The makers of mafia-related media would do well to keep in mind that “My offer to you is this: nothing” was not Michael Corleone’s opening gambit. Mike seemed perfectly willing to negotiate with that crooked Nevada senator until the man got belligerent and racist and insulted Michael’s family. Only then did the Don slam the negotiation window shut. What kind of businessman would he be if his initial offer were always “fuck you”?

Well, he’d be the same kind of businessman as Dwight Manfredi. Anytime he quote-unquote “negotiates” with a rival, the so-called General never gives an inch of ground — and somehow, this strategy always works. Dwight tells four different crime bosses where to stick it in this episode alone and suffers no consequences whatsoever. It’s hard to stay invested in the story of a man who’s always right.

I reviewed the season finale of Tulsa King for Vulture.

On Tulsa King, revenge is a dish best served in thirty minutes or less, or it’s free! Something like that, anyway. The show spent its entire second season establishing the five factions warring for control of Tulsa’s weed farms: the New York mob, led first by Chickie Invernizzi and now by Vince Antonacci; the Kansas City mob, led by Bill Bevilaqua; Cal Thresher, oil baron turned unscrupulous weed magnate; Jackie Ming, Thresher’s partner and the boss of the local Triad organization; and Dwight Manfredi’s Tulsa outfit itself, a motley crew of disparate interests — nebbishy weed-store owners, Native American growers and wind farmers, a smattering of wiseguys, would-be and otherwise — held together by Manfredi’s own charisma. In this episode, it dispenses with the conflict in a matter of seconds.

I reviewed this week’s Tulsa King for Vulture.

But I said there’s good stuff in this episode, and I mean it. For instance, the story of Armand, the accidental turncoat semi-ex-mafia guy played by Max Casella, could easily have come from either of the crime masterpieces Winter worked on. One by one, everyone Armand counts on to help him dodge the inevitable wrath of Dwight: The boss knows Armand’s the one who fed key intel to his rival, Cal Thresher, and payback is just a matter of time.

Armand calls his ex, but when she sees that he’s half in the bag at 9 a.m. and wants her to join witness protection with him, she tells him to lose her number. Enraged, he blows up at Spencer, his underling at the ranch, leading to an argument with his boss, Margaret, that ends in his firing. He turns to his erstwhile benefactor, Thresher, who pretty much laughs in his face; if Dwight’s onto him, he’s no longer useful.

Casella packs a wallop in his final pair of scenes. First, in an underpass, he leaves a tearful, uncomfortably candid message for one of his sons, in which the pain of life as a perpetual fuckup is etched into his face. Then, with desperation visible in his eyes and his pained grimace, he sticks up Tulsa’s consigliere, Goodie, and makes off with a sack of the outfit’s cash. His bluster on the way out the door seems like a cover-up for the knowledge he’s a dead man walking.

I reviewed this weeks’ Tulsa King for Vulture.

Now, this is a Tulsa King worth bending the knee for. With refreshingly nuanced, twisty plotting and sharp dialogue courtesy of writer David Flebotte, the somewhat misleadingly titled “Life Support” (more on that in a second) is, appropriately, the first time in a long time that this show has shown signs of real, creative life.

I reviewed this week’s Tulsa King for Vulture.

How big will the battle for Tulsa be? Dwight, Cal, Bill, Chickie, Jackie, and Vince all have competing interests they seem willing to achieve through violence. Winter’s skill in building Boardwalk Empire’s sprawling seasons toward stunning, violent season finales was legendary, the kind of thing even the show’s detractors gave him credit for. (It’s one of the best shows ever made, just to be clear.) Here’s hoping moving the action from New Jersey to Oklahoma won’t damage the bloody goods.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Tulsa King for Vulture.

Of course characters don’t speak for their writers, and television shows are not campaign platforms. But as these recaps have argued before, you simply can’t point to any place in Tulsa King where Dwight has acted in a way we’re supposed to find seriously immoral. Shaking down Bodhi, killing some bikers, jokingly humiliating his ex-girlfriend on the witness stand — less than ideal, but nothing you’re not supposed to be able to live with. Nothing you’re not supposed to find outright entertaining, in fact.

So when Dwight says school is turning boys into sissies, when Dwight’s primary interaction with immigrants comes at the end of a baseball bat, you can’t point to some really odious murder that demonstrates the show’s understanding that its main character is a piece of shit the way you could with Tony Soprano or Nucky Thompson. Dwight’s a delight! That’s his whole schtick. What’s the matter? Aren’t you delighted?

I reviewed this week’s Tulsa King for Vulture.

Both Tyson and Bodhi come back around, with Bodhi crunching the numbers to make their wind-powered hydroponic farm a success and Tyson giving the pep talk to the crew that Dwight himself is tired of giving. And like, of course they come back around. The central fantasy of Tulsa King is, “What if you were a 75-year-old guy who a bunch of young people thought was really cool?” If they stop thinking he’s cool, there goes the fantasy!

Dwight is never going to have a meaningful, lasting falling-out with his millennial minions, any more than he’s going to get killed off and the show will suddenly be about Garrett Hedlund instead of Sylvester Stallone. Dwight is surrounded by surrogate kids and grandkids who enjoy his anecdotes about the Fillmore East and find his jokes about their music being noise charming. For some people, that’s the kind of wish fulfillment that puts superheroes to shame.

I reviewed this week’s Tulsa King for Vulture.

Rings is a truly massive production, and your character is right in the middle of the biggest battle it’s ever shown. But for much of that battle, he and Celebrimbor are off in this little world of their own. You mentioned how much that helped your performance — what was it like stepping from that quiet environment into all-out war?
Even though it was just us on the set, and it was essentially a two-man drama, you feel the resources the show has, even inside, because you’re in a completely interactive forge. You’re standing there and you still get the scale of the production, because they’ve built the forge.

But then you go outside and it really hits home, because things are exploding. When I’m walking along the parapet, I’m trying not to flinch, because things are exploding around me, and Sauron wouldn’t be flinching at explosions. And those explosions are real. The courtyard in the city — that’s all real. It’s just the horizon that’s CGI. It fulfills every dream you’ve ever had as an actor to be able to play in a world like that. It’s easy to get caught up in the budget, or the expectation, or the narrative that comes with being part of a project like this. Particularly this project. You see the number of people who are there to help tell Sauron’s story. But ultimately, we’re children going to play on this set every day. Anytime you get weighed down, whether it’s the pressure or the expectation, all it took was for Charlie and I to look at each other and be like, “Look at your ears! That’s amazing!”

I interviewed Sauron for Vulture. That is to say, I interviewed actor Charlie Vickers from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Vulture.

Tulsa King doesn’t seem interested in being much more than the “Isn’t it fun for Sylvester Stallone to play a mobster on a TV show” show. I can’t say I’ve made my peace with it, but I at least understand and accept that it’s the case. But we’re wading in this thing; we might as well keep panning for gold. Every now and then, there’s a nugget.

I reviewed this week’s Tulsa King for Vulture.

The Tulsa King formula is a simple one. Stallone swaggers around, knocking out men decades his junior with one punch, wooing beautiful women, and building the confidence of his ragtag bunch in between drafting them to participate in gun battles with biker gangs and whatnot. “Benevolent mafia boss” is right up there with “cop who cares a lot and works hard” in terms of television fiction that whitewash lousy institutions. Still, I don’t think anyone’s in danger of believing this is how the mob actually works. The question is simply how much you enjoy watching Sylvester Stallone doing Goodfellas cosplay. If you want Stallone in a serious role in a serious story about crime, corruption, and redemption, Cop Land is streaming elsewhere on Paramount+ as we speak. Tulsa King is here for a good time, whether you’re having one watching it or not.

I reviewed the season premiere of Tulsa King for Vulture, where I’ll be covering the show all season long.

When Maddie talks to Shell Gordon and Reggie Robinson…okay, I’m gonna break format here and just say when this happened I practically cheered. Here we have Academy Award winner Natalie Portman sitting across from Wood Harris, The Wire’s Avon Barksdale, commanding the screen just as effortlessly. That show’s deep bench of talent is just extraordinary.

Anyway, when Maddie talks to Shell, he chooses and delivers his words with the kind of skill and care an unpracticed speaker and interviewer like Maddie can’t match. When she tries to be coy about his racket, he makes her come out and say it. He’s the person who finally makes the racial subtext of their conversation text, praising Jewish people like her for surviving a genocide and overcoming racism, but ultimately letting her know that for all intents and purposes, she’s as white as anyone else to a Black person like himself. It’s like watching a serious version of Zorro making a few quick swordstrokes and his opponent (or lady friend)’s clothes all falling off at once, effortlessly torn to shreds. 

Shell isn’t the only other person in the room, though. There’s also Reggie, who for all his gravelly soft-spokenness may as well be an open book. He lets slip that he’s a boxer — you know, the kind of hobby that leaves you with a black eye — and reveals that he and Shell collect tropical fish — you know, the kind that a Black guy with a black eye might have been seen buying at certain store the day a certain girl goes missing. The cherry on top is that, seemingly just for the fun of it, Shell reveals that Reggie was an item with Dora Carter, Cleo’s best friend. (Even now, when it’s in his best interest to do so, Reggie can’t hide his feelings: When Maddie asks if they were in love, he replies with a surprisinagly humble and tender “I’d like to think so.”)

I had a grand time reviewing this week’s excellent episode of Lady in the Lake for Vulture.

Going from Raised by Wolves to a juggernaut like House of the Dragon — was stepping into this production noticeably different?
Yeah. There’s a feeling of it having already been stabilized: This is an IP that exists, it has its own universe, its own rules, a structure. With Raised by Wolves, it felt we had a lot more to prove; we’re bringing people into this new world. Whereas Game of Thrones had many years to establish the groundwork.

But there was a security in that, a safety in knowing the world I’m dancing in. That was the big thing for me. It felt like, Oh, okay, I know what’s happening here.

I’m sorry, but I just have to fanboy out about Raised by Wolves for a second.
No, no, that’s grand! I’m so sad it didn’t come to fruition for the third season. We had something really cool cooking, and it was just heartbreaking, man. I’m so determined to figure out a way to get that story told in some way, shape, or form. But we’ll see. Give it time.

I interviewed Abubakar Salim about his work as Alyn of Hull on House of the Dragon for Vulture, and yes, I asked him about Raised by Wolves, duhh.

This, ultimately, is the smartest move made by writer-creator Robert Rodat in the development of this show: Pairing the destinies of the power player we like the best and the one we like the least. Every victory is tainted, every loss contains a glimmer of hope. It leaves you wanting things to both happen and not happen at the same time — like the senators who offer up the weakest “Hail, Caesar” in human history as a response to Domitian’s ascension, we both accept it and don’t. It’s very smart storytelling.

I reviewed the final two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture. It was a hoot.

I’m growing increasingly fond of Those About to Die as it goes. I enjoy unexpected filigrees and flourishes like Xenon coming on to Scorpus, like the playful “tchk tchk” sound Antonia makes when she tells her prospective new driver, Elia, that he’ll need to prove himself (if that wasn’t an invention of actor Gabriella Pession, I’ll eat an Andalusian), or like Tenax proclaiming what might as well be this show’s house words as he maps out his plan for the soon-to-open Flavian Amphitheatre, a.k.a. the Roman Colosseum: “Enough is good, more is better, too much is perfect.”

I reviewed episodes seven and eight of Those About to Die for Vulture.

And as the world’s biggest sucker for cooperation, I can’t tell you how my heart leapt to see Tenax, Domitian, and Titus work together to thwart Marsus’s play for the throne. None of these guys are such great shakes, so it’s not like, “Hooray, evil is defeated” or anything like that. It’s more that it’s simply pleasant to watch people who have every incentive to be at each other’s throats instead choose to work together, help each other, and treat each other decently in the process. When Titus sincerely thanked Domitian for saving his life, I wanted to get in on a group hug. Life may be cheap in Rome, but that’s all the more reason to let your bro know you love him.

I reviewed episodes five and six of Those About to Die for Vulture.

Blue, white, red, green, gold — these are the colors of the factions whose drivers thrill the crowds at the Circus Maximus. But the color I want to talk about is purple. A dawn purple, a dusk purple, making the streets of Rome look cool and rich and inviting. This particular shade of purple doesn’t really show up until director Marco Kreuzpaintner takes over from Roland Emmerich for Those About to Die’s fourth episode. But after spending much of the intervening time in the amorphous, blue-and-orange color-graded no-man’s-land favored by so many TV productions today, it’s nice to spend a little time in lavender and violet. Feels appropriately imperial, doesn’t it?

I reviewed the third and fourth episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.

With a cold-blooded murder orchestrated by its main character within its premiere episode’s first minute, Those About to Die ain’t your daddy’s sword-and-sandal action epic. Except that, well, it kind of is. Its writer-creator, Robert Rodat, is the Academy Award–nominated screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan, perhaps the greatest dad movie of them all (give or take a Shawshank Redemption). Roland Emmerich, director of the first two episodes, gave us Independence Day among many other “Sunday afternoon on TNT in a hotel room” blockbusters.

The show is largely being sold on the strength of a pivotal but minor role played by Anthony Hopkins, who achieved megastardom more than 30 years ago. Even the source material — the dubiously accurate and extraordinarily lurid “history” of Roman gladiatorial games and combat-sport spectacles by Daniel P. Mannix, the cover blurb of which is transcribed above — is the kind of thing you’d find moldering on your granddad’s bookshelf. For all its nudity and gore, the latter liberally splashed across the streets and statuaries of Rome in the CGI opening credits, Those About to Die is not in danger of crossing any kind of artistic Rubicon anytime soon.

The short version: This is the most obviously Game of Thrones–inspired show to come along since Shōgun, and it lacks half that show’s vision or restraint.

But sometimes you just wanna see sexy people in gladiator uniforms run around snogging and fighting and using old-timey accents to sound faux ancient. Well, I do, anyway. And even if there’s a lot of fat that could have been trimmed from these first two hourlong episodes, as well as a lot of dramatically inert characters who could have been spun into something more substantial, well, to paraphrase Gladiator, I was at least entertained.

I reviewed the first two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.

I was honestly surprised to find Aegon and his buddies still bullying Aemond during the brothel scene in this episode. Historically, bullying Aemond has not worked out very well for people.
Aegon catches Aemond in a vulnerable spot. Picking up the script for the first time and seeing those brothel scenes in episode two and three, I saw a brilliant opportunity to offer a rare glimpse of his vulnerability. You only ever see him in his Targaryen blacks, so to see him in that world — not only that, but then humiliated by his brother — is quite shocking.

When he gets up and walks out without bothering to dress first, so sure of himself even in the face of that humiliation, he seems scarier to me than when he’s riding on Vhagar.
I love that line from Michael Mann’s Heat, when Bob De Niro’s character says, “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” That’s the code his character utilizes so he’s able to maneuver around this world without getting caught by Al Pacino.

Aemond has a similar code that stops him from being hurt like he was as a kid. That’s why he’s able to walk out on the madam in that scene. He’s humiliated by his brother and all his crew, and it’s like this switch flips. The madam is no more. All of these people in front of him? They mean nothing. He stands up, he owns it. “Yeah, I’m bulletproof. Anything you say, it will not work.” Like you say, it’s scary.

I interviewed actor Ewan Mitchell about his work as Prince Aemond on House of the Dragon for Vulture.

In fantasy combat, dragons are a difference-maker. Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-queens Visenya and Rhaenys united six out of seven quarreling kingdoms by lighting entire castles and armies on fire from the backs of their beasts. Daenerys Targaryen effortlessly torched the forces of House Lannister — then of the people of King’s Landing — with a single surviving dragon at the end of Game of Thrones. If you wanna get really nerdy, none other than Gandalf the Grey reveals in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings that he helped Thorin, Bilbo, and company kill Smaug the Golden so that a revived Sauron could never use him as city-killer against the Elven kingdoms he himself couldn’t touch. From middle-earth to Westeros, these creatures are no joke.

That’s what makes the prospect of a full-scale Targaryen civil war in season two of House of the Dragon so frightening — not just to the defenseless small folk but to the wiser members of the opposing Team Black and Team Green themselves. It also makes the question of who controls what dragons as crucial to the conflict as sizing up your enemy’s nuclear stockpile. A dragon’s size, age, temperament, temperature, combat experience, rider, and perhaps even their relationships with other dragons all play a part in determining their effectiveness in battle.

So in preparation for this Sunday’s premiere, here are all the dragons in play at the start of the so-called Dance of the Dragons, the civil war between the Blacks, led by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her king-consort Prince Daemon, and the Greens, ruled (sort of) by King Aegon II Targaryen and his mother, Queen Alicent Hightower. Each side boasts its own dragons, while some are still up for grabs. Considering the magic and might of these monsters, this could wind up as important as knowing the Targaryen family tree itself.

But brush up on these sky kaiju while you can: This war promises fire and blood, so best not to get too attached.

I wrote a field guide to all the dragons available at the start of House of the Dragon Season 2 for Vulture. IT BEGINS.

The need for empathy’s an interesting point. As I watched the show, I’d think of the anti-alien characters as the good guys and the pro-alien characters as the bad guys. But the pro-alien characters aren’t necessarily evil at all.
Yes, exactly. I’ve been around people who are, for lack of a better word, enthusiasts. When you understand their background, you can understand why they were drawn to a cult mentality like Ye was.

I don’t know what it was about me, but when I was young, I used to get approached by cults. I remember walking through a mall when I was still in my teens and a person approached me and handed me a pamphlet. I remember thinking, Wow, if I didn’t have a family or friends, or if I felt isolated, I could see how this would be attractive. They seem so nice and warm and loving. One would be drawn to that if you feel that everything has fallen apart for you.

God, this is the first time I’ve thought of that. I guess people thought I seemed vulnerable to that.

Were you?
No. I mean, I had a really close family. I think I appeared to be very naïve, and I used to spend a lot of time alone. I was very shy, a solitary person, and I think that emanated from me. Look at me blaming myself.

I interviewed 3 Body Problem actor Rosalind Chao for Vulture.