Tulsa King

Back in the saddle

Season 2

Episode 1

Editor’s Rating

2 stars

**

Photo: Brian Douglas/Paramount+

It feels strange to say that Sylvester Stallone was miscast in Tulsa Kinga show that only exists because Sylvester Stallone is in it. It’s like saying Godzilla is miscast in Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom. In both cases, these properties are delivery mechanisms to give people the behemoths they know and love. I’m going to complain that the Stallone-o-tron produced something Stallone for me to watch? I’m not going to Dunkin’ to complain about there being too many donuts.

And yet. Despite his generally light tone, Tulsa King is, after all, the story of a mob captain who takes over a city through extortion and violence. Violence is something we know Stallone can do, as can anyone who has ever done it, historically. But it’s the mob-captain thing that doesn’t quite work. Stallone has played murderers before, to reiterate, but once he was famous, he never played a notable villain again. The closest any of his star roles have come to villainy were the first and fourth Rambo films, but Rambo is Frankenstein’s monster, not Dracula. (In this metaphor, Dr. Frankenstein is Uncle Sam.)

Through no fault of his own, Stallone is a natural babyface. He just doesn’t seem mean enough to be a gangster. That was the premise of Rockyremember? He was a simple legbreaker, but his heart wasn’t in it! Tulsa King bends over backwards to show Stallone’s character as a kinder, gentler character — his kills include a mercy killing, a bunch of self-defense against worse criminals, and the execution of the man who sexually abused his daughter, so you don’t have to have complicated feelings about him committing them — but there’s still a disconnect between actor and role that makes the whole thing feel contrived. It’s like watching Sylvester Stallone pretend to be a mob boss and a bunch of talented actors pretend to be him not Sylvester Stallone poses as a mafia boss.

Which makes the behind-the-scenes shuffling that took place leading up to this season interesting. Showrunner Terence Winter stepped down from his position, reportedly due to creative differences with the series creator (and Yellowstone impresario) Taylor Sheridan. Winter is now head writer, with Craig Zisk directing and executive producing the season in lieu of an official showrunner. And a notable name has joined the writing staff: Sylvester Stallone, who co-wrote the season two premiere (and finale) with Winter.

In theory, the result could be quite something. Winter, one of the best writers on The Sopranos (“Pine Barrens”! “Long-term parking”!), also created Promenade Empirethe most underrated and morally unyielding drama from the second wave of the New Golden Age. (Five seasons, currently on Max, with all the good character actors on earth, what are you waiting for?)

Stallone is a fascinating filmmaker, honestly. Don’t forget that the man is not only in Rocky And First Bloodwhich are both simply amazing films — he wrote them. If it weren’t for the bombastic and frequent sequels, people would remember those films as elegiac late echoes of the New Hollywood style. (Granted, Stallone wrote and directed most of those sequels, so the tarnished legacy of the originals is largely his fault.)

Unfortunately, none of the virtues of either man’s best work are on display in this season two premiere. Winter doesn’t plumb the moral abyss at the heart of violent men. Stallone doesn’t explore the cinematic spectacle of his own suffering. It’s really as simple as a one-sentence synopsis: Stallone plays a mob boss who moves to Tulsa, where madness abounds.

Stallone’s character, Dwight “The General” Manfredi, ended the series’ first season by declaring his independence from his boss, Chickie Invernizzi (Domenick Lombardozzi, aka Herc from The thread). Chickie’s eponymous crime family back home in New York, which he inherited by secretly drowning his old man in the bathtub, includes Dwight’s biggest rival, underboss Vince Antonacci (Vincent Piazza, aka Lucky Luciano from Promenade Empire). The two men have had enough of the independent-minded Dwight, who was given Tulsa as a fiefdom because the younger generation had no place for him in New York when he was released from prison after 25 years. What a reward!

Dwight’s unorthodox crew probably has something to do with it. It includes two defectors from the Invernizzi family: Armand Truisi (Max Casella, aka Benny van The Sopranos), who went AWOL (unprotected) from the mob years ago and moved to Tulsa because he was fed up with the murderous nonsense, and Goodie Carangi (Chris Caldovino, aka Tonino from Promenade Empire — are you seeing a pattern in the casting here?), Chickie’s former counselor switches sides when the dispute between the two potential bosses becomes a line in the sand. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor: Dwight, who spent his entire prison sentence reading and quoting Oscar Wilde from memory, would beg to differ.)

But Dwight’s company is more of a motley crew than a mob ring: There are only three Italians and two put-togethers to speak of. Tyson (Jay Will) is Dwight’s ambitious, outgoing black chauffeur and go-to guy; Mitch (Garrett Hedlund, looking like a young Sam Elliott) is a mild-mannered ex-rodeo man and ex-con who runs a bar that Dwight has turned into a casino. Bodhi (Martin Starr) is the expressionless proprietor of the pot shop that Dwight first stormed when he arrived in town, bringing his employees—the heavily tattooed Grace (McKenna Quigley Harrington), the beefy security guard Fred (Justin Garcia-Pruneda), and the dreadlocked former white guy Clint (Dashiell Connery)—into the fold, too. Native marijuana plantation owner Jimmy (Glen Gould) and mountainous newcomer Bigfoot (professional wrestler Mike “Cash Flo” Warden) round out the cast.

Since the Tulsa King is also a rizz king, we have to mention the two beautiful middle-aged women he’s romantically involved with and rivals. The first is ATF agent Stacy Beale (Andrea Savage), who Dwight protected because of their ongoing sexual relationship (she initially gave him a figure of 20 years his junior, which Sly finds very flattering) before betraying him to save her career. The other is rancher Margaret Devereaux (Dana Delany), a woman Dwight describes with characteristic verbal dexterity (!) as having “the kind of hair poets write about.”

In this episode, Margaret invites Dwight to a fancy party, where she introduces him to an arrogant pot baron named Cal Thresher (Neal McDonough). It’s a lot of fun to watch the whole gang don their own version of their Sunday best as they try to impress high society. But Dwight and Thresher don’t seem to see eye to eye. I think we have our antagonist for the season, folks.

But the most important woman in his life is his daughter, Tina (Tatiana Zappardino). When she let slip last season that one of Dwight’s mob buddies sexually abused her while he was in prison, he brutally beat the man to death at Chickie’s father’s club, setting in motion his rift with New York. She’s since moved to Tulsa after her husband was beaten in retaliation and has provided the money Dwight needs to post bail after Stacey engineered his arrest in the season finale.

You know what they say about mobsters: You always end up dead or in jail. With option B temporarily off the table, it looks like Chickie is looking at option A. He kills a Dwight sympathizer to make a point, then contacts Kansas City mob boss Bill Bevilacqua (the always delightful Frank Grillo). Is he just going to sit there and take it while another mobster tries to carve an entire city out of his turf? I think we have antagonist number two.

The Tulsa King The formula is simple. Stallone struts around, knocking out men decades his junior with one punch, seducing beautiful women and building up the confidence of his ragtag crew in between recruiting them to engage in gunfights with biker gangs and the like. “Benevolent mob boss” is about as good as “cop who cares and works hard” in terms of TV fiction whitewashing evil institutions. Still, I don’t think anyone is in any danger of believing that this is how the Mafia really works. The question is just how much you enjoy watching Sylvester Stallone do Good guys cosplay. If you see Stallone in a serious role in a serious story of crime, corruption and redemption, Police Country is currently streaming elsewhere on Paramount+. Tulsa King is there for a good time, whether you watch it or not.