The Mayor of Kingstown (2021-2023) - Episode 1 - Personal Thought

The Mayor of Kingstown is another Tv Series that in my opinion goes under the radar, I havent seen many people talking about it, its currently on season number 2 after going air on November 14, 2021. On this series we have actors like Jeremy Renner very well known for Avengers as Hawk Eye or The Hurt Locker, there is also Michael Beach and Dianne Wiest, this are very well known actors for both movies and tv series, as soon as I saw the poster I knew it would be a good series, its hard to see an actor like Jeremy Renner be in a bad production, usually this is the type of actor that are invited to high level production movies and tv series but most of the time he is not the main character like in The Mayor of Kingstown.

One of the reasons I enjoy watching this series is that I use a VR solution to play my media, don't want to call it headset because its just the Samsung Gear VR 2 lenses with an Iphone 13 that I bought two days ago, why another Iphone because I use my personal phone to watch content too, dual purpose, before I was using an Iphone Xs that is a bit smaller and I pair this with a JBL Flip 6 next to me its a small 7 inch Bluetooth speaker, I'm planning to do a post of this solution that I enjoy very much during the weekend, to clarify content is not immersive or 3D but it does isolate you from the environment hast its pro and cons but at least to watch 2D content on a simulated big screen is enough to watch the content and not be distracted by your surrounding.

The Mayor of Kingston is a fictional story that takes place in Kingston, Michigan, the story runs around the McLusky family who have a lot of influence on the streets, Mitch McLusky took the position of Mayor after his father died and does as intermediary between justice, gangsters and every day people in order to keep chaos under control inside the penitentiary and on the streets, Mitch can count with his two brothers Mike and Kyle to manage the situation as his mother Mariam wants nothing to do with it, everything seems to be under control but it only took one incident for everything to go south but looks like the profession runs in the family, at the very first opportunity to help a woman whos daughter was in jail and went to look for help at the Mayor office Mike took charge.

Episodes are one hour long so each one feels like it own movie, keep in mind you cant rush this episodes as there are many details and the script is not so good at describing characters right away until a few scenes latter.

This series at first starts with the usual I dong give an F here are the characters no names pure action, just another day at the office and you are like WTF what's what who is who, but eventually people start calling by their names.

The first scenes shows Mike walking toward a kid who is playing with a racket and tennis ball in what seems to be hill, he comes closer say Hi and then pull a $20 and give it to the kid, right there who does that? no how you doing no nothing, that's the definition of a contractual transaction, only business.

Mike gave the kid a tennis ball too and told him to hit it and get it over the fence of the prison, in real life things like that don't happen but keep in mind this is a made up story so its just for the show. Once the ball gets to the prison nobody touch it until a guy send for it and grap it, they were expecting what was inside that ball, the McLusky brothers manage a large populations of inmates and demand is just getting higher as there are more of them in jail.

As a second example of how vast the McLusky network is, Mitch as the current mayor gets a visit from one of the girls inmate, she gave Mitch a map to pick up some money for her man, this is money he hide before going to jail and now wants the mayor to pick it up for him and gave the rest to his girl, name Vera. Mitch accept but said he first have to verify that information before he proceeds.

As the episodes progress it feels like its a flex show of how much power this guys have over the town police and jails, here we see Mike talking two guards, one of them is asking him for help, to help his nephew who got in trouble with one of the inmates and is getting blackmail, Mike says he will take care of it as long as they keep working for him, he didn't ask for anything at the time but you bet he will latter.

As the first episode we start getting a glance of all main characters, what they do, their common behavior, their role on the series so at first its slow but gets better latter, remember its 1 hour per episode.

Next come Mariam McLusky who gives history classes at prison for women, one of the female inmates at the end of the class ask her for help with the Mayor, Mariam hates what Mitch does because her husband did the same, she knows the in and out of that business and how corrupt it is, in her opinion they are trying to hold the inevitable by doing more damage and putting their lifes at risk, Mariam answers the inmate to never talk to her about the Mayor and get the fuck off.

Turns out the tennis ball had drugs on it, about 2onz, they pay a visit to Bunny a local gangster who turns out to be sibling with the inmate who is about to blackmail the guard I talk about a few paragraph above. They deal a "FedEX" means another tennis ball so Bunny guy stay shut. In their line of business this is just another day at the office.

From 0 to 100 real quick, Bunny's guy doesnt get the message on time so tries to blackmail the guard and he decided to beat him up and then make it look like the Bunny's guy start it so the other guards comes in at beat him to almost killing him, skull fracture and all the goods that come with a beat down at jail by the guards after "you hit a guard".

Eventually Mitch, Mike and Kyle, all three brothers plan how to get Milo money using the map his girl gave him and get it from a field, the money was in a bag under a heavy rock, it was an easy mission, but there was this guy following Milo's girl Vera who works at a strip club but as any unsatisfied customer he wanted more so pay her a visit to get a few more lap dance and her money until she tries to shoot him and he beat her too, its at this point that he find out about the map and came to the conclusion that there must be more money and its in hands of Mitch.

For some reason he finds Mitch at the office alone and point at his head, asks for the money, here we see that McLusky family works with the criminals and do deals with them but wont put their life on the line for them, Mitch gets ask for the money and tell the guy I'm going to give it since I wont risk my life for money less for some else money but his mistake, Mitch must know that he is the only witness so he is a dead man anyways, before he could do anything gets shot in the head from behind. This is the risk for been in the game, operating as the McLusky brothers do there is no difference with gangsters, gangster is not the only one who sell drugs or kills people its also the one who do bribes, help criminals by bending the rules for them.

In the meantime Mike was at Bunny picking up the package but there is a discussion between them because his guy got beat up as I mention above, Mike couldn't get Mitch on the phone so he knew there was something wrong, eventually got to the office and find out Mitch was dead.

Mike got revenge by getting his brother killer killed by local police tactic forces as they locate him, this also shows how deep they go into the police ranks to get his way and having them kill the guy cold blooded on the spot.

He then comes back to the office to pick a few things with his brother Kyle and a woman is outside asking for the mayor because she needs him to help her daughter that is in jail and desperate start screaming asking for help, Mike saw her and thought about it many times even told her the mayor is gone and there is nobody to help her but she kept screaming and for some reason he decides to help her.

Kyle was with Mike and told him many times to leave it, its not his job, don't do it, but he wouldn't listen.