‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap & Ending Explained: Can Mike Achieve Peace in Kingstown?
Welcome to the Recap and Ending Explained for Mayor of Kingstown, episode 2, titled “Staring at the Devil”. The episode, available on Paramount+ follows up on the events of the previous one, where everyone is feeling the aftermath of the prison riot that dominated the latter half of the first season of the show. The riot caused countless deaths, and also managed to destroy the entire prison. Pushing the authorities to keep the surviving prisoners inside tent camps. The riot left most gangs without leaders inside the prison, and now the outside is starting to feel the consequences.
When it comes to the characters, they are all passing through rough patches. Kareem, the captain of the prison guards, and Kyle, Mike’s younger brother, are passing through a phase where the trauma still feels very real, and they are trying to adjust to their new reality. Meanwhile, Miriam is seeing her classes canceled as she doesn’t want to follow the prison rules after the prison riot left the authorities shaking. Mike’s and Iris’s relationship is also becoming, more and more complicated.
The following paragraphs contain spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of Mayor of Kingstown. Read at your own risk.
Can Mike Achieve Peace In Kingstown?
Staring at the Devil opens on a terrible night. We see the prisoners sleeping inside the tent camp, and from there we see a trio of men getting out of their beds and going stealthily to another one. They bring the person in that bed out of it and then beat them to death. The narrator reveals that war on the inside of the prison means war outside of it. We jump to a house with some people drinking and talking on the porch, when a car passes by and starts shooting at the house.
The shooters are using high-caliber automatic weapons, and the front of the house gets destroyed. However, this is not the end of the attack. This is not a normal drive-by. More shooters arrive, get inside the house, and continue to shoot. It is a massacre. When Mike arrives on the scene, he cannot believe what he sees. There hasn’t been an attack with this level of violence ever in Kingstown. The police tell Mike he needs to do something about it, and Mike decides to go see Bunny.
Bunny is still hiding on the roof of a phone store. Bunny promises he didn’t approve of the attack, even though it was on his territory. Bunny is clearly afraid. Because there are no leaders, now everyone wants to be one, and they think they can brute force themselves into that position. Mike says he has an idea to achieve peace, and that Bunny will have to trust him completely. Mike charges Bunny with gathering the remaining outside leaders of the gangs into an emergency meeting. He also calls Evelyn, and he promises he can give her all the gang leaders at once.
The meeting takes place, and all four leaders arrive, including Bunny. Sawyer is the one to maintain order, and his team is covering the area. Mike proposes his plan. All four leaders need to be arrested and sent to prison. Once inside, they must pick leaders inside the prison, to rebuild the order that once existed. Once peace is achieved, they will be released. Bunny can’t believe this is happening, but he still trusts Mike. Evelyn arrives with the police and arrests all four leaders. All the prisoners are shocked when they see them arrive together at the tent camp.
What Is Happening Between Mike And Iris?
Mike and Iris’s relationship keeps being complicated. In the previous episode, Iris decided to leave witness protection and go back to Mike. However, this is the worst day to do this, as it seems the city will tear itself apart. Mike has no time to babysit Iris. So, he decides to take her to his mother’s home. There, Kyle receives Iris and Mike with suspicion, and he becomes very angry for nothing. Miriam accepts Iris and gives her their spare room. Mike promises that while Iris is in trouble, it is not her fault.
Iris waits all day for Mike, but it seems that he won’t be arriving anytime soon with all the things he is handling at the moment. So when he finally arrives the next day, he discovers that Iris is gone. He goes looking for her, but it doesn’t seem to be so easy. We see where Iris went that night. She goes into the basement of an old building downtown, and there we see Milo, looking at a computer. Iris says she has nowhere to go and begs for Milo to accept her back. Which he does.
Meanwhile, Kareem seems as jumpy as ever. His trauma is at its peak, which is very dangerous because he is now the most important authority in charge of the prisoners. It doesn’t seem like a good mix. Kareem doesn’t understand the game and believes his word is final when it comes to how to deal with the prisoners. Mike assures him that is not the case. Mike also warns him about having Carney as his second. Carney is clearly a problem when it comes to following orders, and it won’t be surprised if it explodes in Kareem’s face in the future.
Meanwhile, Kyle is still having issues adapting to a more peaceful environment. He is now working as a normal state trooper. He patrols the roads and the harbor, and not much else. However, he believes that he should always be on alert, which annoys his more veteran partner. When his partner basically forces a man to go beyond the speed limit to stop him, Kyle calls him an asshole. The car stops, and Kyle’s partner goes to the driver’s door and gets shot. Kyle shoots back and kills the people in the car. He calls for backup and sees that there is also a small baby inside the vehicle. Kyle loses it.
