Tulsa King – Season 2 Episode 2 “Kansas City Blues” Recap & Review

Kansas City Blues

Episode 2 of Tulsa King season 2 starts with Tyson reporting back to Dwight that things at the hotel are still hot. The feds are across the street and reporters are desperate for a nibble. So for now, he can’t exactly stay there.

Dwight drives off with Tina to go look at a beautiful big home. It’s around $6000 a month, and although Tina isn’t sure, Dwight believes it’s a good move and encourages her to splash the cash.

As we soon learn, Bevilaqua is the name of the man Thresher phoned at the end of the previous episode. He has one of his goons check out the casino and Dwight’s business. He’s doing well and making good money, and that doesn’t sit well with Bevilaqua, especially as this is his territory. He decides to fire a “warning shot” so Dwight knows who’s boss here.

As for Thresher, he continues to spin his story around how much trouble Dwight is. He speaks to the US attorney, Dylan, telling him he needs to work on putting Dwight away to stop him getting too deep into the weed business. Dylan promises to do just this, claiming they have a very promising case that they’re building. However, there’s still no guarantee that Dwight will be put behind bars.

Back in court, Dwight is so confident that he ends up representing himself. If he’s found guilty, he could be put away for 10 years. Dylan McGrath, the US Attorney, shows up and sides with the prosecution. Dwight is prickly over this development, as he retorts that he’s a boy scout and forces a strained smile.

Everything is squeezing around Dwight though, with the headache-inducing Chickie situation starting to bubble up. Bevilaqua, who’s affectionately referred to as “BB” here, rings Chickie and lays into him for broaching his territory over at Tulsa, but Chickie agrees to deal with this and take Dwight out.

Dwight’s confidence around the case stems from Bodhi’s know-how. He’s run through an algorithm to work out who could be potential jurors. And this is how they’re going to try and win over the trial.

Dwight shows up to see Harlan in prison. He’s being transferred to Illinois but before the guy goes, Dwight wants to buy his wind turbines. Harlan believes it’s worth 12 million bur Dwight drives a hard bargain. He agrees to 7.5 million, plus some “goodies and perks” while he’s behind bars. Harlan begrudgingly shakes on it, bringing Dwight straight to the bank to get a loan out.

They’re shocked and outright refuse, for obvious reasons! Between this and studying law, there’s also Joanne for Dwight to contend with. She’s going to stay in town for a while, and she warns Dwight that this situation in court could be tricky to navigate. There’s no deal to be had here and given Dwight was given 25 years last time he had a fancy lawyer, he’d rather just do all of this by himself.

Donnie shows up at the casino in the midst of this, after Tyson and co. concoct a plan to make a quick buck. They steal all of the catalyst converters on Donnie’s cars that night and the salesman is not happy. All of this is a ruse to twist Donnie’s hand. You see, Dwight will be more than happy to offer protection on his lot… in exchange for gifting a new car to his sister and daughter. Donnie begrudgingly agrees, and Dwight decides to give him back half the converters.

Dwight heads in to see the US Attorney and tries to work out a deal. Of course, we know that Thresher is involved here and Dwight, sitting opposite him at the desk, realizes this too when he notices a cheque on the table. Dylan confirms that any deal is a nonstarter without jail time, but of course this would only help Thresher, so Dwight wisely decides to leave it for now.

The weed shop opens and one of the kids from the joint with Dwight shows up. This guy is called Jelly Roll and he’s a pretty good singer. Although the auto-tune obviously helps too, it’s a bit of a gag to play a joke on the mobster.

Dwight’s good night is spoiled slightly by the fact that reporters are still swarming the hotel. Tyson has a good idea and decides Dwight should go stay at Tyson’s parents’ place for a while. The trouble is, his father is none too happy with Dwight’s mafia ties.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, in the paper there’s a story about Chinese organized crime infiltrating the US marijuana market. This just makes things all the harder.

That night, Chickie rings Goodie and warns that a big fight is coming. Chickie is siding with Thresher and Bevilaqua here. He propositions Goodie to do the same thing, and if they take out Dwight, he can then run Tulsa. However, he’ll be reporting to Chickie and their new “friends” in Kansas. He doesn’t say no and it leaves everything on a precarious knife edge.

The Episode Review

Tulsa King returns and brings with it another episode of big set-ups but very little pay-off. You can tell early on that all the pieces are being moved into place before a huge fight is about to erupt.

Around that though there’s really not a whole lot going on here to write home about. The story moves very slowly and with one chapter releasing a week, hopefully we get a bit more development next Sunday. It’s not a deal-breaker but thus far this does seem like a show designed specifically for binging in one hit rather than waiting for it to be drip-fed out. And it doesn’t do the narrative and momentum of this show any favours.

Thresher is definitely shaping up to be a tough cookie to crack and Dwight could be in store for a massive fight on his hands if he’s not careful. Either way, everything here is left wide open for episode 3.