JEREMY RENNER SMILED probably a handful of times in the Season 3 premiere, but that’s because Kingstown, Michigan, is where hope goes to die. In its first two seasons, we’ve seen a man burned to death in a prison cell, a child burned to death in a meth lab explosion, and the most violent prison riot you’ll ever see on television. The one constant of Mayor of Kingstown is everything changes each season, and the Season 3 premiere kept that tradition going.
At the end of Season 2, uncertainty ruled the land. Russian mobster and the Houdini of prison, Milo Sunter, appeared to run out of escape plans as his getaway boat exploded in the water thanks to the explosives Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) planted in the bag containing Milo’s stolen bonds. This happened shortly after Milo held Mike’s mother, Mariam (Dianne Wiest), hostage in order to extort the bonds from Mike. Unfortunately, in the hailstorm of bullets, Mariam was struck in the stomach and immediately rushed to the hospital. Season 2 ended with her being wheeled into the operating room, and Season 3 opened with some not-so-good news.
All the mayhem of the Season 3 premiere takes place over two days. The first day is the day Mike has to bury his mother in the ground, confirming she succumbed to her gunshot wounds, taking away the most logical person in all of Mayor of Kingstown. The same day of Mike’s mother’s funeral, one of the vehicles at the funeral explodes, Mike puts a gun to an Aryan gang member’s testicles to get information, and the police shoot a military-grade bomb into one of the gang’s hideouts, incinerating everyone in it before getting any intel on who was behind the bombing. The next day, a Black inmate is stabbed to death by an Aryan prisoner as retribution; Mike becomes an uncle while sharing a beer with one of the most violent gang leaders in Kingstown, and we get introduced to the new villain hierarchy in the Kingstown streets.
Nothing will be the same in Mayor of Kingstown after its premiere, and it all starts with who will be in Mike’s way.
Who are Merle Callahan and Konstantin?
The criminal underworld hierarchy always insulates the most powerful members from the day-to-day craziness. After the Aryan hideout was bombed, we see a geriatric inmate with slick back hair, a chess board in his cell, and books lining his walls convince a visibly shaken young inmate not to take a plea deal and serve out his entire seven-year sentence or risk being labeled as a snitch. He talks with the icy temerity of a man who could probably convince an angel to renounce its wings.
Not long after he’s terrorized the young man’s psyche, he’s given a note presumably informing him of the Aryan hideout bombing, which prompts him to kick everyone out of his cell angrily. That’s Merle Callahan (Richard Brake). Given the fact a Black inmate was subsequently killed by an Aryan inmate following Merle receiving the note, it’s safe to assume he’s the leader of the murderous clan. Honestly, he’s only on screen for a handful of minutes but appears to be the type of demented character who would order a bombing at a funeral and the killing of an inmate in a separate prison. At the end of the episode, he’s transferred into the Kingstown prison, a possible sign of the type of institutional influence he has and a host of trouble for Mike and the city.
As for Konstantin (Yorick Van Wageningen), he rolls into Milo’s old establishment like a well-dressed dark cloud, doing the most fiendish audit of Milo’s operation before taking it over. Later in the episode, we learn one of Milo’s escorts, Tatiana (Gratiela Brancusi), actually led Konstantin to Milo for what is assumed to be his murder. Konstantin’s paranoia gets the best of him as he assumes Tatiana is constantly on the phone throughout the episode, waiting for Milo to resurrect from the dead and call her. Ultimately, he kills her for her questionable loyalty and leaves her infant child without a mother.
Tatiana (left), Konstantin (right)
What happened to Milo?
It appears Konstantin had Milo killed, but that doesn’t answer every question about what happened to the former mobster after the Season 2 finale. First of all, how did he escape an exploding boat long enough for him even to be killed by Konstantin? If Konstantin is sure Milo is dead, why does he constantly ask Tatiana what she gave him if it wouldn’t matter since he’s dead?
A golden rule of television is if you don’t see a body, you shouldn’t assume a death. We saw Mariam bleeding out at the end of Season 2, and we saw her body get rolled into the operating room at the hospital. The last time we see Milo’s body is him gleefully on his escape boat before it explodes. Mayor of Kingstown Season 3 may have two new villains, but I’m not totally convinced the one who reigned supreme for two seasons is off the board just yet.
