Sylvester Stallone!! This man just can't stop working. He is incredible. SYLVESTER STALLONE is not just Tulsa King. He is HOLLYWOOD KING too.
When I first sat down to watch Tulsa King, I thought I knew exactly what I was getting—Sylvester Stallone playing another tough guy, maybe something like Rocky meets The Sopranos with a cowboy hat thrown in. But within the first few scenes, it hit me: this wasn’t just another mobster show, it was something rawer, stranger, and kind of heartbreaking. Stallone plays Dwight “The General” Manfredi, this old-school New York mobster who’s been locked up for 25 years. Twenty-five years. Imagine that—spending a quarter of a century behind bars for a family that doesn’t even really have your back. And when he finally steps out, instead of being welcomed home, kissed on both cheeks, and handed his slice of the empire, they ship him off to Tulsa. Tulsa. Oklahoma.
And that is the first gut punch, seeing Dwight digest what is taking place. His loyalty is too great, his pride too great, too great to be submissive or to inquire, but you can find it in his eyes: this is exile, this is penalty in the form of opportunity. And that is when you see how brilliant it is, how the entire performance is built around this conflict, this fish out of water gangster attempting to create an empire in a city where no one even takes him seriously.
The initial episodes establish the atmosphere. Dwight is an Irish-American who comes to Tulsa with his instincts, swagger, and iron fists only. He is unfamiliar with the land, unfamiliar with the people but familiar with the laws of power; fear, respect, leverage. And when he takes up, the first time, a dispensary owner and strong-arms him to pay his protection, you feel the spark. Not that he is cruel--Dwight can give him that weird honor. He’s brutal, yes, but fair. He provides shelter, he forges connections, he sees possibility in those that are dismissed by other people. It’s morbid, but you sympathise with him.
And the whole supporting cast--God, they are what make this story pop. One of my favorites is Tyson, the young Black boy who turns out to be a driver to Dwight. Initially, you believe that Tyson is a mere kid out to make easy money, but the relationship between him and Dwight turns into a father-son relationship. There is this scene where Dwight is offering advice to Tyson and he is being treated as his own person, as one who can be more than what Tulsa expects of him to be. And it is mean since Dwight, with all his violence and imperfections, is knowledgeable in loyalty and picking people up. It is nearly sweet--unless you bear in mind that he is also teaching Tyson how to conduct a criminal enterprise.
And then there is Stacy Beale the ATF agent who turns out to be this weird love interest and moral foil. Their connection is a big, sticky, affair since Dwight is not a free man, he is a criminal, and she is meant to do away with individuals like him. However, the chemistry between the two, how she views him not only as a gangster but this tired man who has been spat upon by life- it is soft in a manner not typical of Stallone.
However, it is not only a show about Dwight creating a new empire. It’s about the weight of time. He is 70 years old and he is entering a new world that is now different in every way. He is not smartphone savvy, does not know how people hustle now, and you can sense that pang, how much he has lost, how much was stolen out of him. This scene is a heart breaking one in which Dwight attempts to reunite with his daughter who has fallen out of favor with him. You can tell how painful it is in his face when she does not want him around, when she reminds him of all the years he was not there due to the decisions he made. And that is when you understand that Tulsa King is not only about crime but also about regrets, about making attempts to write a new history when the pages are nearly finished.
I mean, but don’t misunderstand me--this show knows how to make the heat. The violence contained in the action is rough, earthy and bloody. Dwight does not fight like a young man, he fights like somebody who has learnt to live, and effective and unmerciful. One scene is when he fights a gang of bikers, it is not flashy and it is gritty and bloody and you can feel the punches. And then when the biker gang forms one of his greatest competitors it becomes this time bomb. These are not cartoon villains, these are dangerous, ruthless men, and all the experience that Dwight has is outnumbered and outgunned.
What kept me hooked, though, was the balance. For every violent showdown, there’s a quiet moment of Dwight trying to figure out who he is outside of “The General.” Watching him sit at a bar, reflecting on his past, or awkwardly navigating modern life—it made me feel something I didn’t expect: empathy for a mobster. You start seeing him less as a criminal and more as a man who’s paying for his loyalty in ways that might never end
The twists make the tension alive. Dwight is not only battling with other gangs but he is battling betrayal by the people he thought he could rely on. His own mob family in New York? To them it does not matter whether he lives or dies. And when reality finally sinks on him, it is fatal. The very people that he gave his life to, discarded him like garbage. But, instead of falling apart, he chooses to construct his own family in Tulsa, stone by bloody stone.
By then, at the end of Season 1, you cannot stand the tension. Dwight has made his own reality, something that almost passed as a second chance, only to have the past to reassert itself. I will not spoil the last moments, but I will say that it was a gut punch ending which left me staring at the screen, heart racing, whispering, No, no, no, it can not end on this note.
And that’s the whopper of Tulsa King. It’s not just mob drama. It’s not just action. It is this very human tale of growing old, regretting, being loyal, being disloyal, and having the impossible job of trying to begin again when the world has already passed by you. Never has Stallone merely acted out Dwight, he breathes him. Every line, every moan, every savage blow assures you, this is a man who has fought too many battles, who will not give up.
Watching it made me feel torn. Dwight was part of me and I cheered him on and hoped he was going to win, and create something beautiful out of being an outcast. A different segment of me sat in silence, plagued by the inevitability of it all--because deep down you know that stories such as this do not have happy-ever-afters. They culminate in blood, in treachery, the sad burden of decisions made years ago.
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