‘The Sopranos’ meets ‘Yellowstone’ in Stallone’s likable crime comedy ‘Tulsa King’

It’s 2022, for a short while but, and Sylvester Stallone, 76, is starring in his first scripted tv collection, the likable crime comedy “Tulsa King,” premiering Sunday on Paramount+.

Stallone performs Dwight David Manfredi, “a mug recently out of the jug,” in Frank Loesser’s immortal phrase. Dwight, a Mafia panjandrum, has spent 25 years in jail, having taken the rap (so far as I can determine) for his boss “whacking a man I truly favored who didn’t deserve it” — so sophisticated, the mob life — and refusing to rat out anybody to cut back his sentence. His spouse has divorced him; his daughter is estranged. However as a substitute of receiving some comfortable sinecure for his sacrifice, he finds himself exiled to Tulsa, Okla. to “plant a flag.” That is framed as a present — the one one beneath the tree — and Dwight determines to make the very best of what he imagines shall be a foul factor. However not earlier than laying out chilly a disrespectful younger capo and thereby portray a goal on his personal again.

“Tulsa King” was created by Taylor Sheridan, as soon as once more framing a collection round a venerable display icon, after “Yellowstone” (Kevin Costner) and its prequel “1883” (Sam Elliott), with Harrison Ford set for the upcoming sequel-prequel “1923.” His co-showrunner is Terence Winter, who created “Boardwalk Empire” and spent a number of seasons on “The Sopranos,” and “Tulsa King” feels just like the chemical bonding of their pursuits and backgrounds. (Sheridan is from backwater Texas, Winter a toddler of Brooklyn.) Or these previous advertisements wherein chocolate and peanut butter collide to make a Reese’s Cup.

Dwight lands in Tulsa, to be greeted curbside by a grasshopper, a lady with holy water and Tyson (the interesting Jay Will), a jovial cab driver who, earlier than the baggage are even out of the automobile, has been employed as Dwight’s driver and given a wad of money to purchase a Lincoln Navigator. However even earlier than that occurs, Dwight has him cease at a pleasant, peaceable pot dispensary on the best way into city, run by Bodhi (an eye-rolling Martin Starr, at his driest and most acerbic). Dwight causes a stir and affords him a deal he can’t refuse.

“I’ll shield you from the gangs,” says Dwight, who solely desires 20% of the income.

“What gangs?” wonders Bodhi.

“And the legislation.”

“It’s authorized.”

Nonetheless, Dwight is to not be trifled with, particularly as soon as he learns that Bodhi has half one million {dollars} sitting across the workplace. And like Dorothy in Oz, however with muscle, he provides one other companion to his social gathering.

Subsequent to be launched is Stacy (Andrea Savage), whom Dwight meets at a neighborhood cowboy bar he’ll return to frequently. After they sleep collectively, she’s shocked to be taught he’s 75 — she figured him for “a tough 55” — and makes a fast, embarrassed exit. (Kudos to Sheridan and Winter for making Stacy as uncomfortable about this because the viewer himself is likely to be, and for not making Stallone truly play a tough 55. Or 70, for that matter.) As if that weren’t sufficient, it seems that Stacy’s a federal agent, and at work the subsequent morning she discovers that Dwight is one thing greater than the match previous man she picked up the night time earlier than. “At the very least he’s acquired integrity,” she says, when she learns they had been by no means capable of flip him.

Goodness is aware of, the viewing public has a keenness for mob sorts behaving badly, and Stallone is convincingly robust, not only for a septuagenarian. Nonetheless, there are the customary clues designed to indicate that Dwight, just like the boy within the Shangri-Las track, is good-bad however not evil. Whom he chooses to punch, for instance — a racist automobile supplier, a drunk bothering a lady — and the truth that he appears loads smarter and nicer and extra delicate than his previous legal associates. “I wish to be your pal,” he tells Bodhi, and he would possibly nicely imagine that to be the premise of their relationship. He’s chivalrous. He misses his daughter. (Fatherhood is rising as a little bit of a theme.)

Accordingly, the present is at its finest when it steps away from the legal plotlines and lets Dwight, who expresses some remorse over his profession path, present his softer facet: conversing with bartender Mitch (a successful Garrett Hedlund) on the Bred 2 Buck Saloon; consuming ice cream with Tyson; teasing Bodhi whereas by accident excessive; or making an attempt to make sense of a world wherein “GM’s gone electrical, Dylan’s gone public, a cellphone is a digital camera, and low — 5 bucks a cup! And the Stones, bless their hearts, are nonetheless on tour.”

Fortunately, as soon as the expository formalities are out of the best way, “Tulsa King” (primarily based on the 2 episodes out there for overview) concentrates extra on character and comedy. Stallone might not be the world’s best thespian, however he’s acquired attraction and presence and comes with a whole lot of cultural capital, and he’s surrounded by knowledgeable gamers, together with Max Casella as a mob expat and a-yet-unseen Dana Delany as a wealthy girl with a horse farm and wildlife protect. I might be comfortable sufficient had been Dwight, who finishes the opening episode declaring, “from this level on this metropolis and all the pieces in it belongs to me,” had been to content material himself evaluating boots with fellow barflies and grabbing snacks with Tyson. And that’s the reason I’m not a screenwriter.