Mayor of Kingstown

I remember seeing that there was a show called Mayor of Kingstown coming out, and since I love me some Jermey Renner, I thought I'd seek it out. Then I found out that it was on Paramount+, and to be honest, I kind of immediately lost interest. I actually do subscribe to Paramount+...since they blackmailed me into it by moving Evil and SEAL Team off of CBS and onto the streaming platform. But I just had it in my head that any show produced specifically for the platform (which neither Seal Team nor Evil were) couldn't be very good.

But I was wrong.

I was real wrong.*

In fact, I wasn't even through with the first episode before I had drawn three conclusions:

(1) Ten episodes of this wasn't going to be enough.

(2) Jeremy Renner is even more awesome than I thought he was.

(3) I truly love Tobi Bamtefa. As awesome as Jeremy Renner is, I still look forward to every scene which includes Tobi Bamtefa...and feel like cheering when he comes onscreen. He perfectly captures the guy who is a criminal, for sure, but who is also a good guy, and not just Deep Down. He is also funny as hell. And this show is really dark, so it needs that.

I've only finished the first six episodes, but I'm already thinking that this is one of my favorite shows EVer. In fact, one of the reasons I'm not in a bigger hurry to finish it is because I don't want it to end...and even though Season 2 has been approved, I know it's going to take a while for that to happen. Of course, with my teflon brain I can re-watch season one...maybe even a few times...but it's still not the same.

Here's the puzzle, though:

"Rotten Tomatoes reports a 32% approval rating with an average rating of 5.8/10, based on 25 critic reviews. "

What the actual fuck is that about? I read a few reviews, and all of them seemed centered on the idea that the show was "too dark" and that it had "no sense of humor."

Well. As to the first objection, it's a show that's primarily centered on prison life, so yeah, it gets dark. As to the second...did they NOT watch any of the Tobi Bamtefa scenes? Geeze, wake the fuck up, motherfuckers.

They also don't say anything about the intelligence of the writing behind this show. Here's something that will either hook you or insure that you never watch this show:

In the fifth episode, there's a scene where a guy is being processed into the prison. The usual stuff that you've seen many times before. But the scene is intercut with another scene in which vicious dogs are taken from a crime scene and transported to a vet's office where they are castrated. And the castration is shown in vivid detail. Start to finish. I'm pretty sure it's the real thing. And after that the dogs have cones placed on their heads and then they are taken to individual cells. 

It's a big of juxtaposition that cuts in two directions at once.

And it is horrible to watch. In fact, it was all I could do not to turn it off. But it hit home.

And this series keeps hitting home.

It might as well have been executive produced by Michel Foucault.

* See Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports album. It's worth the seeking.