SPOILER ALERT: The following interview contains spoilers from “Comeuppance,” the Season 3 finale of “Mayor of Kingstown,” now streaming on Paramount+.
Ending the season quietly and gracefully is just not the ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ way, which was proven again on Sunday with the conclusion of the gripping third season. As is usual in the dark world of the fictional Michigan town, there was plenty of bloodshed and death, as well as characters questioning their respective futures. Not too shabby for a show that found itself in a very real, vulnerable position last year when star Jeremy Renner, who plays the beleaguered Mike McLusky, was injured in a snowplow accident that left him with blunt chest trauma and 38 broken bones.
But like the heroes he is known for playing for much of his career, Renner was determined to recover and return to his character “Mayor of Kingstown,” who is the center of the corrupt and dangerous world in the Paramount+ series created by Taylor Sheridan. (“Yellowstone”) and Hugh Dillon, who also stars in the series as the morally challenged detective Ian Ferguson.
After the finale (with no word yet on a fourth-season pickup), Dillon spoke to us about what he did to get the recovering Renner excited to get back to work, as well as Dillon’s own connection to the world portrayed in the series. Since the episode saw the death of the villainous Milo Sunter (Aiden Gillen), as well as more tragic endings for longtime characters Iris (Emma Laird) and Captain Kareem Moore (Michael Beach), the question is: are these characters gone for good? Dillon informed us about that, and a possible fourth season.
You really packed a lot into the finale, with so many big moments and threads left hanging for a potential next season. What was it like working together, especially after about a year for Jeremy Renner?
You know, it’s not just a show, and Taylor has given all of us the opportunity to tell these stories. This season was really just about Jeremy cementing what he came back from. I talked to his mom, and it really made us say, “Okay, you’re going from wheelchair to walker, and we hope we get there.” Then we realize we’re shooting in Pittsburgh in the winter, and he’s got two tons of titanium in him, so that’s a bit of a problem. It just dodged all these bullets. I wanted Jeremy and his mother to read these scripts so that instead of thinking about their problems, they would think, “I want to get started!” We all had a common call: support Jeremy.
And with these actors, you want them to have something that is real and not just pedestrian. so they bring it and leave everything on the field. There’s something that’s just beautiful about the human experience, and to look at Jeremy – at first he was worried. His mother was concerned. You know, if you want to do this, commit. We’re going to dig. And [Jeremy] said, “I think I’ll get there.” He had mobility issues, but he worked every day after we shot. We had a gym built for him. He worked so damn hard.
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky
Courtesy of Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
Let’s talk about some of the big moments in the finale, starting with your character, Ian. After he killed Charlie (Kenny Johnson) in last week’s episode, questions are now being raised about what happened. Will this haunt him as he moves on?
It’s a thing! There’s no doubt about it. I have a friend of mine who is a prison guard, and sometimes you take along [a prisoner] looking for things and sometimes you bond with them. I will say that having Kenny Johnson work on this show is again one of those things that I’m so grateful to be able to be a part of – and then have that twist.
It wasn’t “Oh, we’re going to do this” – the setup was going to take two years, and that’s what Taylor taught me. These are movies, they are movies. Let them breathe, let them play. They don’t have to be stuck in one episode. Christoph Schrewe, our director, is so dialed in and he really helped shape that scene cinematically.
And then there are some big deaths in the episode. Kareem walks onto the prison grounds knowing he’s going to be killed, and then Iris kills herself by taking those pills on the bus. Are we saying goodbye to these characters for good? It’s a season finale, so you never know.
You should say goodbye. Taylor taught me this, and this is how we operate. This is about life. The opium epidemic. I grew up in a prison town, and no one is safe and nothing is sacred. And if you understand that, it can be a grief-driven experience, but you have to put the real-life markers into it otherwise it’s just a show. Those are real things that people have to deal with. I come from a prison town, so I’ve been dealing with these things for years. And I’ve had a very close relationship with suicide, like friends who have committed suicide, and opiates. And you have to use those experiences. You can’t just cover them up, and that’s what I bring. I understand this world and these people, and our job is to go deep and hit hard and not cover it up.
So, just to confirm, we’re saying goodbye to those characters?
Yes. If we were to do anything else, it would be corruption. Creative corruption. Because that’s the end. So to come back and say, “Oh, she was just sleeping…” They’re dead. This is what happens. It’s a tragedy. We know these people, and we understand. To pretend it didn’t happen would be a disservice to all of us.
Let me ask you about photographing that huge firefight on the bridge at night. How long did that take to shoot?
Well, we prepared and prepared for that. We’ve thought about that [scene] long ago. Taylor Sheridan dropped that early. Taylor just knows. Last year he called me: ‘You know, the Kenny Johnson thing? Yes, I like that. I have some great ideas. Here’s what I think: If you can get us there, we’ll retrofit the bridge.” And then we discovered the Kyle and Robert thing [where Kyle shoots Robert on the bridge].
Courtesy of Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
Taylor also knew Christoph Schrewe, the German filmmaker, who murdered and shot him [the scenes] like ‘Apocalypse Now’. He can use emotion and action, and is just a wonderful person. And then we got a great team in Pittsburgh and people said, ‘This is too ambitious’ or ‘You can’t do that.’ Ambition is code for “We don’t think we can do it.”
But this is Jeremy Renner and Taylor Sheridan. You want them to look at their work, what their name is on, and how they have enabled us to succeed.
Not everything is tied up in a nice bow at the end of the season. Will we get answers to all the stories that are still floating around? A fourth season hasn’t been officially announced yet, but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t happen, right?
It’s a bit cliché, but from your mouth to God’s ears.
Assuming the stories continue, what does the future hold for Mike? He talks a lot in the finale about evil and forgiveness, and about returning to himself. Is that something possible in this world?
I think it’s something we all hold on to, so we don’t just give up. Many of us and the characters are susceptible to their dark impulses, and they are very callous. But you have to have hope. That’s what it is. It’s all about hoping that Iris will make it. And I hope Kyle [Taylor Handley] can have a better life then [his brother] Mike has. It’s all these family problems, and how do you absorb loss, defeat and compromise? That’s the gist.
That makes for good television, right?
Makes for a great life!
This interview has been edited and condensed.