Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed Tulsa King’s Season 3 finale via Paramount+ subscription, so be warned!
Another season-length journey into Tulsa’s criminal underground has ended, giving Sylvester Stallone’s Dwight Manfredi a little time to breathe and get comfortable with his girlfriend Margaret — because they’re using labels now — before the next big threat comes crawling out of the New York City woodwork. The squad’s efforts to make above-the-board profits were granted in the form of a federal liquor license granted by Kevin Pollack’s Musso, while most of the immediate threats in Dwight’s life were put to pasture.
All in all, it was a solid way to wrap Season 3, which started off strongly before spinning its wheels a bit in the middle. and I think it handily delivered on two of my biggest hopes for Tulsa King ahead of the currently in-production Season 4 and the impending spinoff set in New Orleans. That said, “Jesus Lizard” did screw the pooch when it came to closing out one character’s storyline, at least assuming that storyline is indeed concluded. Pour yourself a rocks glass of that Montague and read on!
NAILED IT: Setting Up Samuel L. Jackson’s Hitman For NOLA King
Tulsa King followed in the footsteps of many a traditional broadcast drama by introducing a brand new character destined to go off and star in an impending spinoff. To be sure, these final two episodes technically didn’t serve as a backdoor pilot, as they were both firmly invested in wrapping up everything happening in Tulsa, but the ninth episode brought in the always excellent Samuel L. Jackson as the highly connected hitman already set to head up NOLA King, one Mr. Russell Lee Washington Jr.
Realistically, the crew could have just left the camera rolling on Jackson without giving him any direction, and I still likely would have come out of his introduction pleased as punch. But Tulsa King‘s writers brought Lee into Dwight’s life in a way that immediately set up high stakes — he’s on Quiet Ray’s to-be-killed shitlist for refusing the task of taking Dwight out — and gave viewers a window into his world.
Namely, Lee is tired of being a hired hand, and wants to basically duplicate the success that Dwight has had, only in his stomping grounds of New Orleans. As a Louisiana native myself, I was ready for Jackson’s accent to border on grating, but I think he handles it well enough, and I can buy into the idea that he lost some of it during his years living away from the city. All in all, I’m 100% more excited for NOLA King than I was before Lee was introduced, and I can’t wait to see him mixing it up with the rest of that cast.
NAILED IT: Killing Off Jeremiah Dunmire In An Over-The-Top Brutal Way
Robert Patrick rules, without question, and he delivered as expected throughout Season 3 as Dwight’s booze-minded antagonist Jeremiah Dunmire. But for as much as I like watching Patrick’s work, Jeremiah was a hateful, spiteful and godawful human being without a speck of levity to lean into, and only self-serving motivations to guide him. Rarely have I wanted more to see a drama’s season-long villain get taken out in the episode after they first appeared.
Understandably, Jeremiah continued breathing for episode after episode, making everyone’s life worse around him as Dwight found different ways to invade and infect the Dunmires’ illegal monopoly on bourbon distribution. It’d be one thing if Jeremiah was only mean to his enemies, but the person he arguably treated worse than anyone else was his own son Cole. Though I guess trying to calm Joanna by directly saying, “I don’t hit women,” didn’t exude tranquility.
So when the finale started, I found myself wishing for Dwight to take Jeremiah out in the most pettily ruthless way imaginable: dragging him behind a car down a gravel road with his legs spread wide, or by having him lay down in a pit full of vipers. Or just like. throwing him into a woodchipper, feet first. But hey, Dwight managed to top each of those ideas by beating the shit out of Jeremiah and then essentially burning him alive at the stake. Good riddance.
MISSED THE BOAT: Giving Cole The Chance To Take His Own Father Out (Or To At Least Watch Dwight Do It)
For all that I cheered when Jeremiah Dunmire joined the flaming choir invisible, I found myself highly disappointed that Tulsa King‘s creative team didn’t allow for the easiest example of poetic justice possible: allowing Cole to dish out some painful vengeance on his own to the man who made his life hell for decades on end. I mean seriously, after Jeremiah threateningly held that axe up to Cole’s face in the penultimate ep?
To be sure, I fucking hate Cole Dunmire, and I almost want to hate Beau Knapp by extension for delivering all of the character’s shitty expressions and all the insecurity on display in the way he aims to intimidate others by using his physicality. He’s the personification of the phrase “Hurt people hurt people,” though, and I guess I wasn’t hating him so much as what Jeremiah made of him.
Thus, I desperately wanted Cole to be the one to completely ruin his dear old dad. Definite props to him for recognizing that the last straw exists, and for going to Dwight with all of the relevant info needed to save Joanna and take Jeremiah down. But we needed to see the big moment where Cole makes it clear that it was Jeremiah’s own flesh and blood that caused his downfall, presumably then followed by Cole shoving a live grenade in his dad’s mouth. Again, I definitely enjoying seeing Dwight light up the night with Jeremiah’s beaten body, but Cole deserved to be the one to have sparked that flame.
Is this the last time we’ll see Cole in Tulsa King? Does the death of his pops mean that he’s in contention to either take over the family business, or will he jump ship and attempt to slot himself within Dwight’s ranks? Or hell, might he even decide to join Lee on a trip down South? Hopefully we’ll get some answers when the first Season 4 updates start dropping.
NOLA King will be hitting the 2026 TV schedule at an unforeseen date, so stay tuned for that, and also stay tuned for Tulsa King star Garrett Hedlund’s other upcoming streaming show, the comic adaptation Criminal.