Summary
Season 3 of Tulsa King continues to develop a ton of conflict at a rapid pace, and “The Fifty” suggests that punches will not be pulled this time around.
If the premiere of Tulsa King Season 3 felt like a bit of a corrective to a lacklustre second season, Episode 2, “The Fifty”, feels like it’s proving a point and then some. We’ve already had tense sit-downs between Dwight and the new Big Bad, Jeremiah Dunmire; we’ve roped in almost every surviving character from the previous two seasons, and we’re starting to genuinely imperil the core cast. Things aren’t getting serious – they’re already serious, and they’re going to get even more serious very quickly.
This is what you want from a show like Tulsa King. Taylor Sheridan can be prone to bouts of self-indulgent excess, and that sort of thing can derail a season. These tight episode runtimes don’t provide much leeway, so I’d rather a bit less depth and build-up – especially since a lot of these relationships and dynamics have been developing for a while – and more head-on collisions. That seems to be the third season’s guiding MO. Long may it continue.
Jeremiah made it clear in the premiere that he was going to be an obstacle, burning down Theo’s country manse – with him in it – as revenge for selling his distillery to Dwight. And in the true manner of someone used to having things their way, Jeremiah isn’t subtle about who was to blame. His goons brag about it in public. He and Cole show up at Theo’s funeral. The whole thing’s a theatrical message to Dwight, a way to compel him to take the money – three times what he paid – that Jeremiah is offering for the distillery. But Dwight doesn’t take kindly to threats, and he’s no fool either. If Jeremiah is offering that much for a distillery that hasn’t turned a profit in years, there has to be a reason.
The clue’s in the title: “The Fifty”. Cleo reveals that Theo was sitting on a batch of five-decade-old vintage bourbon that can fill 250 bottles at thousands of dollars a pop. Jeremiah knew it existed, but not where. It’s the profit payload that Dwight needs to justify the risks associated with the booze business, and it’s a compelling enough fortune to sway Bill to get in on the action to help with distribution. Even Cal Thresher, now a gubernatorial candidate, is reluctantly in Dwight’s pocket, there to smooth over any complications with a few political favours should the need arise.
It feels like a win, but is it really? Tulsa King Season 3, Episode 2 reintroduces all of these key players but makes it very clear that they can’t be relied upon. Bill is still on conspiratorial terms with Vince back in New York, whose takeover of the Invernizzi family seems to have backfired, and Cal would just as soon have Dwight killed as work with him. And everyone seems to know that Jeremiah means business. He’s a credible threat, and he has no shortage of targets he can lean on to hurt Dwight. He sends Cole and some goons after Mitch, and while that ambush backfires, it proves he’s willing to take action. Cole also seems to target Spencer at the end of the episode, who may prove a weak link. Then there’s Bodhi, whose lust for revenge is preventing him from making peace with Bill’s men, and Tyson’s father, Mark, whose reluctant agreement to fix the distillery’s pipes might count as collusion as far as someone like Jeremiah is concerned.
What I’m curious about, at least for now, is how all these major players and conflicting allegiances can all fit together into a coherent season. The only real downside of “The Fifty” is that it all unfolds at such a clip that it can feel as if individual moments don’t have much space to breathe. This is fine when it comes to, say, Tyson’s relationship with Mark, since that has been ebbing and flowing since the very first season, but Mitch and Cleo, by comparison, feels a bit more forced. There’s also a subplot involving Goodie trying – hilariously, it must be said – to track down Armand, but one has to wonder whether we need yet another angle to be concerned about.
Time will tell. If I had to make a prediction, I’d say that several main characters probably won’t survive this season, and it wouldn’t surprise me if at least one was killed off sooner rather than later to really set the stakes. Theo’s death was tragic, but we’d just met him. If Jeremiah’s whole thing is hitting close to home, everyone in Dwight’s inner circle should be worried, and the vibe this season is giving off thus far is that it won’t be pulling any punches.
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