Tulsa King Season 4 Opens With a Plane Crash That Strips Dwight of His Safety Net
Tulsa King Season 4 Opens With a Plane Crash That Strips Dwight of His Safety Net
Stallone’s Mob Western Raises the Stakes
Sylvester Stallone’s mafia out of water drama is back for a fourth season on Paramount+, and it arrived with a bigger swing than most fans expected. New York capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi spends the season trying to move his Oklahoma operation into legitimate business, and the pressure comes from every side: corrupt local politicians, dangerous new rival syndicates, and growing tension with the mob family he left behind in New York.
Original showrunner Terence Winter is back at the head of the writers room, and the tone leans more emotional and more high stakes than the lighter fish out of water comedy of the early seasons. Paramount+ has already renewed the series for a fifth season, so this is a show with a long runway.
Read the Paramount+ season guide →A Business Win Ends in a 4:30 A.M. Phone Call
The premiere starts with Dwight’s empire growing, including plans to distribute bourbon on a national scale, and he urges his crew to stay on the right side of the law. It’s a good night for him. He shares an anniversary dinner with his girlfriend Margaret Devereaux, played by Dana Delany, before she leaves on a work trip with Oklahoma Governor Cal Thresher, played by Neal McDonough.
Then the episode flips. The two are shown asleep on a private jet, the pilots are unresponsive, and air traffic control can’t reach the plane. Dwight’s sister Joanne, played by Annabella Sciorra, wakes him before dawn with the news that the aircraft went down over the Pacific. Margaret and Cal are presumed dead, and both the showrunner and McDonough have talked about the exits as final.
The premiere does not say what caused the crash, and it doesn’t tie it to any one storyline, so that question hangs over the whole season. Stallone has said he wanted the twist to shock viewers and push Dwight into a more emotionally difficult place. McDonough has said he welcomed Cal’s exit, since it let the character leave on a more redemptive note.
Read the TVLine recap →Who’s Back, and Who’s Stirring Up Trouble
Stallone leads as Dwight, with Annabella Sciorra as his sister Joanne and Garrett Hedlund as Mitch Keller, the ex-con and bar owner in the Manfredi orbit. Tatiana Zappardino, Frank Grillo, Martin Starr, and Jay Will round out the ensemble this season, with the premiere setting up a dangerous new gangster and rising friction among Dwight’s own associates.
With two major characters gone in the first hour, the cast has more room to shift, and the show has said openly that Dwight can’t lean on the people who used to protect him. The full list of credits is on the series’ Wikipedia page.
Season 4 Is Streaming on Paramount+
New episodes are on Paramount+ following the October 16 premiere. For the release schedule and a breakdown of the cast, check out the People schedule and the USA Today guide, and read the early verdict in the Decider review.