Things are heating up in T-town. Episode 3 of Tulsa King, entitled "Caprice," is the series' most action-packed installment so far. The episode features two big, loud set pieces: A standoff-slash-explosion hybrid and a classic gangster movie drive-by. It's a gearshift from last week's more meditative drama, and an always-welcome opportunity to showcase Sylvester Stallone's action chops. (Oh, and we may have met the show's Big Bad.)
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Warning: Spoilers ahead for 'Tulsa King' Episode 3, "Caprice."
Black McAdam
The episode opens with a standoff at an old farmhouse. The place is surrounded by armed ATF Agents - Stacy (Andrea Savage) among them. Barricaded inside the house is one Edgar Dumont (Dan Waller), a member of the Black McAdam motorcycle gang. (Back in the first episode, the ATF was investigating the gang after it seized a load of AR-15s.) Dumont is holding a rifle, refusing to come out. Black McAdam's leader, Caolan Waltrip (The Walking Dead's Ritchie Coster), arrives at the scene, but he's not there to talk Dumont off the ledge. Instead, he yells to Dumont that he's out of options. Dumont hears this and sets off a massive explosion, blowing up the house - and himself along with it.
Meanwhile, Dwight enjoys a leisurely morning at his usual café. He pours his espresso from a paper cup into a proper ceramic demitasse, looking very satisfied. (It's the little things, you know?) The white horse that appeared in last week's episode is back, trotting through town like some sort of Lynchian vision. A café server says his name is Pilot. He's stabled a mile away from the city, but he comes into town on his own every day. "Not all horses are a fan of the pasture," she says. Dwight nods knowingly. It's one of the show's more on-the-nose motifs. Dwight's been put out to pasture, so to speak. He's been relegated to the wastes of Tulsa. The question is: Will he go quietly? Not likely.
Dwight may be out of touch, but he rails against obsolescence over and over. So far, the series has dropped him into strange new territory every week, and each time, Dwight manages to exploit the new and unfamiliar with stunning sleight of hand. This week is no different: The man knows a good business opportunity when he sees it. Bodhi (Martin Starr) is throwing a party at the dispensary, and a couple of guys are making money hand over fist selling laughing gas balloons. They bring the stuff to an upcoming music festival, Ogallala Land, and make out like bandits. Dwight wants a piece of the pie, so he takes the idea to Mitch Keller (Garrett Hedlund) at the Bred 2 Buck Saloon. All they need is a front, and Mitch can purchase nitrous oxide in bulk for his restaurant. Together, Dwight figures they could make over $100k selling laughing gas balloons during the 10-day festival. Mitch is in.
Siberia
This episode is Dwight's first real indication that he doesn't exactly have free rein over Tulsa. While taking his driving test, Manny Truisi (Max Casella) tries to kill Dwight in a drive-by shooting. He's stopped at a red light when Manny drives up beside him in a ski mask and opens fire, grazing Dwight's wimpy driving instructor Paul (West Side Story's Mike Iveson). Dwight's driving test turns into a high-speed car chase. (From the passenger seat, Paul whimpers that he's been hit.) Manny gets away, but Dwight manages to take down a partial license plate number.
At the police station, a couple of officers are predictably giving Dwight a hard time. They read his file, and they need to know what other mobsters want him dead. But Dwight plays dumb: "Honestly, I think whoever did this had it out for the driving instructor. I got a feeling he failed a lot of people." The officers are exasperated. Eventually, Stacy saves the day, waltzing into the station, flashing her ATF credentials, and telling Dwight he's free to go. (Whatever happened to "If you get jammed up here, there's nothing I can do to help you out"?)
Dwight takes Stacy out for a 'thank you' dinner - ahem, date. Evidently, she's gotten over her anti-grandpa, anti-mobster bias. Turns out they have a lot in common - starting with the fact that they were both professionally exiled to Tulsa. Stacy was a rockstar ATF Agent in New York City, and her work during 9/11 earned her multiple distinguished service medals. But in 2009, when Captain Sully made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, Stacy panicked on the job, putting her colleagues at risk. (She keeps it vague, but it sounds like she struggled with PTSD.) That's when she was shipped off to sleepy Tulsa, the "Siberia" of the ATF.
On the Hunt
For his part, Tyson (Jay Will) is all-in on the whole mob-life thing. He wants to become a capo, but Dwight tells him it's a pipe dream: Tyson isn't Italian, and, besides, he's not a bad man. Some people just aren't built for this stuff. The shooting proved that Tulsa is more dangerous than he thought, and Dwight offers Tyson some severance pay to back out. But Tyson refuses. He's sick of being treated like a kid, and he's willing to pay his dues. Dwight accepts but reiterates that Tyson made his own choice.
On the hunt for his assailant, Dwight calls up Chickie (Domenick Lombardozzi). He thinks Vinny went rogue and put a hit out on him after Dwight broke his jaw. Chickie's offended by the suggestion. Does Dwight think he can't control his own capos? Dwight is satisfied that Vinny probably doesn't have the spine to whack him anyways. Next up: Paul, the driving instructor. Dwight shows up to his hospital room with a bouquet of flowers. Paul made out with just a few scratches, but he's laying in a hospital bed spooning Jell-O into his mouth. Dwight offers Paul $10k to run the first few numbers of the shooter's plate at the DMV and keep mum when the police come to take his statement.
Back at the ATF Office, Stacy's framing through some footage taken from a Black McAdam meeting. The head of the gang, Caolan Waltrip, has a hefty rap sheet. He served six years in prison for a string of major armed robberies, and Edgar Dumont was his cellmate. Waltrip's two closest associates are a husky hatchet man called "Pike" and a woman named Roxy, who served three tours in Afghanistan and has expert knowledge of all types of munitions. Translation: Something in Tulsa is about to go boom. That night, Stacy drives back to the charred remains of Dumont's farmhouse. One of his dogs wanders around the rubble, and Stacy takes him home with her. (She's got a soft spot for strays.)
Paul comes through with the DMV data. He calls Dwight to let him know that the car he's looking for was set on fire and dumped in an abandoned lot. ("No need to call back. Ever," he notes.) Dwight and Tyson head to the scene to investigate, and, well, it's clear Manny Truisi is the world's worst criminal. Fire needs oxygen to burn, but Manny left the windows closed. So the interior is largely intact, and Dwight finds a cloth swatch with the Fennario Ranch logo stitched onto it.
Stakeout at Fennario Ranch
Dwight pulls into Fennario Ranch alone (it's too dangerous for Tyson) and catches the boss, Margaret Deveraux, played by Emmy-winning actress Dana Delaney (Body of Proof, Desperate Housewives). Margaret has just been riding, and Dwight poses as a private investigator named Marcone. He shows her the cloth swatch and asks if any of her ranch hands could have stolen his client's car or, uh, attempted to shoot someone. She plays coy, but it's unclear at this point just how much she knows. Manny was taking bets from the stables, so there's got to be some mob presence at the ranch. And Margaret runs the ranch, but it's not in her name. Plus, she's not Italian. So it's unlikely she's some Chickie-type upstart child of the aging Fennario godfather - if he even exists. Dwight backs off and asks Margaret for some riding lessons. She laughs and tells him to check out their website. (The two oddly hit it off?)
Dwight stakes out the ranch that night, following Manny Truisi home. He's got a handgun in his console, ready to do some dark bidding. But when he sees Manny's young son run out to greet him, he doesn't go through with it.
Maybe Dwight's a reformed man, and maybe he's guilty about abandoning his own daughter. Or maybe he's just afraid of another prison sentence. The point is, he's not pulling the trigger so readily these days. It's one of the show's biggest thematic preoccupations, and it jives well with the episode's title, "Caprice." Dwight is the opposite of capricious. In fact, the unpredictability of the world is his greatest enemy. One day he's a free man; the next, he's lost 25 years of his life. And then he's suddenly exiled to Tulsa.
That's Dwight's white whale - call it fate, chance or life's vagaries. Whatever it is, it's been unkind to Dwight Manfredi, and Tulsa is an opportunity to break that cycle and regain some control over his own life. Whether he's successful is TBD. But Dwight now has Stacy and Mitch firmly in his corner, and he has a tendency to pull people in. So if Black McAdam is his challenger, it's not a done deal yet. (Hey, maybe he can even recruit Manny Truisi.)
New episodes of Tulsa King stream Sundays exclusively on Paramount+.
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