“Tulsa King” recap, season 2, episode. 8: Under new management

Assuming you're the kind of viewer who doesn't mind characters saying cartoonish crime-crime things like “Shit just got real” or “Here's $100 – buy yourself a life,” this week's episode actually does a lot to like Tulsa King. Admittedly, that's a tall order considering how many truly excellent crime series have aired this year. (Fargo The fifth season just ended in January, and that's just the beginning!)

It's also a big challenge when you compare and contrast a lot of these things with what was served by Chef Terence Winter, who co-wrote the episode with William Schmidt The sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. Winter hasn't lost his fastball, as we'll discuss, but he's playing a less rewarding game. If the mission is to “help Stallone look tough and have a good time,” then that's a less exciting mission than “to chronicle how America produces joyless sociopaths capable only of hurting others.” to hurt and steal until they die.”

But I said there was good in this episode, and I mean it. For example, the story of Armand, the accidental renegade and semi-ex-Mafia guy played by Max Casella, could easily have come from one of the crime masterpieces Winter has worked on. One by one, Armand is counting on him to avoid the inevitable wrath of Dwight: The boss knows that Armand is the one who gave his rival Cal Thresher important information, and revenge is only a matter of time.

Armand calls his ex, but when she sees at 9 a.m. that he's half screwed and wants her to join witness protection with him, she tells him to lose her number. He angrily attacks Spencer, his subordinate on the ranch, and an argument breaks out with his boss Margaret, which ends with his dismissal. He turns to his former benefactor Thresher, who almost laughs in his face; If Dwight goes after him, he'll no longer be useful.

Casella really picks up the pace in his last two scenes. First, he leaves a tearful, uncomfortably candid message for one of his sons in an underpass, in which the pain of life as a constant bastard is written all over his face. Then, with visible desperation in his eyes and a pained grimace, he picks up Tulsa's consigliere goodie and heads off with a bag of the force's cash. His bluster on the way to the door seems to be a cover for his knowledge that he is a dead man.

Less emotional, but just as dramatically dramatic, is the apparent resolution of the power struggle between Vince and Chickie in New York. With the approval of the rest of Chickie's capo and the bosses of the other families, Vince makes his move. But it's not a hit – it's a shot. His fellow superiors and his own men simply tell him, “You’re out,” and he’s out. “Of course it could have gone differently, but we didn’t want that,” is the explanation and the implication that it was possible Despite it Take this other route if Chickie resists.

“You lost the locker room, buddy,” says one of the assembled wiseguys. “This is the bottom line.” What can he actually do? If everyone agrees that he is no longer the boss, then in reality he is no longer the boss. But Vince – perhaps patronizing, perhaps not – leaves the door open to a possible new role for the dethroned Don: “Keep the drinking under control, a few months, we'll see what happens.” I think Chickie should be lucky have, but he must find it humiliating, perhaps even worse than being beaten up – just as Mitch tells the ruthless Tyson that being arrested is worse than being killed because it puts everyone in danger. As with the Armand material, it all plays out like a late season sopranos Mini-Arc, which is high praise.

(Side note: At the beginning of the episode, Chickie made a pact with Dwight to leave his daughter and grandchildren alone after they moved back to New York City for their safety. However, Vince was away making plans at the time and got the message never understood. Since it's considered taboo for these people to persecute family members anyway, I'm not sure if this omission plays a role.)

Chickie isn't the only king to fall victim to an uprising in this episode. Cal Thresher has barely finished pursuing Armand when he meets the same fate. His Triad partner, Jackie Ming, simply decides to take over the entire operation and he's back in charge again. I mean, Cal gets the classic offer he can't refuse, with either his signature or his mind on the contract signing over his cannabis farm to this gang of gangsters. What else can he do?

In his opinion, the best thing to do is to ask his business partner Bill Bevilaqua for help. If Ming can overpower him, Thresher argues, then everyone else with interests in the sector is at risk. But Bevilaqua won't hear of it – he's furious when he learns that Ming planted the car bomb that sent him and Dwight to their battle stations, and blames Thresher for dragging them into the war.

This war has claimed another life in Tulsa. While Tyson's father Mark is improving in the hospital after the car bombing, Dwight's weed gurus Bodhi and Jimmy are shot at by Kansas City toughs in retaliation for Tyson injuring one of them in the previous episode. Bodhi escapes injury, but Jimmy suffers a serious-looking chest wound. Then again, it really did look like Mark was torn to pieces, so “serious looking” is relative on this show.

Wars take on a terrible life of their own and continue long after fighting has made any sense at all, if there ever was any meaning at all. (That's the subject of sword-and-sorcery author Robert E. Howard's best story about his legendary barbarian Conan, “Red Nails,” just FYI.) If I'm Bill Bevilaqua, I'm right with Dwight – when he takes my calls – to clear the air, maybe even forge an alliance against the guy who got her involved in this escalating parable. (If you want to get technical about it, Bill started this a long time ago when he sent his man to murder Dwight, only Dwight had the guy killed instead. You seem to be taking a mulligan on all of this. )

But if the attack on Jimmy was fatal, that screws everything up. Dwight is not the forgiving type and will approach a murder on equal terms. And my hopes for a classic multi-factional bloodbath from Terence Winter are rising again.