'Mayor of Kingstown' Examines the Prison Industry Through a Small-Town Lens

Mitch works alongside his two younger brothers, Mike (Renner) and Kyle (Handley); they've been a part of the power broker business for many years, as their father was previously in charge. Even though the type of work they're doing is often shady, the brothers feel that it's completely justified because they're doing it for the good of the people involved.

The youngest of the brothers, Kyle, always seems a bit uneasy about their business because there's a part of him that wants to get out of Kingstown and start over entirely. However, being a police officer, he has a different sort of pull in the system, as he has more access to the inside and other classified information. It's a complicated matter: actively working in their business allows him the opportunity to create real change and spend time with his brothers, but on the other hand, it's a dangerous game that he's playing.

Mike is also at a bit of an impasse, but he's more resigned to staying put than taking off. Their mother, Miriam (Wiest), has lost hope for Mitch to leave the business but is still holding out for Mike and Kyle, who she feels are wasting their lives away.
Mike's personality strikes somewhere in the middle ground between his two brothers—he's not as heavily invested in the business as Mitch, but he's also not as willing to leave as Kyle. Mike is the most hands-on of the brothers, always ready to go the extra mile to make something happen.

Miriam is at the end of her rope with her three sons. Working as a history teacher at a women's prison, she expects bad news to come through her classroom door at any moment. Dedicated to her students and clearly extremely knowledgable on the subject, Miriam's always covering an interesting aspect of history with a meaningful lecture to go along with it.

In the same way that she approaches her classes, Miriam tries to talk sense into her sons, yet her message never seems to stick; attempting to talk them out of their line of work is a lost cause at this point. In preparing for those more heavy-hitting speeches, Wiest noted that, "It was hard because you feel affection for the actual actor and then you have to rip their head off. What they’re doing is just past bearing, and they won’t listen to common sense, and all of a sudden you’re full of rage and full of anger, and it’s silk off a spool."

The brothers also work closely with Bunny (Bamtefa), who's head of the Crips gang. Perched on his lawn in a camping chair and surrounded by his crew, Bunny sells pharmaceuticals out of the cooler sitting next to him. He also occasionally demands that his crew get him snow cones.

Ready at a moment's notice for Mike or one of his brothers to swing by and strike up a deal, Bunny might play things aggressively, but he's a true softie at heart. He has a profound bond with Mike, which manifests itself in deeper conversations about life once everything is settled for the day. It's a give-and-take relationship that's not always perfect, but they view each other as equals in their ways of life.

Given his double role, Hugh Dillon, both a co-creator of the show (with Sheridan) and acting as Ian, is viewing the series from a slightly different angle.

"It's pretty easy because when I sit behind the monitors and watch them bring this to life, I forget about the acting and the rest of it," Dillon says about separating the two roles. "I kept my head down and did my own work when I was acting, and you forget what is required, especially in such a big show."

With his upbringing as the inspiration behind the story, Dillon explained earlier in the press junket that he grew up in a town with nine prisons. His mother and other friends worked within the industry, giving him a genuine, personal connection to the story told in Mayor of Kingstown. Concerning the show, he was especially interested in how the prison complex trickles down and affects the town that it's located in.

As Sheridan was formerly Dillon's acting coach, the two got to know each other fairly well over the years as Dillon would tell him about his old town, which Sherdian was always interested in. Since the story of his town was something that Dillon had always wanted to bring to life, the two paired up, and the idea grew from there.

Mayor of Kingstown gives its undivided attention to aspects of the prison industry that aren't usually shown on screen, and though it can occasionally be quite a lot to take in, the importance of those moments continues past the show itself. A brutally honest dive into the prison system coming from countless different angles, the show doesn't sugarcoat things. Mayor of Kingstown succeeds in both the tiny and large moments, creating a gentle-yet-powerful aura that emanates through each episode.