TL;DR: Dwight’s crew gets their groove (and their bourbon) back, but the ease of their victory leaves a suspicious aftertaste. Great acting, solid tension, but maybe too neat for its own good.

There’s something almost poetic about watching Sylvester Stallone try to keep a crew of misfit mobsters in line in the middle of Oklahoma. It’s like watching Tony Soprano’s cousin who never made it past the pilot episode get a second chance at televised redemption. And in Tulsa King Season 3, Episode 4—an installment that should’ve been a brutal reckoning after the bourbon fiasco of last week—what we actually get feels like a victory that’s been gift-wrapped a little too neatly.

I’ve spent enough late nights with this show to know its rhythm: the rise, the crash, the whiskey-soaked banter, and the inevitable gunshot that punctuates the end of an episode like a signature cocktail cherry. But here, for the first time this season, I found myself questioning the dramatic math. Everything added up too fast. The heist that should’ve broken them instead resolved itself with minimal fuss, and while the episode is technically satisfying—solid pacing, sharp dialogue, a few character revelations that genuinely land—it’s also the narrative equivalent of a heist where no one trips the alarm. It’s clean. Too clean.

The episode opens with Dwight doing what Stallone does best: brooding, lecturing, and somehow making a monologue about loyalty sound like a gym motivational speech from 1988. He’s chewing out his crew for losing the Fifty—the Montagues’ 50-year bourbon stash worth $150 million—and Tyson, the kid with more nerves than sense, takes the full brunt of the guilt. Watching Stallone deliver the line “family does not leave family behind” is like watching your dad deliver a sermon after you’ve wrecked his car. It hits hard, even if it’s predictable. That’s Tulsa King in microcosm—predictable, but with just enough heart to make you forgive it.

Tyson’s storyline this week, paired with his father Mark (Michael Beach), gives the episode its only real emotional weight. The two of them share a kind of weary father-son rhythm that feels lived-in, even if the dialogue sometimes veers into ABC-family-territory. Mark’s little lecture about making things right could’ve been lifted from The Wire if it hadn’t been filtered through a more sentimental lens. Still, it works. It’s one of those rare moments where you can see Tulsa Kingreaching for something bigger than its pulpy premise—something about cycles of failure, inherited grit, and the American obsession with redemption.

Meanwhile, Frank Grillo’s Bill Bevilaqua continues to be the human embodiment of a loaded gun. Every time he’s on-screen, there’s a simmering volatility that Stallone seems to relish bouncing off. Their dynamic in this episode is electric—two men from different mob generations, both too old and too stubborn to change. When Bill declares he’s going to “rip somebody’s heart out,” you believe him. You also kind of hope he doesn’t, because this show’s violence, when it lands, feels personal. It’s not spectacle—it’s consequence.

There’s a thread of irony running through all of this. Dwight’s crew, this collection of half-baked criminals and social media entrepreneurs, is supposed to be his great comeback project. But they’re hopelessly out of their depth. Bodhi’s hacking antics and Grace’s AI-bourbon-influencer subplot—yes, that’s a real thing—add a layer of absurdist comedy that feels like Silicon Valley wandered into a Scorsese film. The digital influencer they cook up, a virtual bourbon connoisseur named Jasper, is pure satire. It’s the show at its funniest and most self-aware, winking at how modern crime isn’t about bullets anymore—it’s about brand management.

But then there’s Carl Thresher. Neal McDonough’s political snake slithers back into frame, trying to charm his way into governorship with the help of Margaret (Dana Delany). Their scenes play like a chess match between two people who know they’re both lying. Margaret’s line about people not liking Thresher is the kind of cutting truth that Tulsa Kingoccasionally nails with surgical precision. She’s the moral gray that Dwight keeps orbiting—a reminder that even in a town full of outlaws, politics remains the dirtiest game in town.

The episode’s real set piece comes in the form of Dwight’s revenge mission to recover the stolen Fifty. On paper, it’s thrilling: stakeouts, double-crosses, and a warehouse standoff that pits Stallone against Robert Patrick’s Jeremiah Dunmire—a man so drenched in self-righteous madness he could give Eli Sunday from There Will Be Blood a run for his money. Patrick’s performance is mesmerizing, a blend of preacher, patriarch, and pure sociopath. When he toasts the bourbon like it’s a sacrament and thanks God for returning it to the “righteous,” it’s clear we’re watching a man whose faith is indistinguishable from greed.

And yet, despite all that promise, the conflict resolves too easily. One tense exchange later, Dwight has the barrels back, Jeremiah’s been humiliated, and everyone drives off into the Oklahoma sunset like it’s just another Tuesday. There’s no sting, no cost, no body left in the dirt to remind us what this world really is. Even Stallone seems to sense it—his closing scenes with Margaret, tender as they are, feel almost suspiciously tranquil. When he says, “It’s like all these pieces are starting to fall into place,” you can almost hear the screenwriters whispering, for now.

Still, there’s something comforting about seeing Dwight at peace, even if we know it won’t last. His reflection about being a “dead man walking” reborn through connection isn’t subtle, but Stallone sells it with that gravelly sincerity that’s kept him watchable for five decades. He’s the last of a dying breed—a gangster who still believes in loyalty, even when surrounded by algorithms and betrayal.

The final moments hint at storm clouds ahead. Quiet Ray’s ominous call to Bill suggests that Dwight’s brief stability is about to be shattered, probably in blood. And maybe that’s why this episode’s easy victory feels wrong. It’s not that the show failed to deliver tension—it’s that it’s saving it. This was the calm before the next explosion, a moment of deceptive stillness in a series that thrives on chaos.

So yeah, the crew got their bourbon back. But it felt too easy, like watching someone defuse a bomb without sweating. There’s satisfaction, sure—but no catharsis.

Verdict:

Tulsa King Season 3, Episode 4 gives us a win that doesn’t quite taste right. Stallone and company deliver strong performances and a few standout scenes, but the story’s resolution feels too clean for a show built on grime. Still, it’s another sturdy entry in a series that’s slowly becoming television’s most bizarre—and oddly endearing—crime saga.