Name: Tulsa King season 1 episode 1
Director: Allen Coulter
Released: 2022-11-13T14:30:00

Tulsa King is a crime drama series about a former Mafia capo who is released from prison after 25 years and ordered to set up operations in the mundane town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The episode is now streaming on Paramount+.

Recap

Dwight Manfredi gets out of prison after a 25-year sentence and is expecting to be compensated for taking the fall. However, when he meets his boss he learns that a lot has changed and that he’s being sent to Tulsa to set up operations there.

Dwight sees it as a clear banishment and things get heated but he ultimately accepts his fate. He’s been inside for so long that the world is completely foreign to him. As soon as he arrives in Tulsa, he meets Tyson who is a cab driver offering to take him where he needs to go.

Along their way, he comes across a marijuana dispensary. He goes inside and asks to speak to the owner. The owner is a guy named Bodhi and Dwight strongarms him with threats to disclose his financial statement which shows that the business is doing very well.

Despite not facing any real threats, Dwight offers Bodhi protection for a 20% cut of the profits. He takes the money and gives some to Tyson, hiring him as his driver. He also gives him some extra cash to buy a brand-new Lincoln Navigator.

After settling down at the hotel, Dwight heads over to a local bar to get a drink. The next morning, Tyson shows up in his mother’s car because the man at the dealership refused to sell him the car, branding him a crack dealer.

Dwight goes to the dealership and roughs up the owner before insisting that he sell him the car. He then visits Bodhi to learn more about his business and where he gets his marijuana from. Bodhi tells Tyson to take him to a better hotel and then take him to the bar from before.

At the bar, he meets a group of women enjoying a bachelorette party. After getting to know the bartender a little better, the women ask him to join them and he takes them to a strip club where they thoroughly enjoy themselves.

Dwight gets along well with one of the older women in the group and he takes her back to his hotel room. After spending the night, the woman finds out that Dwight is 75 years old and is freaked out a bit. She leaves without telling him her name.

Dwight laments the situation he finds himself in but decides to be positive about it and tells himself that he now owns this city, or he will eventually.

An FBI briefing is going on and the agent running the meeting brings up Dwight’s appearance in Tulsa as something to watch out for. The woman he slept with turns out to be an agent in that same meeting.

Review

Sylvester Stallone has shown major improvements in his acting talents and even though he plays a stereotypical Italian American mobster, there is a certain nuance to the role that Stallone gets down perfectly.
His dynamic with Tyson and Bodhi already seems promising because of how contrasting their demeanours are. Dwight’s no-nonsense attitude put up against Tyson’s more laid-back style or Bodhi’s sarcastic yet terrified delivery makes for good television.
The backdrop is simple old Tulsa will be an interesting setting for Dwight to set up his operations. Eventually, the trouble will come out of the woodwork and Dwight will realize what kind of place he’s really in.