It’s been a year since Season 2 ofTaylor Sheridan’s bleak prison dramaMayor of Kingstownpremiered on Paramount+. At that time, promotional material depicting series leadJeremy Rennerwas edited. The artwork depicted the long-suffering Mike McLusky, played by Renner, as battered and bruised. It was meant as a metaphor for all the suffering the show heaps on Mike — but at the same time, in real life, Renner had been hospitalized after a serious snow plow accident left him with life-threatening injuries. Out of respect,the artwork was editedto remove the bandages and bruises. Now, following the one-year anniversary of the accident, Renner himself, thankfully, is far enough along with his recovery thathe’s been able to begin shooting Season 3. But, after all of that time, you may need a refresher course onall ofMayor of Kingstown’sunanswered questions and cliffhangers left from Season 2.
Mayor of Kingstown
In Kingstown, a city plagued by corruption and crime, the McLusky family serves as crucial mediators between law enforcement, criminal factions, and the prison system. Mike McLusky, taking over after his brother’s untimely death, tries to maintain a precarious peace amidst widespread corruption and violence. As he juggles the demands of the various power players and seeks justice for the community, Mike encounters relentless challenges that push him to his limits and question his own moral boundaries.
Will Mariam and Robert Survive Their Injuries?
Mayor of Kingstown’ssecond season ended with a slightly lower body count than Season 1, which climaxed with hundreds of inmates and guards dead in an explosive prison riot. Though the Season 2 finale was more low-key, it did end with two major characters in adjoining rooms in the ICU, their recovery uncertain. Mariam McLusky (Dianne Wiest) is the mother of Mike and Kyle (Taylor Handley), as well as their older brother Mitch (Kyle Chandler) who was killed in the pilot episode. Mariam disapproves of the McLusky family business, which involves working in moral gray areas to maintain peace between prison gangs. She herself teaches classes to the incarcerated and believes in helping people without bending the rules. Her Season 2 arc ends sadly, with the suicide of a juvenile inmate she had been trying to help. Then, in the season finale, she is taken hostage in her house by series villain Milo Sunter (Aiden Gillen) and is shot in the climactic shootout.However, with the news thatDianne Wiest will not be returning, it seems unlikely that Mariam will make it.
Also in the hospital is Robert Sawyer (Hamish Allen-Headley), the head of Kingstown’s SWAT team. Robert is featured prominently in the credits, though he’s generally been a minor character. The character brings a strange energy to the show. He’s undoubtedly killed more people than any other character but is somehow also the show’s moral center. This contradiction is somehow reconciled by Allen-Headley’s singular energy. In the penultimate episode, assassins sent by Bunny Washington beat him badly, as revenge for the numerous inmates his team killed, in order to subdue the Kinston prison riot.Robert seems to be in stable condition in the finale,and hopefully, his character survives to Season 3 and gets more to do.
How Will Bunny Continue His Revenge on the Kingstown Police?
“Bunny” Washington has always been Mike’s friend and ally, although he is also the leader of the Crips alliance in Kingstown. Generally portrayed as a wise leader, he usually helps Mike maintain peace between the rival criminals that orbit Kingstown’s numerous prisons but warns Mike about pushing him too far.In Season 2, Bunny is finally brought to that point.
With Kingstown in violent chaos after the riot inside the prison leaves too many inmate leaders dead, Bunny is (forcibly) recruited to be arrested and held in prison long enough that he can bring order to the incarcerated wing of his criminal association. However, Mike is betrayed, once again, by his law enforcement allies, and Bunny isn’t released on schedule. While trapped inside, he is forced to unleash his violent side in order to survive. Once he is finally released, the experience stays with him, and he tells Mike that he plans to bring a full-on war to the Kingstown police. Robert Sawyer is only the first casualty. The broken friendship is one of the saddest things to happen in Mayor of Kingstown, andSeason 3 is set up to escalate the conflict between Mike and Bunny.If so, it’s hard to say who to root for (Bunny).
Will Ian’s Role in the Death of Ben Morrisey Be Discovered?
Before Bunny got to him, Robert was also being investigated by Internal Affairs for the number of people his SWAT team killed during the prison riots. As Mike suggested, it was probably because someone in his team had talked to Internal Affairs. Robert doesn’t believe one of his own guys would talk. But Mike is always right, and it’s revealed that the informant is Ben Morrisey (Blake Shields), a member of Robert’s unit.
Mike warns Robert not to take things into his own hands, but it is Ian (Hugh Dillon, also the show’s co-creator), Kyle’s ex-partner on the Kingstown Police, who decides to play vigilante. He sets into motion a very complicated scheme. First, he befriends an incarcerated serial killer named Charlie (The Shield’sKenny Johnson). Then, he arranges to be the officer assigned to take Charlie on a furloughed trip to the dentist. From there, he brings his pet serial killer friend to Morrisey’s home, warning him that if Morrissey goes through with his testimony, Charlie knows where he lives and Ian’s hand is the only one on the leash.
What could go wrong? Morrisey gets angry, and when he raises his voice to Ian, Charlie instinctively kills him. Though some of the deaths onMayor of Kingstownget forgotten after an episode or two, the death of Morrisey has already had enough fallout that it seems like a storyline that will carry over into Season 3. Mike’s instinct is to blame Robert for taking care of the one witness against him, while Morrisey’s death demoralizes Evelyn, now the acting district attorney, and turns her against Mike.
What Is Milo’s Newest Plan?
After escaping from prison during the riot, Milo stuck around in Kingstown. Eventually, we find out why, after a box full of bearer bonds is unearthed by a hapless construction worker (played byBreaking Bad’sCharles Baker, but with significantly worseplot armorhere than he had asSkinny Pete). This is the buried treasure that Milo sent Mike hunting for in Season 1, but which Mike never found. The bonds are worth millions of dollars, and Milo wants them back. However, before Milo can grab them, the bonds end up in the hands of the Kingstown Police.
Milo kidnaps Iris (Emma Laird), the sex workerwhose loyalties are divided between Mike and Milo, and offers to trade her to Mike for the bonds. The swap happens in the dead of night, on Milo’s boat. They make the trade, and Milo sails off while Iris saves Mike’s life from one of Milo’s goons. However, once Milo’s escape is underway, the boat explodes, seemingly killing him.
However, in the closing moments of the finale, we hear a phone call from Milo to Tati (feeling suspiciously like dialogue that was conceivedafter principal photographywas done), in which he says that “everything went fine.” Having faked his own death, Milo plans to stay in Kingstown a little longer, working with Tati, now also the mother of his child. It does feel like the show needs both Mike and Milo to stay alive forever. They have aBatman and Jokerquality to them, and it’s unclear what one would do without the other. But what is Milo’s newest plan?
What Does ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Season 3 Have in Store?
Season 2 builds some intriguing storylines, but many of its characters end up exactly where they began. Milo began Season 2 hiding out in Kingstown with malevolent plans, and ended up back in the same place. Iris began Season 2 having left Milo to ally with Mike, immediately went back to Milo, and now she has once again left Milo behind.Mike McLusky ended Season 1 in a place of despair after the riots, and he ends Season 2 with a voiceover monologue that concludes, “If the failure of society could be distilled into one city, [Kingstown] would be the city. And misery’s our food.“IsMayor of Kingstowncaught in a permanent loop of despair?
While the show is likely to remain extremely dark (not that there’s anything wrong with that), there’s one great reason to stick with it even if relentless bleakness isn’t your thing: the show’s setup. While Mike McLuskey frequently gets caught up in brokering peace deals between crime lords, he maintains an office for his primary business: consulting with ordinary families trying to help a loved one survive the prison system. We see them frequently, sitting in his waiting room, ignored, as Mike whizzes around Kingstown addressing its macro problems.With one more season, the show mightfinally deliver on the promiseof telling the kinds of smaller prison stories that are desperate for an audience.
Mayor of Kingstownis available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S., with Season 3 set to stream at a date yet to be announced.
