Tulsa King pulled off the ultimate twist by killing off multiple main characters in the season 4 premiere.
During the Friday, October 16, episode of the Paramount+ series, Margaret (Dana Delany) and Thresher (Neal McDonough) are traveling on the same airplane when there are issues that no one can address since everyone is asleep.
Dwight (Sylvester Stallone) is then woken up to the news that the pair didn’t make it after the plane went down. Garrett Hedlund and Frank Grillo weighed in on what that shocking ending would mean for the rest of the season.
“Without Sylvester Stallone, there is no such thing as the show Tulsa King. It doesn’t exist,” Grillo, 61, exclusively told Us. “There’s no iteration like Yellowstone where [Kevin] Costner goes away and there’s still a Yellowstone. If Stallone goes away, there’s no Tulsa King.”
Grillo continued: “So having that element — having that key person — who is at the top … everybody [else] is expendable. Everybody — even the ones you love and you think are safe. It’s kind of the way it’s going to happen with all the characters.”
Hedlund, 42, meanwhile, was “certainly” surprised by the shakeup.
“I never put it past [our showrunner] Terence Winter to create some drama, some tension, some dropped jaws within each and every script that he delivers,” he shared. “We just had to figure out how we were going to recover from it. And story-wise, how we were going to be there to support Dwight.”
While Tulsa King took a big swing, it didn’t make Hedlund concerned about his future as Mitch, saying, “This is where we have a lot in common. Where it’s you come what may and may we cross each road as we get there, which is also what he does this season with them expanding the enterprise in these directions.”
Hedlund teased what is yet to come. “We have a lot of opposing forces trying to take away everything that we built: the bar, the casino, the weed shop, the car dealership,” he noted. “Mitch is just going to do whatever’s necessary to fearlessly do his part with hopefully a little bit of wisdom, hopefully a little bit of humor involved and a whole lot of no f**ks given.”
Before the premiere, McDonough, 60, said the show was going to throw viewers for a loop.
“It’s great as always,” McDonough exclusively told Us in September before his wife, Ruve McDonough, added, “Tulsa King’s all about the unknown.”
Ruve went on to tease what is in store, saying that fans should expect an air of mystery, “We don’t know where anything’s going or where the characters are going. Some disappear. Some just show up. Tulsa King is [just] amazing.”
Tulsa King airs Fridays on Paramount+.
