“Tulsa King” has learned that long breaks hurt new shows and came back one year after season 2, which had a stellar RT score of 100%. Aside from a handful of one-off appearances on TV and a 16 episode season of a reality show, “Tulsa King” is actually the first TV show Sylvester Stallone has starred in throughout his long career. The series is unbelievably popular and has already been renewed for season 4 ahead of the season 3 premiere. The series was created by Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame and is the second series of Sheridan’s that has branched off with a spin-off into a shared universe.
In this third season of “Tulsa King”, we’ll get to see Samuel L. Jackson before he stars in his own “NOLA King” spin-off. There are some other seasoned guest actors that are also singing up for season 3, Kevin Pollack and Robert Patrick. The third season premiere would not introduce all of the new guest characters, but it did pick up right where the out-of-left-field cliffhanger from season 2 finished. Warning, beyond this point there are spoilers for anyone who is not up to date on the “Tulsa King” series by Paramount+.
Aside from a handful of one-off appearances on TV and a 16 episode season of a reality show, “Tulsa King” is actually the first TV show Sylvester Stallone has starred in throughout his long career.”
The opening sequence reveals Kevin Pollack as Special Agent Musso. The fact that law enforcement were the ones who nabbed Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) in the season 2 finale was somewhat obvious during the last line of the finale, when a shadowy voice says “you work for us now” before cutting to the credits. Pollack reveals almost immediately that he has an axe to grind with Dwight, who killed Musso’s informant and is the reason Manfredi went to prison for 25 years, preceding the series, which starts when Dwight gets out of prison for that exact crime.
The Special Agent tells Dwight that he has been watched and is aware of at least some of the capital crimes Dwight has committed since release. This essentially puts Manfredi in the agent’s pocket. After that shocking turn of events, Dwight tells his girlfriend Margaret most of the truth, but internalizes the actual gravity of the situation. Stallone does a strong job throughout of subtly reacting to each situation he finds himself thrust in.
With very inconvenient timing (or convenient for the writers), a powerful mob boss calls Dwight to come talk to him. This delivers a magical scene where Manfredi explains the San Gennaro festival in NYC’s Little Italy to a couple of impressionable children. Stallone has made a habit of awkward situations where his character is acting inappropriately and almost every time he nails it. Dwight then meets the mob boss Quiet Ray Renzetti (James Russo) who is intimidating (even to Stallone to an extent) right off the bat. Dwight tries to refuse Ray’s offer to give Dwight his own family, but it becomes clear that Ray’s family is more powerful than Dwight’s. Dwight walks out on the boss, who voices his feeling of being disrespected, which will almost definitely have repercussions for Manfredi.
So Dwight is now currently in 2 very precarious situations with 2 very powerful men and we’re not even halfway into the episode. The show introduces another storyline when one of Dwight’s guys Mitch Keller (Garrett Hedlund) has a rendezvous with an ex-girlfriend. The old flame’s father owns a distillery that he’s selling, which Mitch brings to Dwight. As Mitch is having his own existential crisis, he does a great job of selling the situation and makes Manfredi see dollar signs. In what at first seems like a side-story, it becomes obvious that there are criminal elements circling around the sale of the distillery and Dwight is yet again stirring another hornet’s nest. Dwight convinces the owner to sell with not too much effort, but that transaction brings in our next celebrity cameo, Robert Patrick, who plays Jeremiah Dunmire. The longtime film and movie star plays a religious and strict man who seems to command a decent sized criminal organization. Patrick is intimating in both of his scenes he is in, the second one culminating in him sending a team of thugs to beat the owner of the distillery and burn down his house.
There was a great side story with Bodhi (Martin Starr), who is still reeling form the death of his best friend in season 2. Bodhi is a master manipulator as he creates a scenario where he is able to pistol whip the guy who killed his best friend with ZERO repercussions. Bodhi is frustrated he can’t kill his friends assassin, but he is also realistic about business and Dwight, Bodhi comes clean (off-screen sadly) and Dwight backs Bodhi’s play with his reluctant partner Bill Bevilaqua (Frank Grillo), who was the boss of the thug Bodhi pistol whipped. Starr is in some aspects the MVP of the episode with his performance here and as we realized what he pulled off, we had to rewatch the entire episode.
Overall, the episode has a solid amount of laughs, a great side story and sets up three dangerous antagonists for Dwight and his unconventional misfit family. Dwight meeting Jeremiah is going to be memorable to say the least and we haven’t even seen Samuel L. Jackson’s character yet. This season could be the best one yet, if Stallone and company manage to keep things believable and the sense of humor in tact throughout all of the criminal drama that is bound to unfold.
What do you think? Is Dwight digging himself into too many holes? Will season 3 give a lot of time to setting up the spin-off or just add it as a quick side storyline? With so many obstacles already for Dwight, its hard to envision how he will handle all his foes, let alone another boss like Jackson is playing. How would you rate the season premiere? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
