Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0
4
Tulsa King Season 2 Episode 6 pops us right in the home stretch of the second season, and the stakes just increased even more than anticipated.
A sit-down between the three warring factions went well enough that everyone left the meeting with smiles on their faces, but Bill thinks he succumbed to Dwight’s charms, screwing himself in the process.
Cal, the guy with the biggest chip on his shoulder and an insane new business partner, wasn’t even involved in the process. How could it have solved anything?
I was shocked that Tulsa King Season 2 Episode 5 skipped right over the after-effects of Jackie murdering people right under Cal’s nose.
It was even more shocking that he was his usual cocky self with Jackie during “Navigator” when he already saw what Jackie was capable of doing.
Sure, Chickie idiotically took a pistol through TSA (strapped to his leg, no less), and Bill snubbed his nose at Dwight’s attention to local cuisine, but Cal is the absolute nutter in this scenario.
Of all the guys we’ve met so far, it’s Jackie who scares the hell out of me. He’s cold-blooded and calculated in ways the others can’t match.
Cal is probably a close second. Neal McDonough has perfected the smile that doesn’t meet his crystal-blue eyes. His grin is more akin to the Smile movies than sharing genuine feelings with another human being.
So how did Manny get sucked into his orbit? Well, money is the answer, but with strings like that attached, I’d rather fend for myself.
Manny mistakenly thought that he had a simpatico relationship with Cal as if Cal was giving him fifty grand out of the goodness of his three-sizes-too-small heart.
In my Tulsa King Season 2 Episode 3 review, I noted that Manny should have talked with Dwight about his money issues instead of accepting “help” from Cal.
What are you a child? Seriously, are you that fucking stupid? Everything in life is transactional. Did you really not know that?
— Cal Thresher
Manny still thinks that Dwight is a bigger threat than Cal, or at least he did before his latest chat with the heartless SOB. That only proves that Manny is a terrible judge of character. There is a lot of that going around on Tulsa King.
Is there any way Manny will allow himself to be “owned” by Cal while continually dishing on Dwight’s activities? I don’t see how he can. If he seriously thinks Dwight is the more significant threat, it should motivate him to turn on Cal.
I don’t know if Dwight would take him up on it, but it’s worth asking if he can be a double agent for Dwight while begging and pleading for his life.
I’m a stick-my-head-in-the-sand kind of gal myself, so I’d play over that potential scenario so long in my head that I’d probably pay with my life regardless. Hopefully, Manny isn’t the same.
Manny is tied to Margaret, so killing him would put whoever does it under a microscope in her world. Sometimes, getting the girl is worth the price of a little compassion.
The buildup to and the sit-down itself were relatively uneventful.
Chickie didn’t even make the meeting. Vince had no pull whatsoever with either Dwight or Bill, and Dwight charmed the hell out of Bill Bevilaqua. So, things went as you would have imagined.
But when the meeting was over, Vince was in trouble with Chickie (who gets more unhinged by the moment), and Bill regretted making a deal with Dwight.
I looked up pricing on weed, and here’s what I found: Low-quality weed typically ranges from $500 to $1,000 per pound, mid-quality weed ranges from $1,000 to $2,500 per pound, and high-quality weed can range from $2,500 to $5,000 or more per pound.
There’s no way Bodhi’s weed is low-quality.
So, assuming that he’s got high-quality weed that would regularly sell for $3000, $575 a pound seems like a pretty good deal for Bill. That’s in addition to 15% off the top of the whole operation in return for security and distribution.
Bill even got his hands on some fake Ozempics (Is it the mob that’s selling all the knockoffs on Facebook?), sweetening the deal.
I laughed when he told Vince he had heard that the operation went south when Pete died, but he had no idea it was THAT bad. Maybe the Facebook knockoffs are mom-and-pop shops, and the mob steers clear. 🤣
I almost forgot that Joanna is hoping to take the weed shop in a different direction by drop-shipping CBD oil via a website. That’s big business and a brilliant move.
Although Bodhi scoffed at her herb-growing skills in connection with weed, if you’ve got a green thumb, you’ve got a green thumb!
Anyway, Dwight’s a delightful gangster, and he momentarily won Bill over with his talk of local cuisine and milkshakes. Will that last?
You’re different; I’ll give you that much
— Bill Bevilaqua to Dwight Manfredi
I really dig Frank Grillo, and Bill has some redeeming characteristics, unlike Cal. I don’t want Bill to get back on Dwight’s bad side because I’d like to see him stick around for Tulsa King Season 3.
Bill’s operation is more interesting than Cal’s. Cal is a thug (it made me laugh when he referred to Dwight that way), but Bill has family. He and Dwight could work well together, even if it is long distance.
I guess time will tell.
While all of this was happening, Tina was taking control of her own and her family’s safety.
She is her father’s daughter. I don’t understand how he thought she had The General as a father and wouldn’t be familiar with mob terms. Apparently, he’s had his head in the sand, too.
Getting a gun is a wise choice, especially since it got her side-by-side with Mitch. I can barely remember her husband, but wasn’t he a bit of a dolt?
Mitch has a good head on his shoulders, and it will be interesting to see how Dwight reacts as Mitch grows closer to Tina. When Mitch said, “She’s a beautiful woman; it was my pleasure,” Dwight did a double take, but he didn’t overreact. Maybe that’s a smidgeon of approval.
And now we get to the “Navigator.”
Did another Taylor Sheridan show just kill off Michael Beach?? If so, that’s two in a row where he bit the big one. C’mon, man!
But was he killed? I’m not an explosions expert, but from what I could see of the front seat of the car, it was relatively unaffected. Well, it’s as unaffected as a blown-up portion of a car could be.
It’s possible he’ll survive, if not only because it’s too choreographed for Beach to die twice across the Taylor Sheridan universe in such short order.
This one will hurt because of how it will affect Tyson. He and his dad have been at odds over his involvement with Dwight for a while now, but this was the first time Mark approved of it.
Tyson was so excited to be able to do something for his dad with no strings attached, and he was even more excited when his dad accepted his gift.
The worst part will be that Tyson eyeballed that white car before and didn’t pay enough attention to it. That he recognized it in front of the house shows that he did take note.
But why would you take note of a friggin’ Prius? What self-respecting bad guy would be caught dead in one? It makes me wonder if this isn’t some sort of one-off targeting that has nothing to do with the current situation.
Undoubtedly, Tyson will be beating himself up for his part in what happened to his dad. This will be where the rubber meets the road. Any sweetness that remained in Tyson might be gone due to this tragedy.
He wanted to step up, and this will push him even further toward that end.
Unfortunately, things are only getting more dangerous as time goes on, so he’ll be stepping up at a perilous time — assuming Dwight lets him step up under the circumstances.
Who put the hit on Dwight? Was it Jackie without Cal’s assistance? It didn’t seem there was enough time for Cal, Bill, or Chickie to make the call. Bill and Chickie are still reeling from the results of the sit-down, and Cal is generally unwilling to kill.
Where does this shocking turn take us now? If you’ve been enjoying Tulsa King this season, please drop me a comment below to share your thoughts.
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