), Stevie (Derek Webster), Evelyn Foley (Necar Zadegan), Rebecca (Nichole Galicia) and Frank Moses (Lennie James). Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter say Zadegan, Galicia and James will also return, rather than listing them as stars. Paramount bills Falco as an Emmy and Golden Globe winner from “The Sopranos” and “Nurse Jackie.” Variety says Morse earned Emmy nominations for “House” and “John Adams.”
There are new faces beyond Hardy. Variety reported in April that the recurring role of Enrique Molina (Nestor Carbonell) is “a boss who comes to Kingstown to avenge a relative who has gone missing.” Variety adds that Carbonell won an Emmy for “Shogun” and stars in “The Morning Show.” ScreenRant reports that Yani Gellman has joined in an undisclosed role, based on the actor’s own Instagram post. The description does not say how Molina’s missing relative connects to season 4.
Variety, Deadline and ScreenRant credit Sheridan as co-creator, executive producer and director of the pilot. Dave Erickson is the showrunner, a credit that Paramount’s January announcement also lists. Renner, Antoine Fuqua, David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle and Michael Slovis are among the other executive producers. Paramount Television Studios, 101 Studios and Bosque Ranch Productions make the show. TVLine quotes Dillon telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that the series “was the first thing Taylor wrote,” and that it was always in Sheridan’s pocket. Dillon, who is from Kingston, Ontario, said he grew up in “a prison town that had nine penitentiaries,” TVLine reports. TVLine adds that Dillon starred in “Wind River” in 2017, a film Sheridan directed with Renner in the cast, and that the three began work on Kingstown then.
The end was announced on January 5th, a little more than a week after the season 4 finale. Paramount+ ordered eight episodes and called them the final season. Deadline says it is the first ongoing Sheridan series to get an end date since Skydance took over Paramount. A six-episode order was discussed before the two sides settled on eight, according to Deadline. Deadline quotes Dillon telling Screen Rant that Sheridan “has an ending for it in Season 7,” one he had worked out “15 years ago,” and that everyone knows about it. Variety notes that the pair once aimed for seven seasons. Popverse quotes Renner telling a Florida Supercon panel “we found a really cool end, I think, to the show.”
The show never matched its siblings in the numbers. Deadline reported that season 4 did not reach Nielsen’s weekly top 10 for streaming originals, even though it overlapped with new seasons of “Landman” and “Tulsa King”, both of which have charted there. TheWrap wrote that the series never reached the viewership of “Lioness” or “Landman” but built a consistent audience. Critics went the other way. Deadline says its Rotten Tomatoes score rose from 33% for season 1 to 100% for season 4. TVLine notes that the 100% rests on just five reviews. ScreenRant puts the audience score at 84%.
Renner’s recovery runs through the show. Popverse reported that his first day back at work after the 2023 snowplow accident was on this series, which he stars in and produces. “That was encouraging for my mental health,” he said at a Florida Supercon panel, per Popverse. The Hollywood Reporter says filming wrapped on June 30th and Renner thanked the cast and crew on Instagram. He thanked fans, writing that their support “has given my stride and purpose in my recovery and love in my heart.” The show films around Pittsburgh. CBS Pittsburgh says earlier seasons used Millvale, McKeesport, the 16th Street Bridge and the Western Penitentiary, and the Pittsburgh Film Office said season 4 brought over $95 million to the region. Renner had already teased the stakes on Instagram, per The Hollywood Reporter, with “No one is safe this season”, followed by “I mean Nobody!”
Newcomers have an easy way in. TVLine reports that the first four seasons landed on Netflix on October 5th. Deadline said in January that it was the first Sheridan series to stream on Netflix, and the first outside Paramount+ since “Yellowstone” went to Peacock. ScreenRant says the series has seen “a bit of a boost since being added to Netflix,” a lift it says may help the show’s chances of a strong farewell if those viewers follow it to Paramount+. Season 5 still debuts exclusively on Paramount+, according to the streamer.
Sheridan’s slate is busy around it. “Marshals” returned for season 2 on CBS on October 4th. “Tulsa King” opened season 4 on October 16th, and its spinoff “Frisco King” premieres December 18th, about a month before Kingstown. ScreenRant says “Landman” season 3 began filming in September and expects it in early 2027. It lists “Dutton Ranch” season 2 and “The Madison” season 2 as in the works. Sheridan has a bigger move planned. Deadline reported that he set a 2029 move to NBCUniversal, announced in October 2025, while ScreenRant says his Paramount television deal runs through the end of 2028. In ScreenRant’s words, the end of Kingstown is “the beginning of his final era with Paramount+”.
What Do You Think? Does a new FBI agent give the final season the push it needs, or is Mike’s story ending the way it was always going to? Is eight episodes enough for Kingstown to say goodbye? And would you follow Sheridan’s next shows to NBCUniversal?
See you on the next binge!
