Summary
Tulsa King picks up a little in “Tilting at Windmills” with a couple of fun sequences and some intriguing character arcs.
I’m not sure that Tulsa King Season 2 has quite lived up to the expectations I had for it, but Episode 5, “Tilting at Windmills”, certainly felt like a step in the right direction. With the promise of a sit-down between Dwight and two of our villainous factions, and an escalation of the petty rivalry between Dwight and Thresher, there’s plenty going on here that promises fun things in the future, even if it takes a late fistfight to get the blood pumping in the meantime.
Episode 4 felt a bit too steady for its own good, and there’s a whiff of that in the early stages here as Dwight makes progress in his various business endeavors and his relationship with Margaret. But the pace picks up as we go, and I do think that a lot of the quieter character drama – like the Invernizzi in-fighting, Dwight’s romantic life, and Tyson still idling at an important crossroads – will pay off down the line.
Putting Down Roots
I keep forgetting the extent to which Dwight is putting down roots in Tulsa, but Christina and her kids living with him is a nice reminder, as is Joana getting into the weed business with Bodhi, and Mitch taking over Donnie’s used car lot.
“Tilting at Windmills” opens with a funny scene in which Christina and Dwight take a tour of an exclusive school that preaches very “modern” values. After pitching a “street smarts” course, Dwight decides it’s better to wait in the car, which is probably a good idea.
But this is an important reminder of Dwight’s headspace. After a lifetime in the mob and in prison, he sees the world as endlessly dangerous, and anyone who doesn’t realize that as naïve. This is why he sent Carl back to Bill Bevilaqua in a trash bag. He won’t be pushed around, even if the retaliation is sometimes worse than the perceived slight.
I like this as a theme. Dwight’s arc is sort of a mirror of Tyson’s; he’s the ghost of his potential future, and it’s through his questionable guidance that Tyson will ultimately decide if this is all worth it or not. Dwight tempers Tyson’s enthusiasm for retribution because he knows where that leads. It’s an interesting dynamic.
Time For A Sit-Down
Chickie is relying on the fact that Dwight can be goaded. He hasn’t considered that Dwight might be getting to the point where a sit-down and a negotiation might be something he’d go for, which is why Vince is becoming so disillusioned with his leadership. Hearing Chickie boast about drowning his own father didn’t help matters, either.
It’s worth pointing out that I don’t imagine anything positive will come of the planned sit-down in Atlanta, where the Invernizzi Family, the Kansas City Mob, and Dwight’s crew all plan to break bread. I think they’ll all attend, but Chickie’s stubbornness and unpredictability will ruin it. That’s virtually guaranteed.
But I like that everyone’s considering it. I like that there’s some value for the old way of doing things – Vince reminds Goodie when he calls that you simply can’t refuse a sit-down – and that Bill himself considers that retaliating against Dwight wantonly might not be the best approach. It gives some texture to the underlying conflicts and stops them from being drama just for the sake of drama.
Don’t Hate the Player
In the meantime, it’s Thresher who presents a more pressing problem, even though Bill turns down his offer of resuming their partnership (based on the dialogue in Tulsa King Season 2, Episode 5, it seems like Bill was happy to leave Thresher to Jackie.) Thresher isn’t a mobster; he isn’t bound by the same rules of engagement. He’s a petty businessman who’s used to getting what he wants, and we see in “Tilting at Windmills” that he’s willing to do anything to get it.
Margaret tells Dwight that Thresher is extremely insecure and possessive, and you can see that written all over him. You can see it when he needlessly makes his fracas with Dwight about earning Margarat’s affections, and when he enlists several of Jackie’s trafficked workforce to attack the wind farm that Dwight outbid him on. He can’t let anything go, but there’s a real sense that he has no idea who he’s dealing with.
The wind farm bust-up is the highlight of the episode, not just because it’s a welcome action beat in a season that has sorely lacked them, but also because it’s a reminder that Thresher and his people are mostly idiots, and his plans are largely ill-thought-out and childish. “If I can’t have it then I’ll break it” isn’t exactly a sophisticated position.
But Dwight knows how to play that game, too. At the end of “Tilting at Windmills” he and Margaret go out for dinner, and Thresher sends them one of the more expensive bottles of wine in the cellar. Dwight plays an Uno reverse and orders two bottles of the most expensive wine in the cellar, and a third for the table nearby, all on Thresher’s tab. If Dwight knows anything, it’s how to win a fight, and if these are the battlegrounds Thresher is choosing, then so be it. Each week he looks like less of a real threat, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of those lurking elsewhere.
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