Synopsis:
Tulsa King follows New York mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi, (Stallone) as he’s released from prison after 25 years and unceremoniously exiled by his boss to set up shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a crew from a group of unlikely characters to help him establish a new criminal empire in a place that to him might as well be another planet.
‘Tulsa King’ introduces and accompanies mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Stallone) who after serving 25 years in prison is released and expecting to be treated to a return worthy of what he endured for the family only to be largely disregarded and exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Refusing to just forgo everything he worked and suffered for, Dwight accepts his new role and heads to the unfamiliar city of Tulsa where he enlists a ragtag crew of unique individuals and begins to build a new start in a land where the mafia is nonexistent. Unfortunately, when his crew accidentally crosses a deadly biker gang they quickly discover that there’s always one threat or another, regardless of where you are.
The debut season of ‘Tulsa King’ serves up a fun, funny and fast-paced fish out of water tale that joins a mafia capo in a city that to him might as well be a different world, and with technology that is almost alien after serving the last twenty-five years of his life behind bars. Hailing from the tremendously talented Taylor Sheridan with Terence Winter handling showrunning duties (at least for this season) and featuring a marvelous performance by action star legend Sylvester Stallone with a capable supporting cast that includes Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Piazza, A.C. Peterson, Garrett Hedlund and Dana Delany.
‘Tulsa King’ quickly gets moving almost right from the onset and doesn’t slow its pace throughout the remainder of the debut season, almost immediately proving itself as yet another noteworthy series from Sheridan that only gets better as it progresses. It’s filled with humor, heart and no shortage of brutality when necessary, and with a great cast to back it up and keep things from becoming dull, unnecessarily over the top or repetitive. The series also seems to have no trouble throwing one surprise and twist after another at the audience and often keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat as things become progressively more tense.
Overall, Season One of ‘Tulsa King’ is a fun, tense and occasionally quite funny ride that follows a New York mafia capo who is rewarded for the time he served by being exiled to Tulsa and forced to adapt to a city that’s drastically unlike anything he’s familiar with and somehow find a way to earn in this strange environment. Paramount Home Entertainment’s 2-disc Blu-ray release of ‘Tulsa King: Season One’ brings home all nine episodes from the debut season with very nice high definition video and audio presentations that should have fans pleased, and the release is only further completed by over ninety minutes of Behind the Scenes Featurettes that explore bringing the series to life. If you’re a fan that would like to physically own Season 1 and are already considering a purchase, then this one is definitely recommended, especially if you can find it at a price that fits your budget.
VIDEO:
The Blu-ray release of ‘Tulsa King: Season One’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the show’s original varying Aspect Ratios of 2.00:1 and 2.39:1 on all of the debut season’s episodes (the majority of scenes set in New York utilize the 2.00:1 AR while the Tulsa scenes are typically in 2.39:1). The video presentations look quite great as a whole and deliver sharp, nicely detailed presentations from start to finish on every episode that are absent of any unexpected issues to be uncovered along the way. They hold up nicely even in the darkly lit and fast moving sequences occurring throughout, nearly everything within looking sharp and clean from faces, clothing and vehicles to backgrounds and city streets. Overall, these are fully capable high definition video presentations that do their job well and should easily satisfy fans of the series who are excited to physically own the debut season.
AUDIO:
The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtrack on all 9 Season One episodes. These multichannel soundtracks provide clean, crisp and occasionally quite aggressive audio presentations on each episode. They consistently utilize all five available channels in order to send music, gunshots and vehicle activity, along with crowd chatter and nature effects, plus plenty more throughout the various speakers at every appropriate opportunity, while never resulting in any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously becoming distorted or rendered problematic along the way. Overall, these are solid 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtracks that make a nice complement to this enjoyable series and they should leave fans and first time viewers quite pleased.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-ray release of ‘Tulsa King: Season One’ features a nice collection of bonus material in the way of various Behind the Scenes Featurettes that explore each episode and other aspects of bringing the series to life, including interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more. Included are ‘Behind the Story’ episodic Featurettes for all nine episodes in the season (running approximately 53 minutes in length altogether), along with ‘Stranger in a Strange Land: Genesis’ (running approximately 8 minutes), ‘Carpe D.M.: Stallone’ (approximately 8 minutes), ‘Mercy and Malice: The Cast’ (12 minutes), ‘Haberdashery: Costume Design’ (9 minutes), ‘Outthink Your Enemy: Stunts’ (11 minutes) and ‘The Here and Now: On Location in Tulsa’ (8 minutes).