Mayor of Kingstown hits its peak in season 4

Mayor of Kingstown is now streaming on Netflix, and Screen Rant argues the crime thriller has arrived at the peak of its storytelling. The series comes from Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon and first premiered on Paramount+ in November 2021. It is scheduled to end its run with a fifth and final season.

Screen Rant describes the critical reception as underwhelming after season 1 and mixed after season 2. Season 3 showed signs of improvement but stayed average in critical ratings. Audiences stayed with it, and the show was renewed for two more seasons.

What seasons 3 and 4 fixed

Screen Rant says the early seasons leaned too hard on subplots. That spread the central conflict thin and pushed the main drama to the side, so the performances carried the show rather than the story.

In Screen Rant's account, seasons 3 and 4 learned from that. Season 4 puts heavy emphasis on Mike McLusky, who sees his past decisions escalate around him in the town. The violence also feels less forced and more driven by plot, which Screen Rant counts as part of the season's appeal.

Screen Rant calls the fourth season close to a reset for the series, partly because it dodges the mid-season slump that hurt earlier installments. Jeremy Renner gets more room to play Mike's internal conflicts and his reaction to a fractured family, and Screen Rant rates that performance above his earlier work on the show.

"Mayor of Kingstown is not perfect by any means," Screen Rant writes.

Where it sits in Sheridan's lineup

Screen Rant places the show below Sheridan's other series in narrative reach, naming Yellowstone, 1923 and 1883 as shows it does not match. It also notes what Mayor of Kingstown is not: there is no sweeping Americana mythos here, no neat resolutions, no anti-hero arc to latch onto.

What it offers instead, per Screen Rant, is a bleak crime drama that does exactly what it promises. The setting is a small Michigan town where the McClusky family brokers power among police, criminals and politicians, in a community that depends on the business of incarceration. Screen Rant describes the result as an unflinching and relentlessly dark crime tragedy.

What to do with that

Screen Rant's argument is about timing. A show critics mostly shrugged at now looks like it found its footing just before its final stretch, and the highs of season 4 are why Screen Rant expects viewers to turn up for season 5.

Screen Rant says the series has improved with each new installment, so the four seasons already available are the ones to weigh. The payoff, on that reading, arrives late rather than early.

• Jeremy Renner
• Mayor of Kingstown
• Netflix
• Paramount+
• Taylor Sheridan