Dwight “The General†Manfredi is a happy guy. Never mind the 25-year prison stint, the schism with his boss back home, or his upcoming trial: The man simply can’t stop smiling. Virtually every even remotely pleasant conversation Dwight has in this week’s episode of Tulsa King ends with a wordless shot of him grinning ear to ear, turning Sylvester Stallone’s leathery face improbably apple-cheeked, often accompanied by a wry chuckle.
And everyone else finds him delightful, too. His daughter Tina, his sister Joanne (Annabella Sciorra), and his multigenerational, multiethnic crew — they can’t stop smiling and laughing themselves when Dwight’s on the scene. During a protracted cameo from the contemporary country singer Jelly Roll, director Craig Zisk awkwardly cuts away from his conversation with Dwight to pan across the General’s soldiers, each one beaming and quietly laughing at their boss’s antics. Additional cutaways to individual members of the crew drive home the point that Dwight is a very lovable guy, in case you hadn’t noticed. But you probably have. This is not a subtle show.
Yet despite being the most good-natured organized-crime boss in the history of modern television, Dwight has made more than a few enemies. On the legal end of things, rival weed baron Cal Thresher continues to make trouble for the General by calling in a favor from U.S. Attorney Denny McGrath (Paden Fallis), who agrees to personally oversee the case against Dwight.
Much to the chagrin of his sister — who moves to Tulsa at her niece’s request, so we’ll be getting a lot more Annabella Sciorra on the show, which couldn’t hurt — Dwight chooses to represent himself at the trial. His legal training is all self-taught, as is everything with Dwight. I expect it to be surprisingly excellent, too, as is also everything with Dwight. (I had to chuckle when his mastermind Bodhi suggests they select middle-age widows or divorcées for the jury due to their natural sympathy with Dwight’s romantic story. They want Dwight’s dating pool to be his jury pool.)
Thresher’s call to Kansas City mob boss Bill Bevilaqua is paying dividends too. Bill calls New York boss Chickie Invernizzi to complain about his encroachment on K.C.’s territory; Chickie, sensing an opportunity to make the enemy of his enemy his friend, winds up agreeing to join Bevilaqua in purging Tulsa of Dwight’s organization, such as it is. He even reaches out to Dwight’s underboss, Goodie, a recent defector from the New York outfit, to see if he’s willing to turn his cloak one more time. (He’ll think about it.)
Dwight has less lethal problems on his plate as well. The paparazzi and the Feds are a constant presence at the fancy hotel where he stays, forcing him to seek other temporary accommodations. This leads to a very funny shot of Dwight walking up wearing Tyson’s clothes in Tyson’s kid sister’s bedroom, complete with stuffed animals and posters of Beyoncé and Rihanna on the walls. (If you’re going to go fish-out-of-water as a gag, go all the way with it.)
This new living arrangement does more than cramp Dwight’s style: It draws the continuing scrutiny and disapproval of Tyson’s dad, Mark (Michael Beach). A hardworking plumber by trade, he may have joined Dwight and the crew for an early dustup with that evil biker gang back in season one, but that was because he wanted to help his son, not put the stamp of approval on his choice of career.
Dwight and Tyson also run into trouble trying to take out a massive loan to purchase a distressed wind farm from a white-collar convict he met in jail after his arrest. There’s no legal way for the bank to give Dwight even half the money he’s looking for without onerous paperwork that likely won’t cut the mustard anyway, given his priors.
But a new business opportunity may be coming along. When the crew robs local car dealer Donnie Shore (familiar face Steve Witting) of his stock’s catalytic converters, they wind up essentially selling them back to the guy in exchange for free cars and “protection.†Witting is excellent at conveying the sad little lightbulb that goes off over ol’ Donnie’s head when he hears that word coming out of the mouth of a guy like Dwight Manfredi. When Dwight’s man Mitch returns with (some of) the stolen converters, he also makes a tentative offer to explore buying the place. Look no further than Trump donor records to find out how much money car dealers make and why shady guys from New York like them.
Look, Tulsa King is a hard show to get mad at. Granted, you have to put aside the transparent little bones it throws to the conservatives in the Taylor Sheridan/Sylvester Stallone audience — an obnoxious pronoun joke back in season one, Dwight offering the de rigueur caveat that even though he’s investing in a wind farm, “I prefer gas.†And if you don’t feel like doing that, I don’t blame you.
Obviously, having a character say something doesn’t mean the show endorses it at all — this is one of the most insane arguments you’ll see people making anywhere television is discussed — but do me a favor and find me one (1) example of Tulsa King attempting to alienate us from Dwight Manfredi’s perspective on almost everything. All his kills are righteous, all his women are gorgeous, all his men are merry. And again, all his conversations end with a smile that would put you in mind of St. Nick shaking when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly if it seemed like Sly has even looked at jelly since the Ford administration.
But its (mild, infrequent, still annoying) moments of boomerism aside, some of the dialogue, from a script by Stephen Scaia and head writer Terence Winter, lands with a thud anyway. “Trespassing sounds like a simple word, but it’s bad,†says Bill Bevilaqua at one point; it sounds like an actual thought, but it’s not. And when Dwight lectures the bank employee who won’t give him a loan about how they’d never let that stand in the way of giving Thomas Edison a loan to create the lightbulb, he sounds like Belushi yelling at Delta House about how America didn’t give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. The difference between Dwight Manfredi and Bluto Blutarsky, however, is that you’re not supposed to laugh at Dwight Manfredi.