Summary
Mayor of Kingstown reaches a point of maximum stress in “Teeth and Tissue”, with bodies and tragedies piling up at every turn.
Well, that’s how you do a penultimate episode, isn’t it? Mayor of Kingstown has always been at its best at the tail end of a season, and that seems to be holding true for Season 4, since “Teeth and Tissue” is riveting stuff. You can scarcely go five minutes without a major development: a murder or a double-cross or something else unexpectedly harrowing. Just when you feel like you’re getting a reprieve from the chaos, another calamity takes over.
Merle Callahan is barely in Episode 9, but his spectre looms large over everything, since the ripple effects of Tracy’s death can be felt everywhere. Kyle is almost catatonic and is only remaining conscious through self-medication. Mike is wracked with guilt and trying to put his plans on fast-forward to facilitate his release, but there are other problems emerging inside the prison, some he couldn’t have possibly predicted. And he’s rapidly running out of allies.
He’s also running out of enemies, since they keep turning up dead. It turns out Sawyer didn’t make it after all, despite his off-screen demise implying that he might still have more to do. It seems quite the ignoble and unceremonious end, but it had to happen to facilitate the rest of the plot, since with Sawyer out of the picture, Mike can push Evelyn to fast-track Kyle’s release in exchange for him hand-delivering Moses. Is there a bit of contrivance in how neatly all this is coming together? Possibly, but try not to think about it too much.
Moses proves easy to manipulate, since he’s out for blood after Lamar killed LJ. It’s worth mentioning out of the gate that Lennie James is extremely good in this episode, taking over the villain obligations after Richard Brake’s tremendous turn last week. He has a monologue later that is one of the finest stretches of acting this season, but it takes a few maneuvers to get him in position for that, which need to be addressed first.
So, Mike promises Moses that he’ll find out the name of LJ’s assassin and then sells out Lamar, after assuring Lamar that he had sorted out his problems for him to keep him safe. He also reveals that he knows Lamar was Moses’s plant and that Moses made a move on Bunny, but he also claims not to be particularly bothered by it, using everything going on — with Kyle and Tracy, primarily — as an excuse to justify potentially having Bunny replaced if it means peace in Kingstown. Moses buys it. It’s not exactly on-brand with a lifelong gangster who has evaded capture all this time, but James does such a good job of selling Moses’s grief that it’s tough to mind.
Moses heads to the address Mike gives him and finds Lamar trussed up like a Christmas turkey, just waiting for the retribution coming his way (and heavily gagged, all the better not to reveal Mike’s involvement in all this). Moses finishes him off with a great speech, but then walks right into the waiting arms of Ian and Stevie, whom Mike had instructed to wait outside to catch him in the act. The trap is sprung, and Moses is apprehended to be delivered to Evelyn.
This is one of the only positive developments in Mayor of Kingstown Season 4, Episode 9. Elsewhere, things are pretty awful (and this is assuming that Moses won’t be heard from again, which is very much not a guarantee). Anchor Bay is chaos, literal and moral. Hobbs still needs to offer the Colombians someone else to get herself off the hook for the loss of the drug shipment — I think it’s safe to say we’re not seeing Torres again — and Kyle is barely holding on, even after Mike delivers a compelling speech promising revenge on Merle if he simply signs his release papers and gets out of there. But the most trouble comes from an unlikely source: Breen.
Breen is on restricted duty after going too far with an inmate, and it takes him one shift of being made to polish handcuffs to tip him over the edge. When he’s summoned to Ad Seg to clean up a cell that has been redecorated with the contents of a deranged prisoner’s bowel, he’s relentlessly mocked by the other inmates, and flips out. But it’s not a typical flip-out, even by his relaxed standards. Instead, he gets a shotgun from the armour and goes on a killing spree, taking out one of the guards and all of the prisoners except Kyle, just butchering them through the bars of their cells one by one. Kyle’s totally accepting of the fate that seems to be coming his way, but Cindy is able to take Breen down just before he pulls the trigger.
Finally, Kyle is released from Anchor Bay after more near-death experiences than most people typically experience in a lifetime, and he walks headlong right into another one. Mike takes him to the diner to meet up with Ian and Stevie and collect some supplies, but suddenly, the place comes under fire from men in riot gear. The Aryan Brotherhood? The Colombians? Moses’s men going after Mike? At this point, who knows? I’m not even sure it matters. Even with only one episode left, it’s highly unlikely we won’t have a few more bodies to add to the growing pile.
