TL;DR: Tulsa King Season 3, Episode 8 detonates both a hotel and the show’s status quo. It’s explosive (literally), unpredictable, and showcases Stallone at his most gravelly and human. The General’s world is burning — and somehow, that’s exactly where he feels most alive.
Tulsa King Season 3
Somewhere between The Sopranos and Yellowstone, Tulsa King has carved out its own lane — a gleefully absurd, oddly heartfelt crime drama where Sylvester Stallone swaggers around Oklahoma like a Gucci-clad tornado of old-school mob logic. But Season 3, Episode 8? This one changes everything.
If last week was a chess match, this week is the table flip. The pieces are flying, the board’s on fire, and Dwight “The General” Manfredi just got dragged into a full-blown domestic terrorist plot. The episode ends with an explosion that’s not just literal — it blows up the entire balance of the show.
And yes, I’m talking about that hotel.
Episode 8 kicks off on a deceptively high note — Dwight’s beloved distillery is reopening, thanks to Attorney General Sackrider (Tim Guinee), who’s now firmly in his pocket. For about two minutes, everything almost feels normal. You’ve got your drinks, your crew, your brooding Stallone wisdom.
Then Jeremiah Dunmire (Robert Patrick) walks out of jail and the air shifts. The man’s been stewing since his arrest for clocking Sackrider, and he’s not exactly singing “Kumbaya.” Instead, he links up with Deacon, a bombmaker whose business card should probably just read “red flag.” Deacon casually admits he was sent by Dwight to kill Dunmire but found him “untrustworthy.” (Yeah, understatement of the century.)
Robert Patrick leans into Jeremiah’s Southern preacher-meets-mafioso energy here, and the dynamic with Deacon is deliciously unhinged. Jeremiah’s planning a comeback, and Deacon wants to help him level the city — literally. “You showed up at the right time,” Jeremiah says, and we instantly know someone’s going to regret that sentence by the end of the episode.
While bombs are being plotted, Dwight’s out here doing deductive reasoning like he’s been binge-watching True Detective. He confronts Musso (Kevin Pollak) about Bill Bevilaqua’s disappearance, quoting Conan Doyle in his gravelly Stallone cadence: “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth.” Translation: You took Bevilaqua, you crooked Fed.
Musso, doing his best “I’m definitely not corrupt” face, insists on catching Deacon “by the book.” Dwight’s response? “Throw the book in the f***ing fire.” It’s a perfect Stallone line — half mob threat, half life advice.
But when Musso insists Dwight wear a wire for their sting operation, the General balks. “Rats wear wires,” he growls. It’s that kind of episode — old codes clashing with modern chaos.
The sting operation that follows is a masterclass in chaos. Dwight shows up to meet Deacon, drops the wire immediately (classic move), and somehow ends up kidnapping the guy with help from Mitch (Garrett Hedlund) and Bigfoot (Mike Walden). Musso listens in, hears nothing, and realizes his plan is toast.
Deacon’s interrogation scene that follows feels straight out of Goodfellas filtered through a True Detective fever dream. He’s smug, Dwight’s seething, and Mitch is just trying not to get blood on his boots. Eventually, Dwight squeezes out what he needs — names, networks, and one horrifying nugget of truth: Deacon has already planted a bomb.
At the Delmore Grand Hotel.
Where Dwight’s girlfriend Margaret (Dana Delany) and gubernatorial hopeful Carl Thresher (Neal McDonough) are currently schmoozing with half of Oklahoma’s political elite.
Cue the ticking clock.
While Dwight’s out defusing literal terrorism, his young protégés Tyson (Jay Will) and Spencer (Scarlett Rose Stallone) decide to throw an impromptu ecstasy party at the weed dispensary. Because what could possibly go wrong with an unsanctioned nightclub in the middle of a mob war?
This subplot gives the episode its comic relief — until Cole (Beau Knapp), Dunmire’s increasingly conflicted son, shows up to warn Spencer that her boss is about to become ground zero for a massacre. The romantic tension between Cole and Spencer (and his guilt over his dad’s madness) adds a tragic tinge that actually lands. He’s clearly caught between blood and conscience, and Beau Knapp sells every flicker of regret.
When Spencer relays the warning to Dwight, the race against time officially begins.
The Delmore Grand rally is Peak Tulsa King: part campaign fundraiser, part mob convention, part Greek tragedy. Carl Thresher’s smarm levels are off the charts, Margaret is radiant but distracted, and Sackrider is trying very hard to look important.
Meanwhile, Deacon’s phone-triggered bombs start ringing. And ringing.
It’s 10:08 PM. No alarms. No evacuation. Dwight floors it to the scene, phone pressed to his ear, screaming orders while the local cops look like they just woke up from a nap. Musso finally shows up to help, because apparently the FBI takes its sweet time.
Inside the chaos, Stallone goes full hero mode — dragging people out, yelling for Margaret, refusing to leave. He finds her just in time, but as the clock hits zero, the entire hotel erupts. The blast is massive, the sound design gut-punches you, and the shot of Mitch being thrown through concrete feels ripped from a war movie.
Margaret survives. Dwight’s alive. Mitch… maybe not.
And just like that, Tulsa King goes from mob drama to full-on terrorism thriller.
In the smoky aftermath, Jeremiah Dunmire lights a cigar by his fireplace like the devil admiring his handiwork. Cole confronts him, horrified. “I heard there was a ruckus at that wannabe governor’s party,” Jeremiah says, smug as ever. Robert Patrick’s calm menace here is haunting — he doesn’t need to raise his voice to send chills.
Dwight, meanwhile, is shattered but stone-faced. Watching Mitch loaded into an ambulance, he’s all clenched jaw and dead eyes. Musso storms up and threatens to “bury” him for breaking their deal. “Out of sight, out of mind,” Dwight says, referring to Deacon’s offscreen demise (read: buried alive in a Montague casket).
It’s a perfectly Tulsa King standoff — two men who might as well be mirror images, both pretending they’re still the one in control. Margaret watches the exchange from a distance, realizing she’s in deeper than she ever imagined.
Tulsa King started as a fish-out-of-water crime dramedy about an aging mobster trying to rebuild his empire in middle America. By Season 3, it’s mutated into something far more operatic — a saga about legacy, loyalty, and the cost of survival.
Episode 8 is the show’s boldest swing yet. It’s messy, over-the-top, and occasionally ridiculous — but that’s Tulsa King’s DNA. Stallone’s performance remains a fascinating contradiction: weary yet magnetic, brutal yet oddly principled. Dana Delany grounds the chaos, and Robert Patrick is so good it’s almost criminal.
If the explosion is any indication, Season 3’s final stretch isn’t about who controls Tulsa anymore — it’s about who makes it out alive.
