10 Burning Questions for ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Season 5
Mayor of Kingstown will be back for one more run as Paramount+ has renewed the Taylor Sheridan crime drama for a fifth and final season.
Even if it is an abbreviated season — with eight episodes, in place of the usual 10 — it’s a good thing the show is coming back for one last grim hurrah because the action-packed Season 4 finale left a lot of questions unanswered.
Here’s a look at all of the burning questions we have about Mayor of Kingstown that we hope are answered in Season 5.
What's next for Kyle?
Things have never been easy for Kyle McLusky (Taylor Handley), but Season 4 was particularly brutal. Not only was he imprisoned after his justified shooting of fellow officer Robert (Hamish Allan-Headley) and subjected to constant humiliation and torture at Anchor Bay, but his wife Tracy (Nishi Munshi) was brutally murdered in front of their baby boy in an act of retaliation by Merle Callahan (Richard Brake) after Kyle rejected his advances to join the Aryan Brotherhood gang.
In response, Kyle gave himself fully to the dark side and demonstrated severe violence against Merle’s associates before gunning Merle himself down in particularly grisly fashion. So what will it do to Kyle to have become, in his own way, the bad guy who’s capable of such atrocities?
Taylor Handley told TV Insider that he’s also looking forward to finding that out: “He’s going deeper and deeper into the darkness as he gets his revenge, which means it’s going to take a lot to claw his way out of that. With all the damage that he’s doing, it may feel good in the moment, but I think that he’s going to have a hard time dealing with himself if this story goes on.”
Will the AB retaliate for Merle?
The death of shotcaller Merle will undoubtedly leave a power vacuum in the AB, so we have to wonder what kind of monster will step up to take over leadership of that group — and what will they do to avenge Merle’s murder, however justified it was?
Certainly, they aren’t just going to let it slide, but what will happen — and who will execute those actions — remains to be seen.
Will the Colombians continue to terrorize everyone?
Though Bunny (Tobi Bamtefa) and his crew had the job of dealing with the ruthless Colombian hitman Cortez (Derek Rivera), they underestimated his willpower and resourcefulness and let him get away … with another trail of blood in his wake.
The war between the Crips and the Colombians also came to a head on the inside when they attacked the survivors of the first skirmish in the infirmary. So surely, the bloodshed isn’t yet done, but just how much further can this already-hot war go between the Colombians and, well, everyone else?
Is Nina actually free?
Nina Hobbs (Edie Falco) boldly declared that if she took care of the informant on the inside who was responsible for sabotaging the Colombians, she would finally be free. Lo, she did her part by setting Kevin Jackson (Denny Love) and the Crips gang members by lifting the lockdown while they were in the infirmary with the Colombians, leading to another costly attack. But will she actually be free as a reward for her actions? As gruesome as Cortez seems to be, it’s hard to believe she could be anywhere near in the clear, even if she did everything they told her to.
Is Raphael alive or dead?
The infirmary melee left one character’s fate in serious question: Raphael (D Smoke). Before the second attack, he’d been cut during the Colombian uprising, and he was in the infirmary at the time of the second wave of violence. So is he still alive? And if not, who will be Bunny’s new top man on the inside?
How will Cindy handle all of the bloodshed?
Cindy (Laura Benanti) came into Anchor Bay clear-eyed enough about what being a prison guard would involve, but her experience was way more twisted than anyone would’ve possibly imagined. Not only did she have to shoot a fellow officer after he went on a murderous rampage, but then she found herself in the middle of the infirmary melee, with young Kevin dying right in her arms.
Laura Benanti told us she’s curious how the character will move forward from all of the carnage she’s witnessed firsthand in the events of Season 4, saying, “Death is just all around her now, and you either just dissociate and put it aside or you crumble and never return. And she can’t do that because she has kids. So I can’t imagine a world in which she’s not completely haunted. I’m interested to see what they do with her. I’m interested to see if she’s like, ‘Bye!’ or if she sticks around and is deeply damaged. I’m curious.”
Will Ian leave Kingstown?
Ian (Hugh Dillon) has been Mike’s (Jeremy Renner) righthand man and muscle inside KPD since the very beginning of the series, but he got an unlikely opportunity to get a new start at the tail end of Season 4. Dillon, who also executive produces the show, confirmed to TV Insider that in the moment when Ian scratches off a lotto ticket before Callahan appears at the station that he did win just then.
The card indicates that the prize package could be hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Ian had previously indicated an interest in leaving Kingstown for Montana — a nod, no doubt to that other Sheridan show — if he were to win. So is he going to pack up and leave at last, or will he continue to stick around to ride out the last wave of inevitable violence in Kingstown?
Will Mike ever find out about Iris?
Speaking of Ian, at the beginning of Season 4, he made the decision to withhold information about what happened to Iris (Emma Laird) — that is, that she died of an overdose on the bus ride out of Kingstown — from Mike. Ian knew that it would be devastating to Mike, who worked so hard to protect Iris from the Russian gangsters and took her safety very, very personally.
Chances are, Mike would indeed have a sizable reaction to finding out her fate, so will we ever get to see that? Or will he continue to imagine her off somewhere new enjoying a life of hardwon freedom?
How will Bunny lead his newly expanded empire?
With Mike’s help, Bunny seized the proverbial throne from Frank Moses (Lennie James) in the final moments of Season 4, but with great power comes great responsibility… and Bunny’s crew has been decimated lately. So how will Bunny lead this expanded gang? And is he prepared for the brutality of the surviving Colombian crew?
Will Mike continue to be feckless in the final bow?
One of the biggest shocks of Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 was just how ineffectual Mike was within Anchor Bay. Thanks largely to the anti-McLusky leadership of Nina Hobbs, who had her own agenda and loyalties in Kingstown, Mike couldn’t protect Kyle, Tracy, or really anyone else. His promises were rendered empty on more than one occasion, and he lost a great deal as a result.
So we have to wonder, was this just a consequence of Hobbs taking over as warden, or are the McLusky mayorship days coming to an end?
Mayor of Kingstown, Season 5, Paramount+
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