Upon seeing the official trailer for Tulsa King, my first thought was that it looked like a TV series tailor-made for me. One, it starred Sylvester Stallone, an action icon who continues to deliver despite cresting into his mid-70s. Two, it was created by Taylor Sheridan, who’s crafted several movies and TV shows, like Yellowstone, that I find thoroughly appealing.  And three, it had Terence Winter as its showrunner, having previously done the same job on Boardwalk Empire, one of my favorite series ever. Now, after completing its nine-episode first season, I can state with some confidence that Tulsa King is pretty much the show I expected it to be. Pretty much.

After serving a 25-year stint for murder during which he never snitched, Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) seeks recompense from his mafia boss, Pete Invernizzi (A.C. Peterson). Much to Dwight’s chagrin, Pete and his son, Chickie (Domenick Lombardozzi), have nothing to offer him, other than the possibility of starting a new crew in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Angry but determined, Dwight accepts his exile and flies southwest, where he begins to assemble a mini-gang of disparate individuals that quickly become his family. Meanwhile, Dwight attempts to make amends with his real family, which proves difficult after decades behind bars.

First and foremost, Tulsa King is Stallone’s program, as he commands the screen and dominates the series’ runtime. To be honest, I never pictured Sly as a TV actor, so I was a bit dubious about how he’d perform over the course of a season. I was wrong to be, though, as it rapidly became clear that Dwight Manfredi is one of his best career roles, right alongside Rocky and Rambo. For a man Stallone’s age to be not only this emotionally involved, but also physically involved, is quite noteworthy. He doesn’t phone it in at all, and some of his scenes, especially involving his estranged family, rank up there with his most moving.* I imagine that many people will assume this show is mostly Stallone killing people and mumbling unintelligible one-liners, but I cannot overstate how much more it offers than that.

Having said that, it’s not just Stallone’s show. He’s flanked by an interesting cast of characters from the get-go. Take Tyson (Jay Will) for example, the cabbie who immediately bonds with Dwight and becomes his permanent driver. Tyson and Dwight’s relationship, one that transitions from a mentor/mentee deal to more of a father/son dynamic, is a joy to watch. And the culture clash between the two is always hilarious.** Speaking of hilarious, Dwight’s partnership with weed purveyor Bodhi (Martin Starr) is a constant source of laughs. Truthfully, I can’t think of two actors who seemed more unlikely to appear on-screen together than Stallone and Starr, but my god, those two are fantastic together.***

Then there’s the bad guys, who are entertaining but assuredly less well-drawn. Dwight’s primary antagonist is Caolan Waltrip (Ritchie Coster), the leader of a local biker club that makes money selling nitrous oxide. Coster lays it on thick as Caolan, with his pronounced Irish accent and menacing demeanor contributing to an energetic, memorable performance. Sadly, the Italian baddies are a bit less compelling, being mostly reduced to mob-movie clichés. Vincent Piazza, who was great in Boardwalk Empire, has almost nothing to work with as Vince Antonacci, Chickie’s right-hand man. He’s just short-tempered; that’s literally it. Chickie is a bit more developed, but most of said development comes in the last few episodes, and by then, there’s nothing the writers can do to make his behavior feel any less erratic. His animosity toward Dwight is given some justification, but nothing that comes close to adequate. All in all, his characterization is about as convincing as Lombardozzi’s toupee.****

The women of Tulsa King are given a similarly frustrating, threadbare treatment. Stacy Beale (Andrea Savage), an alcoholic ATF agent, is Dwight’s primary love interest, although love is not necessarily what I’d call it. Savage’s performance is really solid, imbuing Stacy with a shakiness that gives her character more dimension than she’d otherwise have. Even so, Stacy’s subplot is very lazily written, to the point of borderline amateurishness at times. I found myself especially annoyed by this because I spotted multiple moments in which her story could’ve gone in much bolder directions. Dwight also has a secondary “love” interest in the form of Margaret Devereaux (Dana Delaney), the owner of a nearby ranch, but she’s not in the show enough to draw any conclusions just yet.

Be that as it may, Tulsa King never presents itself as high art, prioritizing surface thrills over deeper meaning. In that manner, it’s not too dissimilar to Yellowstone, another Sheridan series that mostly forgoes a central story in favor of a myriad of diverting sequences. In Tulsa King’s earlier episodes, those sequences normally involve Dwight recruiting an eccentric individual to his crew, all the while milking the humor out of how behind the times and out of place he is. Personally, I preferred the first half of the season because of this very humor, with those episodes constituting some of the most fun I’ve had with a new series in a couple of years. It was often so funny that I became kind of bummed when the show pivoted to a darker, more action-packed approach.

Bummed as I was, I still greatly looked forward to the action. I mean, I like (fictional) violence, and I like it even more when it’s à la Stallone. Unfortunately, Tulsa King is kind of all over the place when it comes to its bloodletting. On one hand, there are some crunchy moments involving people getting their asses kicked, and in some gnarly instances, their faces seared on hot metal. On the other, there are fake-looking shootouts brimming with VFX muzzle flashes and blood that fail to register at all on the pulse-pounding scale. I despise VFX violence, especially when it’s done poorly, and it’s really poor here. I’m shocked that Stallone, an action filmmaker himself, allowed the standard to be so low in this regard.*****

On the whole, Tulsa King is a series meant to be savored for its simplest pleasures: Stallone, some fish-out-of-water humor, the occasional murder, and so on. Sure, its flaws are pretty glaring, but because of its overall lack of pretense, they’re easily forgivable. In fact, I really only honed in on them when I started brainstorming for this review, since in the moment, I was too amused to really care. The more I think about it, the more I realize that a show about a New York gangster operating in Tulsa shouldn’t really work. And yet, it does because of its talented cast, crew, and showrunner. I’m thrilled that it’s already been renewed for a second season, and I can’t wait to see how they strike again while the iron’s hot. They’ll have to move fast, though, because like Dwight Manfredi, Stallone isn’t getting any younger.

If I had to score season one of Tulsa King, I’d give it a 7/10.

Notes:

* I was really impressed by the actress who played Dwight’s daughter, Tatiana Zappardino. As far as I can tell, she’s relatively new on the scene, but her performance belied years of experience. I really wanted to see more of her character, as her reluctance to accept Dwight (after he forsook her while in prison) was one of the more engaging subplots. Unfortunately, the writers weren’t able to mine this for all it’s worth.

** Tyson’s arc also benefits from Michael Beach’s presence. He plays Tyson’s father, Mark, and his performance is practically perfect. Beach has always been an excellent character actor, but this might be the best he’s ever been. The scripts also took his character in directions I didn’t expect, so was a nice surprise too.

*** I quickly want to mention Mitch, played by Garrett Hedlund, an ex-con bar owner who eventually becomes Dwight’s most capable associate in Tulsa. Hedlund has leading man potential, so he really holds his own against Stallone in their scenes together. Mitch is really likable, so his limited screen time is frustrating. I want to know more about the guy!

**** This poor characterization is even more egregious when you consider that many of Tulsa King‘s episodes run well under 40 minutes, meaning the time was there for additional scenes, in theory.

***** One of the last few episodes ends with a brief gunfight that not only looked unrealistic, it also closed out in the most unbelievable of ways. The person I was watching with, who’s not normally so critical, even said, “Wow, I didn’t buy that at all. That was dumb.” And I replied, “Yeah, because it’s lazy filmmaking.” Moments like these don’t ruin a show, but they definitely diminish it.