SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Tulsa King Season 3, Episode 9.

The penultimate hour of Tulsa King Season 3 is the setup for the Samuel L. Jackson spinoff NOLA King. That in itself isn’t the issue; the problem is that “Dead Weight” offers almost nothing beyond Jackson’s character. And that’s bad news for the next-to-last episode of the season.

Viewers have known that Tulsa King was going to do a backdoor pilot for NOLA King since Paramount+ announced the spinoff months ago. But it would have been fine to do this five episodes ago. Saving it for Season 3, Episode 9 is a waste of all the dramatic potential that the exploding bomb in Episode 8 created. Instead of capitalizing on those last images of destruction and diving into how Dwight Manfredi and his crew react to that event, “Dead Weight” opens by following Jackson’s character Russell Lee Washington as he performs a contract hit in New Jersey. It’s not until Quiet Ray tells Russell to kill Dwight that it becomes clear what anything has to do with Tulsa King.

That’s the problem with this episode, which has six writing credits—three people (including Sylvester Stallone) credited with the teleplay, and two of those three plus executive producer Dave Erickson on the story. There’s no clear vision for the story beyond getting audiences to know Russell Lee Washington. The few other scenes that aren’t about Russell and Dwight don’t add anything significant to the plot, save for a cliffhanger involving Dwight’s sister Joanne.

As charismatic as Samuel L. Jackson is, and as fun as it is to see him and Stallone together, the plot doesn’t have much action in it. Russell travels to Tulsa to warn Dwight instead of kill him, since Dwight saved his life once, and in turn Dwight helps Russell stop the two other hitmen Quiet Ray hired to take out Russell. That’s pretty much all that happens, and the ultimate confrontation between sides is just Dwight and Russell shooting the two New York bad guys. It feels anticlimactic since everyone knows how much more Stallone and Jackson can do.

There are only a couple of scenes, scattered throughout, that relate to Tulsa King Season 3’s overall plot. The Dunmire Distillery loses six of its distributors, so Jeremiah Dunmire has another meltdown, this time with an axe. But he’s already had several outbursts, so the only thing that makes this any different is that he seems to be on the verge of tears at one point. Tyson works on expanding his ecstacy operation with Bodhi and Spencer. Near the end of the episode, Bella Heathcote returns as Cleo Montague has heard about the bombing and wants to check on Mitch Keller. But those latter two points are more about the individual characters than the big-picture plot.

The big bombshell is that Joanne is abducted at gunpoint by one of Dunmire’s associates, so obviously the Tulsa King Season 3 finale will be about Dwight and company rescuing her and putting Dunmire out of the picture for good. That does create suspense, but not to the degree that audiences tend to expect going into TV season finales. For example, Season 2’s conclusion was a bloodbath between Team Dwight and the triad gangsters. Rescuing one person isn’t on the same scale. Plus, nobody seems particularly affected or anxious going into the last episode. Dwight is still as cool as the other side of the pillow. Margaret Devereaux appears in one scene to banter with Dwight and tell him that she’s going to another event Cal Thresher is hosting. The only person truly out of sorts is Mitch.

“Dead Weight” would have been a much better episode if was placed earlier in the season. The detour into the story of Russell Lee Washington would make more sense then; Dwight and company could take his arrival as the start of more conflict with New York, and the show jumps off from there. Not moving the main plot along would’ve been fine then, because Tulsa King would have time to spare. But Episode 9 needs to be focused on driving toward a conclusion, and this hour just isn’t. It’s more about the franchise than the season.

Tulsa King streams Sundays on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount+.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.