"Yellowstone" creator's best show has just had an awesome season

Taylor Sheridan has become a sort of Shonda Rhimes / Dick Wolf in his own right, giving birth to the “Yellowstone” universe (Yellowstone; 1883; 1923) as well as “Tulsa King”, “Mayor of Kingstown”, “Lawman: Bass Reeves”, “Lioness”, and the forthcoming “Landman”.

Sheridan’s bid for TV dominance comes after his turn starring and writing in FX’s biker soap opera “Sons of Anarchy” and a white-hot run in film writing / directing with the two SICARIO features as well as the Indigenous-themed WIND RIVER and the contemplative heist drama HELL OR HIGH WATER

I have dedicated numerous entries in my entertainment column to Sheridan’s plethora of TV shows, but I haven’t dedicated enough time to the one that he seems to enjoy writing the most which is the Jeremy Renner-starring “Mayor of Kingstown”.

Sheridan writes a majority of “Kingstown” with fellow “Sons of Anarchy” writer Regina Corrado and star/producer Hugh Dillon.

Mayor of Kingstown is set in the fictional Kingstown, Michigan which is a crime-ridden dystopia of violent gangs and crime that is built around the shadow of the Kingstown Prison.

The show follows Jeremy Renner (Oscar-nominee: The Hurt Locker; The Town) as Mike McLusky, the titular “Mayor” a title he inherited from his late brother (Kyle Chandler).

As “Mayor”, Mike is essentially the mediator and “fixer” for everything in Kingstown, an enigmatic figure who handles inmate-officer relations, coordinates with the D.A., and eases the tension between gangs and crime lords, all in an attempt to keep the status quo.

Mayor of Kingstown began in earnest as something that resembled a “timely” drama about the American prison system and the high-wire balancing act of racial woes that comes with that setting, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The show would, for the last 4 seasons (the Season 4 finale airs this Sunday) slowly transform into something more closely resembling the previously mentioned “Sons of Anarchy” or FX’s own “The Shield” with shades of a daytime soap opera thrown in for good measure.

Where Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” began spinning in place as far back as Season 4 attempting to segue into a “Dallas”-like dynasty soap opera to varying degrees of success, his grasp on “Kingstown” seemed to dynamically loosen and tighten in all the right places.

This season has largely dealt with Mike dealing with a brewing war between the Aryan brotherhood lead by genre favorite Richard Brake (Game of Thrones) and the Crips lead by series mainstay Bunny Washington (Tobi Bamtefa) while his cohort Iris (Emma Laird; “A Haunting in Venice”) has infiltrated the operation of Russian mob boss Konstantin (Yorick van Wageningen).

Sheridan has expertly balanced tension and high stakes this season, wrangling some dynamic performances from his actors especially lead Renner (no surprise) and Bamtefa’s Bunny Washington who audiences have seen rise from an eccentric crime leader with flights of fancy to being a bonafide crime lord and a frenemy to Renner’s Mike.

“Mayor of Kingstown” is chock-full of Sheridan’s action and intrigue, but also does well to continually touch on his musings and the common themes in his works including “nature vs. nurture”, the duality of crime and the justice (and injustice) system, familial legacy, sexual violence, and power.

“Kingstown” continues to be the most consistently written show in Sheridan’s catalog and seems to be the one he enjoys writing the most, allowing him to really tap into all of his proclivities without the pressure of, say, Yellowstone’s fanbase and tight schedule or being backed into a corner of the “real world” or a set time period.

The show is perfect for fans of fast-paced crime dramas dealing with law enforcement and audience members who want to be kept on their toes, never knowing just what will come next.