There are shows that have its characters get into a lot of insane and improbable situations, but we watch them anyway because the characters are so fun to watch. In the case of Tulsa King, there is nothing about the show that makes a hell of a lot of sense. But Sylvester Stallone and the show’s ever-growing cast are very watchable, especially as the show enters its second season.
TULSA KING SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: The possessions Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stalone) had when he was arrested for bribing ATF agent Stacy Beale (Andrea Savage) are inventoried as Dwight is led to a holding cell.
The Gist: While in the holding cell, Dwight meets a man who defrauded the government out of over $12 million in wind turbine subsidies, which gives him an idea that he puts in his pocket for when he gets out of jail and returns to his crew.
Dwight makes bail when his daughter Tina (Tatiana Zappardino) puts up a property she owns as a bond payment, and his presence short-circuits chaos in the group, when Goodie Carangi (Chris Caldovino) tries to take charge, much to the rest of the group’s disagreement.
As Tyson (Jay Will) drives Dwight around, he’s being hounded by reporters and followed by FBI agents, determined to make sure that Dwight doesn’t have a chance to harm Stacy. But he and his crew’s plans continue uninterrupted; his bar and casino are going well, and the dispensary has upgraded to a nicer, downtown space. When Bodhi (Martin Starr) and Jimmy (Glen Gould) tell Dwight about how much insurance is going to be, Dwight mentions the wind turbine scheme.
Dwight has a bit of unfinished business with Stacy, but not to threaten her physically; he tells her that despite it all, he respects her. Margaret Deveraux (Dana Delany) invites Dwight to buy a table for him and his crew at a fundraising gala, where he meets Cal Thresher (Neal McDonough), who — among other things — is Oklahoma’s biggest distributor of medical marijuana. Cal knows all about Dwight, and warns him to “stay in your lane.” To help ensure that, Cal gets in touch with Bill Bevilaqua (Frank Grillo), the head of the Kansas City mob, to tell him that Dwight might be infringing on his territory.
Back in Brooklyn, Chickie Invernizzi (Domenick Lombardozzi) is trying to stave off the perception that he doesn’t have control of his organization, given Dwight’s defection and Goodie choosing Dwight over the Invernizzis.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Tulsa King is essentially The Sopranos meets Yellowstone.
Our Take: Season 2 of Tulsa King, brought to us by Taylor Sheridan and Terence Winter, has become less of a fish out of water story and more of a story about just what kind of absurd scheme Dwight and his motley crew can pull off. Somehow, this group of career thugs, bar owners and whatever Bodhi is has managed to open a casino and a well-regarded cannabis shop. Now, Dwight thinks that this group can take over half-built wind turbines in order to milk the federal government. That’s an awful lot of ambition for this gang.
The first episode felt like an amalgamation of vignettes and not a cohesive story. It feels like the big cliffhanger, where Stacy turns Dwight in for giving her the biker gang’s money, isn’t going to be the major story driver we thought it was going to be at the end of the first season. In fact, we’re not even sure what role the fantastic Savage will have this season, given the fact that Stacy isn’t exactly on the best of terms with her bosses at the ATF and Dwight will likely get away with this somehow.
The first episode seemed to have a lot of fluff in it, which is strange because Winter, Stallone and Taylor Elmore, who wrote the episode, had to juggle a lot of situations. Somehow, instead of further fleshing out certain plot points — especially one having to do with Chickie reasserting his family’s role in Brooklyn’s crime hierarchy — we got interludes that were ridiculous on their face (see below) and didn’t move the show’s plot one bit. There was also an extended scene where Mitch (Garrett Hedlund) introduces his huge cousin as prospective muscle, and another where a drunk Armand (Max Casella) complains to Dwight about, well, everything.
It feels like the show is morphing into more of a comedy series with some mob violence than a sometimes-funny drama, with Stallone showing how much Dwight read in prison when he spews obvious axioms like “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” And, yes, Stallone continues to be entertaining, as are his interactions with his group of oddballs. We hope the various story threads are going to come together at some point, but the first episode felt very disjointed.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Bevilaqua gets a call from Thresher to warn him about Dwight.
Sleeper Star: Tatiana Zappardino is going to be the wild card as Tina, who seems to have integrated herself back into Dwight’s life after he purposely distanced himself when he was in prison.
Most Pilot-y Line: The extended segment when the crew tries on a series of insane suits in preparation for the gala could have been cut right out and no one would have missed it.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We almost think at this point that Tulsa King is designed to be ridiculous on purpose, because as eye-rolling as the second-season premiere was, we still want to watch Dwight and his crew get the upper hand on everyone in Tulsa and Brooklyn.
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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