Sylvester Stallone is back in the saddle — or at least the high-thread-count sheets — as Dwight “The General” Manfredi in Tulsa King Season 3, and Paramount+ has dropped our first official look at the upcoming installment of Taylor Sheridan’s unlikely mobster epic, via USA Today. Premiering this September, the new season promises higher stakes, grittier rivalries, and the debut of Samuel L. Jackson as the newest player in Sheridan’s growing crime-verse. And if the first-look images are anything to go by, Tulsa King is leaning even further into its pulpy, gun-toting roots.

The Season 2 finale left Dwight and his oddball crew briefly basking in victory before being yanked—literally—out of bed by a government task force. Now, as seen in the images, the fight for Tulsa is only heating up, and the crime world is expanding fast. One of the most exciting developments? Jackson, 76, joins the cast as Russell Lee Washington Jr., an old prison buddy of Manfredi’s who’s sent to kill him — but ends up inspired to build his own New Orleans-based crime syndicate instead. That pivot lays the groundwork for Jackson’s own spinoff series, NOLA King, making Tulsa King the centerpiece of an expanding Sheridan-verse.

“Samuel L. Jackson is a gift to the series,” says returning co-star Garrett Hedlund. “He and Sly radiate as men who are absolutely genuine, but who are not to be messed with.”

What Can We Expect From ‘Tulsa King’ Season 3?

Season 3 will see Manfredi squaring off against a new nemesis: liquor tycoon Jeremiah Dunmire, played by Copland co-star Robert Patrick. According to Hedlund, Patrick brings a “command and authority that hasn’t been seen in a Tulsa King nemesis,” which is saying a lot in a show that already includes Neal McDonough and Frank Grillo.

Dunmire’s son, Cole (Beau Knapp), is less calculated and more volatile — and the fight for control of a Tulsa distillery quickly turns explosive. Frank Grillo’s unstable Kansas City boss Bill Bevilaqua returns too, now appearing to ally with Dwight. But this is Tulsa King — trust is currency, and everyone’s broke.

“Sometimes to take over the whole world, two kings have to come together,” Hedlund teases of Dwight and Bill’s uneasy truce. “That meeting is the spine of the whole season.”

Paramount+ will premiere Tulsa King Season 3 in September, with new episodes expected weekly.

via Collider