Summary
Mike shows some uncharacteristic nous in Episode 8, solving multiple problems at once with the help of a little luck. But a coming war still looms over the final few episodes.
It’s not easy being Mike McLusky at the best of times, but Season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown is really putting him through the wringer. It seems like every installment opens with an even more urgent crisis of even greater scale, and Episode 8, “Captain of the Sh*t Out of Luck”, is no different.
The crisis this time takes the form of grenades thrown over the prison walls by a motorbike-riding saboteur whose face is conveniently obscured by a helmet and whose escape is conveniently covered by a sniper. The ordnance explodes right amid some Aryans, blowing the face off one, badly injuring Merle Callahan, and killing a CEO.
Ironically, Mike somehow manages to get this under better control than usual.
Mike Pins The Blame on the Russians
Despite having learned in Episode 7 that Bunny does indeed have access to military-grade weapons, Mike elects to keep this to himself when he visits a wounded and very annoyed Merle in the hospital. Given Merle’s natural prejudices – he’s annoyed that the first person he saw when he woke up was “some immigrant” who turns out to be a cop who was born in Kingstown and just happens to not be white – he’s inclined to think Bunny and the Crips are to blame and is furious at Mike for not taking him off the board like he said he would.
To be fair, Merle might be right, but Mike points him in the direction of the Russians instead. As far as a Nazi knows, street gangs don’t have access to military-grade explosives and rifles, let alone the necessary talent to use them. Mike sees the opportunity to turn him away from Bunny, who he seems to be still be protecting, since even though he gives the cops the address of the weapons warehouse he stumbled into in the previous episode, his request to be notified before they go in gives Bunny time to clean house (which doesn’t go unnoticed by Sawyer.)
Konstantin Is Losing It
Kyle and Sawyer clash over Mike in Mayor of Kingstown Season 3, Episode 8
Luckily for Mike, Konstantin is losing himself to drugs and becoming increasingly erratic. He’s wildly protective of Iris to the extent of turning up at her place in the morning and insisting on buying her a completely new life free from even him. And when some Aryans arrive unannounced to impolitely request a resupply, he shoots one of them dead and leaves the other alive to report back to Merle.
This rash move naturally provokes Merle, but it also functions as a lucky break for Mike, since it lends credence to his theory that the Russians made a move on the Aryans in the first place. In a few deft moves, it does seem like Mike has managed to set the Aryans and the Russians against one another and keep Bunny out of harm’s way. He has chosen his side.
Mike Also Solves Tracy’s Problem
Mike’s on a roll in Mayor of Kingstown Season 3, Episode 8, so while he’s sorting all this out, he also manages to handle Tracy’s problem.
After being strongly threatened by William Breen in the previous episode, Tracy has become a little withdrawn and fearful. She doesn’t say anything to Kyle, presumably not to upset his ongoing transition into an upstanding citizen, but she does go to see Mike. In so many words she implies that Breen was responsible for forcibly impregnating Cherry and may have put his hands on her too. That’s all Mike needs to hear.
Comically taking an endlessly sick-of-it Ian with him to make sure he doesn’t go too far, Mike jumps Breen outside a bar and beats him half to death, screaming at him to leave the women’s prison and keep himself to himself. I imagine he’s going to listen.
On this run of form, is there anything Mike can’t do?
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