Summary
Things finally erupt between Mike and Bunny in “Marya Was Here”, and a line is clearly crossed as the conflict in Kingstown worsens following a mass murder.
It has taken a while, but tensions between Mike McLusky and Bunny Washington finally boil over in Episode 7 of Mayor of Kingstown Season 3. “Marya Was Here” finds the two reluctant friends realizing that the other is willing to go further than they realized, and with so much at stake and the body count rising, the battle lines are clearly drawn.
You can see both sides, kind of, though I can’t help but feel like the show has been a little unclear about Bunny’s principles to facilitate this “twist”. Then again, it is a long time coming. Officialdom can’t really brush shoulders with criminality as flagrantly as Mike does without some repercussions.
You Know What They Say About Buses
The title of this episode, “Marya Was Here”, comes from the inciting incident, which is the deliberate murder of a busload of young Russian women being trafficked through the U.S./Canadian border by Konstantin (this is the scheme Iris unveiled to Mike in Episode 6.)
Marya is one of the women. She writes the eponymous message on the seat in front of her after being told that she’ll receive her passport and phone in due time. But no such luck. The bus is upended by a loader and plummets into the river below, which is a horrific fate for women already in less-than-ideal circumstances.
Iris mentions to Mike that the shipment of women is late, and when Rebecca mentions that the bridge is full of emergency services personnel, Mike figures something is up. But by the time he gets there, Ian is already present, and the fate of the women becomes clear.
Mike Continues To Play Both Sides
This complicates an already very complicated situation, with Mike supporting Bunny and the Crips against the Russians, but ordering SWAT to take out Bunny’s Colombian suppliers at the behest of the Aryans. That’s not exactly tenable long-term, especially now there has been a mass murder.
The bus was sent into the river in a well-orchestrated scheme involving an illegal construction site and three or four people, so it wasn’t a sudden crime of opportunity. It was planned by somebody with a motive, and Ian fancies Bunny for the crime. Mike is adamant that Bunny doesn’t kill innocent people, but he has to face the possibility that maybe he doesn’t know his gangster friend quite as well as he’d like to think.
Mike stakes Bunny out and follows him to a lockup where he’s receiving another major shipment of automatic weapons. It’s here that the tensions finally boil over. Mike is shocked that Bunny seems to be preparing for war. Bunny has to remind Mike that he has been keeping crucial details to himself – and, crucially, that Rhonda has paid a price for the lack of openness.
When Mike accuses Bunny of killing the trafficked girls, it’s clear a line has been crossed. These two are heading for a fatal confrontation fast (and for what it’s worth I don’t think Bunny had anything to do with the bus incident.)
Things Get Dangerous For Raphael On The Inside
Elsewhere in Mayor of Kingstown Season 3, Episode 7, Raphael is attacked by the Aryan Brotherhood. He’s wildly outnumbered by both the inmates and the guards who’re on the take, and he knows that it isn’t just him but also his family who are in danger.
Carney fills Mike in about the situation, and he instructs Carney to deliver him a burner phone. He uses it to get in touch with Bunny and ask for his family to be relocated, which Bunny agrees to do. Mike is still pulling some strings here, but his escalating conflict with Bunny is going to have some unintended casualties, and Raph is likely to be one of them.
Tracy’s Efforts To Help Cherry Might Cost Her
Tracy gets an expanded focus in this episode, with her efforts to expose what happened to Cherry landing her in hot water.
Cherry is the inmate who just had a baby with one of the guards, and Tracy is adamant about ensuring that the man who fathered the child is exposed as a rapist. She has already been discouraged by management, and in “Marya Was Here”, things take a more serious turn when she’s actively threatened by a colleague named Will.
Tracy is clearly attracting the wrong kind of attention, and with Kyle getting more embroiled with the SWAT team, especially Robert, it seems like both of them are running the risk of being badly injured (or worse) before the season’s through.
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