Mayor of Kingstown Season-Finale Recap: This Damned Show

Mayor of Kingstown
Belly of the Beast
Season 4 Episode 10
Editor’s Rating ★★★
Previous Next
Previous Episode
Next Episode

I’ll say this about the Mayor of Kingstown season four finale: Merle Callahan’s death is incredibly satisfying. As entertaining as it has been to listen to Richard Brake’s resonant, fluid voice for the past two seasons — waxing eloquent about leadership and divine justice — his character has always been ridiculous. He existed only to torment Mike. He took that responsibility so seriously that his actions strained credulity. Merle never articulated any larger goals, plans, dreams, what-have-you. Throughout his run on this show, he was a plot-convenient construct, never a recognizable person.

That’s certainly the case for most of this week’s episode, “Belly of the Beast.” Even though Merle has already done a lot of damage to the McLusky family by murdering Kyle’s wife, he doesn’t flee Michigan. He stays in Kingstown, orchestrating an Aryan Brotherhood attack on Mike and his friends and family. The AB soldiers that Mike and Kyle capture taunt Mike, reminding him of how dangerous his life would’ve been in prison without Merle. They also boast about how Merle’s staying on the “frontlines” in Kingstown, while layering in a lot of bluster about “honor” and “loyalty” and “codes.” 

Then Merle tries to bend the criminal justice system to his will by surrendering to Ian at the police station. He wants to be charged, booked and returned to prison, where his brothers will take care of him and he can continue his anti-McLusky campaign. But in a surprise move, Ian’s superior, Captain Walter, pontificates about how “a good man can go wrong, an evil man can never go right,” then says to Ian, “He was never here.” Very quickly, Ian hustles Merle to the train yard to face Mike and Kyle. 

It’s here that we get the best scene of the episode and maybe the season. After Merle does some Merle-y speechifying — babbling about the “nightmares” that will continue to haunt the McLuskys, and insinuating to Kyle that he may have sexually assaulted Tracy — Kyle just straight up shoots him. The bullet may hit him in the gut, as per the episode’s title, or it might be in the crotch. The edit’s so quick that it’s tough to tell where the wound is. Anyway, Merle whimpers for about a minute before Kyle delivers multiple kill shots. Merle does not die bravely, with any kind of “honor.” He looks pathetic. It’s great. 

For this scene alone, “Belly of the Beast” is better than last week’s deeply infuriating episode. The finale also has more action, which is a plus. But last week I asked whether this season could be saved by the finale, and I’m afraid the answer is “nah.” The Mayor of Kingstown lost control of its larger narrative late in season four, and rather than bringing everything belatedly back on track, it let most of the running subplots sputter to a halt.

I’ll get to those subplots in a moment, and will tally up what happens to all our new characters: Nina! Cindy! Frank! Cortez! Torres! First, for the second recap in a row, I have to go back and clean something up. I wrote that last week’s episode ended with the Detroit mob firing a barrage of bullets into Don’s Diner. Though the assailants were unidentified, it was logical to assume they were from Detroit. Twice this season, we have seen the Detroit “hitters” attack, and in both cases they were wearing the same kind of black tactical gear we saw the diner shooters wearing: helmets, vests, whatnot.

I did, though, note in the recap that — given this season’s motif of meaningless misdirection — the assailants could be Colombians or Aryans. And sure enough … they’re Aryans. 

Was this supposed to be a surprise? If so, why? And if not, why wasn’t it clearer last week who was responsible for shooting up the restaurant? I’m all for subtlety in storytelling, and I’m fine with a fake-out. But repeatedly this season, I’ve gotten the sense that even the writers aren’t sure where they’re headed. 

You can see this in the tossed-off way all the aforementioned newbies are handled in the finale. Frank, for one, is absent altogether. He was arrested last week, so presumably he’s in a cell somewhere … unless the Crips murdered him behind bars, off-screen. I would not put that past this show, as you’ll see when we get to Torres. 

We don’t see the Detroit mob either … or do we? When Bunny organizes a posse to go after the Colombians, he makes reference to “Detroit and Kingstown aligned” (and Mike refers to a “new empire”), but we never get a scene where Bunny assumes control of Frank’s troops. Instead, we head straight to a shootout in an auto body shop, during which Cortez is captured. Mike asks Bunny to keep the sicario alive and restrained. No such luck. While Bunny’s out of the room, Cortez wriggles free of his shackles, kills two Crips, and then flees. 

Before he gets caught, Cortez has a chat with Nina, during which he mentions that “Torres didn’t cry” and calls him “a dead soldier.” (“A good soldier sacrifices,” he adds admiringly, sounding a little like a mini-Merle.) It sure sounds like Torres was killed off-screen, as I suspected. Torres, we hardly knew ye. No, seriously … we hardly did. 

But Torres’s death doesn’t get Nina out of trouble with the Colombians. When she asks Cortez, “Will you tell them back home it’s handled?” he replies, “I’ll tell them when they’re something to tell.” 

Nina has one other big scene, when she calls Cindy into her office, ostensibly to make sure she’s okay after killing Breen in the previous episode. You may recall that Breen murdered a guard and several inmates just, like, a day ago. Yet there seem to be no repercussions from this. There’s no sign of any investigation on the local, state, or federal level. It’s business as usual, with Cindy clocking in as normal. (“Got mouths to feed,” she explains.) 

Nina reassigns Cindy to the infirmary. But is this meant to be a respite or a secret punishment? Nina knows the lockout restrictions will be lifted during Cindy’s shift, and that the gangs are going to go after each other hard as soon as they’re allowed to mingle again. 

In one of this episode’s other genuinely gripping sequences, we see Raphael and his Aryan enemies preparing for battle with prison supplies: taping magazines to their torsos to serve as crude armor and brandishing their homemade shanks. The ensuing mayhem is also exciting, although in typical Mayor of Kingstown fashion, it’s tough to weigh the outcome.

Raph gets cut and arrives at the infirmary with heavy bleeding. His fate remains unclear. The guard Kevin, on the other hand, gets stabbed in the infirmary and appears to bleed out in Cindy’s arms. Kevin is the person Nina needs to sacrifice to the Colombians for his role in their hijacked drug shipment. (Though she may have thought Cindy was her culprit. It’s hard to tell with Nina.)

While urging Nina to end the lockdown, Mike says, “Sometimes you have to let something bleed to cure it.” So maybe that’s what the end of this Mayor of Kingstown season is doing. Make everybody bleed, then decide later whose survival might fix this show.

Except … there may never be any more Mayor of Kingstowns. The series hasn’t been renewed for a season five. Given that, is it unreasonable to expect a season four finale that offers at least some kind of an ending? Well, that’s not what we get. Aside from Merle’s death, pretty much nothing major is resolved. Nor are there any real cliffhangers to hook the audience should a renewal come. It’s as though this show’s creators have been taking their cues from Mike McLusky. In lieu of well-thought-out long-term plans, they just try a bunch of stuff and then watch the casualties mount.

Solitary Confinement

• By the way, Ian’s partner Stevie gets shot in the Aryan attack and is later hospitalized. Stevie’s always around and is occasionally involved in minor parts of the story, but his main purpose on this show is to be in the frame whenever Ian makes a witty remark. Even as he’s being loaded into an ambulance, Stevie seems to be there mainly to hear Ian reference Goodfellas: “That was just a scratch. Don’t make it a fucking thing, Spider.”

• Speaking of Ian, after his recent reverie about winning a jackpot on a lottery scratcher, we see him this week scratching off a ticket and then getting a look on his face that suggests he may have won big. (Merle arrives right after this, so this is left unresolved. Of course.) 

• As I said up top, Merle was a very silly character, but he had an entertaining way of describing the nature of things. In one of his last lucid moments on Earth, he laughs off Mike’s punch, letting Mike know that he tries to punch him to death, “Few blows I’ll be so fucking out of it, it won’t matter. Like pounding on flesh.” Perhaps this could serve as a metaphor for Mayor of Kingstown: a show that piles violence upon violence until it pretty much stops making sense.