Taylor Sheridan Begins A New Netflix Era In 2 Weeks

Published Sep 23, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While Taylor Sheridan is already one of the biggest names in streaming, the writer/ director’s reach will extend to Netflix soon with the arrival of one of his hit shows on the streaming platform. Before Shonda Rhimes gave Netflix the global smash hit Bridgerton, she already had a staggering track record of delivering acclaimed network hits in numerous genres thanks to Grey’s Anatomy, How To Get Away with Murder, and Scandal. Similarly, while the American Horror Story franchise has lasted 13 seasons and a spinoff, producer Ryan Murphy already had the small-screen phenomenon Glee under his belt, along with the earlier hit Nip/Tuck, before the FX series succeeded. In the years since, Murphy has further solidified himself as a streaming and network TV staple thanks to Netflix’s controversial true crime anthology Monster and the massive 9-1-1 franchise. However, both of these TV empires pale in comparison to divisive writer/ director Taylor Sheridan’s sudden rise to prominence. By the late 2010s, Sheridan was a little-known screenwriter with the moderate hits Wind River, Sicario, and Hell or High Water to his name. Then the Yellowstone franchise became a hit, and almost overnight, it seemed every TV show on streaming was written and directed by this one prolific screenwriter. Now, the arrival of Sheridan’s prison drama Mayor of Kingstown on Netflix extends his TV empire even further. Mayor of Kingstown Arrives On Netflix In Two Weeks Image courtesy of MovieStillsDb Even compared to other Sheridan shows, Mayor of Kingstown is a gritty, grim proposition. Set in the titular Michigan town, which is home to no less than seven prisons, Mayor of Kingstown focuses on Jeremy Renner’s amoral fixer Mike McLusky. A former prison inmate himself, McLusky’s job is to keep the peace between prisoners, prison guards, local gang members, and the cops chasing them. As this summary implies, the show is essentially a mashup of The Wire’s sprawling urban crime drama and Oz’s prison-centric story. Of course, as anyone who has ever seen a Sheridan show will know, that’s not quite true. While Oz became a touch too melodramatic for its own good in its final seasons, the show was still notable for its raw, unvarnished depictions of the horrors of prison life, and its often painfully bleak tone. Similarly, what made The Wire so acclaimed, and such a challenging watch, was its unsparing direction of the Baltimore drug trade. There were no straightforward heroes and villains in these earlier HBO shows, but rather complex, multi-faceted characters acting within a broken system that was far larger than them. In contrast, Mayor of Kingstown is mostly concerned with a handful of hyper-macho, uber-tough brooding antiheroes and smirking villains, and their explosive feuds. The same could, of course, be said for Tulsa King, Yellowstone, Marshals, Dutton Ranch, Landman, and, to an extent, arguably even Sheridan’s female-led spy series Lioness. Mayor of Kingstown Has The Best (And Worst) Of Taylor Sheridan’s Hallmarks While Mayor of Kingstown might share its penchant for moments of gory ultra-violence with Oz, the show shouldn’t be mistaken for a thoughtful rumination of the failures of the modern American prison system. Instead, like Sheridan’s earlier shows, Mayor of Kingstown is mostly the story of one tough guy against the world, which in this case is the hopelessly corrupt urban setting of the series. The sheer downbeat nihilism of Mayor of Kingstown could lead one to mistake the show for a gritty, tragic, but analytical and observant series like The Wire, but the action thriller is really more of an escapist thrill ride with added grit and misery. Too glum to be pure fun but lacking the insight, narrative scope, and thoughtful engagement with real-life systems to be truly gripping, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mayor of Kingstown struggles with critics more than Sheridan’s other campier, more melodramatic and soapy TV shows. Release Date November 14, 2021 Network Paramount+ Showrunner Dave Erickson Directors Stephen Kay, Guy Ferland, Christoph Schrewe, Clark Johnson, Paul Cameron, Tasha Smith, Taylor Sheridan Writers James Arcega Tinsley Creator(s) Hugh Dillon, Taylor Sheridan