Tulsa King Season 3 Episode 6 Review: The Word of the Day Is Momentum

Critic’s Rating: 3.75 / 5.0

3.75

Momentum. That’s Dwight’s mantra this week — and honestly, it fits everyone on Tulsa King right now. 

Some are clawing to keep it, some are fumbling it, and a few are pretending they ever had it to begin with. 

“Bubbles” isn’t the flashiest hour of the season, but it quietly repositions every player for what’s shaping up to be a bruising endgame. 

Dwight finally opened up to Joanne — kind of. He admitted the feds have him working to take down a serious player and that if he fails, they’ll all go down with him. 

There’s no sugarcoating, no charm, just that unrelenting Manfredi certainty. He’s locked onto the future he can see, smell, and practically taste. It’s not about romance or even survival anymore. 

It’s about momentum. He refuses to lose it again, no matter what’s standing in his way.

Honestly, I was surprised that she just sipped her coffee and didn’t otherwise respond. I guess there’s not much you can say when faced with simple facts.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the distillery mess from Tulsa King Season 3 Episode 5 is less legal and more Dunmire. 

The cops were crawling all over the scene, and Mitch played clean-up duty while Bodhi’s flashbacks to Jimmy’s body reminded us how much trauma this crew has soaked up already. 

When some branch of law shut down the distillery despite the Tulsa PD ruling the death an accident, Cleo and the gang were left scrambling. Dwight’s solution is to sell off-board, which is code for going underground. Tyson calls it flying under the radar.

It’s old-school mob survival, as if they’re putting on a play for the locals about how prohibition changed the game.

Of course, Dwight, being Dwight, is already thinking several moves ahead. 

His big talk about national distribution almost sounds delusional after everything they’ve lost, but that’s the beauty of it. This is his strong suit. When everyone else panics, he doubles down. That’s the spark that built his empire, and it’s flickering back to life.

Given that he was behind bars for 25 years, his accomplishments in this modern world are almost miraculous. He’s not one to dismiss easily. Dunmire will learn that soon enough.

Mitch and Cleo were sent to see Johnny Wednesday, who, if Dwight’s instincts are correct, might just be their ticket to expansion. 

Their road trip, though, was cursed from the start. There was a lot of faith talk, some sweet backstory about how Dwight saved Mitch when he was at rock bottom, and then boom — a cop with a grin straight out of Deliverance pulls them over. IYKYK.

Dunmire’s fingerprints were all over it, of course. He’s got no desire for this Dwight business to continue. But instead of leaning hard on Cole to “end this,” he should have left it up to the more pliable sorts. Because by “this,” he means putting Dwight in an early grave, and Cole, well, he’s just not capable.

His father never misses a chance to remind him how little he believes in him. When he saw Cole wearing a camo shirt, he took it as an opportunity to humiliate him with the reminder that his late brother served “with distinction” in Kandahar.

And he did this in front of “company.” Cole’s face was an awful mix of shame and obedience. Personally, I was mortified. 

Dunmire doesn’t see a son; he sees a weapon he keeps trying to fire in the right direction. Cole’s running out of ways to prove himself, and that makes him dangerous — not because he’s skilled, but because he’s desperate. I’m holding out hope that he’ll take it out on Papa. I can dream!

Back on the Dwight front, the “vacation” in Hot Springs, Arkansas, turned into the tense kind of meeting only this show can deliver — old-school mob posturing with a modern edge.  

Quiet Ray lived up to his name until he didn’t, and the second Vince opened his mouth, you could feel Dwight’s blood pressure rising. 

What starts as controlled business talk peppered with small talk and bickering spiraled when Cole, still smarting from his father’s humiliation, decided this was his moment to finally make him proud.

He moved in from the bar, all camo and nerves, finger on the trigger, and made the biggest mistake of his life. He’s supposed to “end” Dwight, but instead, his amateur hit was a chaotic mess. 

Bullets flew through the resort, people scattered, and odds are a bystander took the hit meant for Dwight. Quiet Ray thought Dwight set him up. Dwight thought Ray made the first move. Cole was long gone, and the fragile truce two criminal empires were trying to maintain was in tatters.

Dunmire is not going to take this sitting down. 

Dwight’s still breathing, the job’s still unfinished, and Cole’s humiliation is complete. His father’s disdain will be merciless, and Cole knows it. 

He’s failed again — this time, in public. It’s darkly funny, deeply sad, and precisely the kind of emotional wreckage that makes Tulsa King so compelling.

Cleo’s arc on Tulsa King Season 3 Episode 6 (⬅️ recap alert) might be the quietest but most telling of all. 

When she says Tulsa never ends well for her, she’s not being melodramatic. She’s emotionally and physically exhausted. 

She’s been running on adrenaline since the start, and now that the walls are closing in, her spark is fading. Watching her shift from the fearless woman who once drove donuts on Dunmire’s lawn to someone barely holding it together was harder to watch than I expected.

If Dwight’s word of the day was momentum, Cleo’s was erosion. You can only push against the current so long before it pulls you under.

But there is some good news. Dwight and Tyson are still one of the show’s best dynamics. Their drive to Arkansas was half mob thriller, half odd-couple comedy. 

Dwight rediscovered his paternal streak (strange, we’ve not even heard him mention Tina once during Tulsa King Season 3), lecturing Tyson about his music, his ambitions, even the gas-station-franchise dream that made Dwight laugh until he realized the kid was serious. 

Tyson is Dwight’s mirror — younger, sharper, and far more self-aware. When Dwight told him he got his flashy American-flag lapel pin from a terrorist, it was that old-school code talk for what loyalty costs. 

Tyson gets it. He may still be idealistic, but he’s learning the cost of staying in the car.

Meanwhile, Bodhi and Grace’s dynamic keeps evolving. He’s awkwardly trying to compliment her; she’s not sure if she should take it seriously. Their conversations, though small, ground the show in something human. 

Grace’s wide-eyed unease and Bodhi’s conflicted loyalty remind us Tulsa King isn’t just about mobsters and muscle. It’s about regular people swept up in the wake of one man’s impossible dream.

By the time we reached the final act, the pieces were in place. The cops found Armand dead by apparent suicide. Mitch and Cleo escaped their Bonnie-and-Clyde moment, but delivered The 50 to a Pentacostal church for distribution (yes, really). 

Dwight was staring down the phone, furious as Quiet Ray let it ring with that smug little smile. 

And Bill Bevilaqua is just where I said he’d be — locked in the same room where Agent Musso had Dwight when we caught up with them on Tulsa King Season 4 Episode 1. Dwight was the picture of mob elegance; Bill is mentally breaking down.

Just what is Musso up to? He claims he’s using Dwight to take down a big fish, and that’s in motion. But grabbing Bill off the street says there is something more sinister in his (likely unsanctioned) operation. I just have no idea what it could be.

The song that plays over the final montage — “Big changes coming” — says it all.

This episode reminded us what Tulsa King does best. It builds tension through loyalty and loss, through the calm before the inevitable blowback. Momentum, indeed. The wheel’s spinning again — and no one’s walking away clean.

If Tulsa King has taught us anything, it’s that momentum isn’t always forward. 

Sometimes it’s a full-body spin — one step ahead, two missteps back — and Dwight’s about to find out what happens when the storm he built comes home to roost. The word of the day might be momentum, but the feeling in the air? Payback.

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