Lane Garrison Reflects on Carney’s Fate

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 Episode 2, “Promises to Keep.”]

No one is ever safe on Mayor of Kingstown, and that’s part of the beauty of the show. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not surprising or deeply upsetting to see certain characters go down, and Season 4’s second episode came with a massive gut-wallop in its final moments.

Coming into the episode, Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) learned that he had very few allies on the inside after Nina Hobbs (Edie Falco) became the new warden and declined to continue the tradition of him exercising power and influence over Anchor Bay. That setback came at the absolute worst time, too, since his little brother Kyle (Taylor Handley) was sentenced to a six-month stretch and would need as much protection as possible.

Mike’s most loyal guy left, of course, was Carney (Lane Garrison), who was working hard to bring newcomer Cindy (Laura Benanti) into the fold to look out for Kyle through any means necessary. That all changed at the end of this episode, though, when Carney, after gently tending to his infirm father with a microwave dinner and some small talk about sports, headed out to introduce Mike to Cindy but was instead executed at the door. His shooter was the same mysterious Colombian national who was involved in the attempted hit on Bunny (Tobi Bamtefa) but had to be released by Ian (Hugh Dillon), and his death leaves yet another hole in Mike’s circle of trust.

To break down this jaw-dropping turn of events, TV Insider caught up with Lane Garrison, who revealed what he really thought was going to happen to Carney this season, how he reacted to that fate, and the other Taylor Sheridan show(s) fans might see him join next!

So pour one out for Carney. I didn’t see it coming.

Lane Garrison: I didn’t either. I was a little shocked. I got a call this past summer from the executive producer, which is always that weird call. It’s like, you’re either getting called up to the major leagues, or it’s, “You’re cut, and we’re sending you to Triple-A, and you’re never gonna make it in the majors.” And so I picked it up, and then they’re like, “We’ve got good news and we have bad news. The bad news is we’re killing you.” Like, “What’s the good news?” “We’re gonna find something for you in Tulsa King.” I’ve yet to do that, but, yeah, it was a bit of a shocker, but at least they let me know, “Hey, coming into this season, don’t get too settled.” It’s always disappointing when this quirky group of people become part of your family, and then you have to say goodbye. That’s the hardest part.

The other good news was we got to see a lot more of Carney in action in the two episodes that started this season. So, what was it like for you to see him kind of stepping up and trying to fill a void left by Kareem?

You know what? It’s interesting. I was just having this conversation that I thought in my mind, the way I have the story played out was Kareem was going to — Michael Beach is one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with; I hated seeing once he got killed. I was like, “No, we’re all on the job we want.” But I thought that Carney would step into those shoes. And really, in my mind, I thought he was going to become the warden, and that was going to be a whole process through corruption. And obviously, that’s not how it played out, but at least what I saw was they humanized them so that you could feel a little bit more of this backstory. I feel like a show like this is so intense, and so go, go, go. A lot of times, you’re caught up in the action of it. You forget about who they are, to even care about them… I love any moment we can have some levity on that show, or find a laugh or a joke, something, and we can put it in there.

About the new warden, when Hobbs comes in, she basically tells Carney she’s not going to tolerate any loyalty to Kareem. Do you think she was also talking about Mike in that moment, too? And also, do you think he ever hesitated?  

Oh, yeah, I think when she says that line, she meant that, “All of you are corrupt, and you’re all going down.” I think it meant including Mike the way she said it, that she wasn’t going to be bought. And I think that was why I was trying to coerce her to understand. Obviously, I didn’t get that chance because of the death, but, yeah, she laid down. It was interesting because the way we filmed it, I had already died, but I had to come back and forth. And we went and filmed the scene in reverse, and I got to watch her lay down the law with Mike and watch that scene play out, which is fantastic.

What did you think of during your death scene and what happened to the father? 

Yeah, I thought that it was so it was so tragic because you just see this man — it’s like, you see the degradation of these guys’ lives, and you realize this guy’s in prison, too. Man, this hopelessness and this despair, but that one little moment that they had before, it’s like that final moment sharing about watching the game, and before your death…. I mean, we had some crew people just like tearing up. You never know if that’s because we all became close friends. You never know if that’s just because they were feeling it in the moment. But a lot of people felt like, “Oh my God.” In this show, where it’s running gun, it was nice to have those moments, so at least I went out with a bang.

What do you think it was about Cindy that made him trust her and know that she would do this for him?

I think it was the sort of naivete to the world that she was in… When you work in a prison environment, especially — our set was massive; I mean, you’re talking 500 extras, most of them were inmates in the jail. Half the time I’d walk up and be like, “That tattoo work. Oh my god, our makeup team’s amazing!” It was real tattoos. And so you get to break down people really easily. When you’re in that environment of kill or be killed, just in the light of their eyes, you can say like, “This is a dude not to mess with. This is a good soul. This is a bad soul.” And her character has that, and I think that’s why they cast her. And so there was an instant for us to be able to give her that information.

Dennis P. Mong Jr. / Paramount+

In general, what has it meant to you just to be part of this show where it is, like you said, no brakes and just constantly raising the bar on bloodshed and violence, but also the drama and the human factor?

First off, it’s always fun when you’re part of a hit show, not just here, but internationally. And a lot of times I’ve gone in through the years — on Prison Break, I played an inmate and I get killed. I was a very young man, and when that happened, it was such a tragedy for me. I was like, “I’ll never work again. This is soul-crushing.” And so for me to come full circle now to be able to play a guard on the other side and be able to, when I die, do it properly, like a gentleman, and say my goodbyes, that was something I took away more than anything. But I hope for the audience, at least, that they can see that world and feel that hopelessness and despair, and really, really think about not taking their freedom here for granted, because that is a real world, and where we film, there are eight prisons, and there’s well over 40,000 inmates. You know, in California alone, there’s 33 penitentiaries. So I hope that they don’t take the freedom for granted. Go, “My God, this is a life that I don’t want to live, but it’s entertaining to watch.”

Now that you’re on the other side, going into Episode 3 and beyond, what are you looking forward to, just maybe as a fan of the show?  

Well, I pitched the writers a whole bunch of different storylines. That’s why it was like, “He’s got to go.” [Laughs] But that’s my background. I write movies, and so for selfish reasons, I wanted to live. So I created this whole character I would like to see. And I told this to Taylor, when I did Yellowstone with them, I said, “Let’s find some redemption characters.” And he’s like, “Redeeming. Have you seen this show?” And so I would like to see in this show some redemption, and I would like to see where Mike actually gets to ride off into the sunset, happy and free of this life. I do not want to see him killed. I really hope that. I don’t know. I hope that they don’t go to that place and let him go off into the sunset and live a free life. I mean, my God, they killed his whole family. It’s like, enough.

It’s hard to imagine that, honestly! Circling back to something you said at the beginning. You said you’re going to join Tulsa King. So can you share what to expect from that?

Well, no, I don’t know yet. They just told me that, and I don’t know… but I’m hoping so, because I would love to go see Michael Beach, who rolled over from our show to that, and he was one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with. So I don’t know, maybe I get a call from there, or Landman or somewhere, but I’m not going to die on the next one. I’m going to tell them, “If I die, I’m not doing it.” This was like my 16th or 17th on-screen death. It gets old because it’s more work to say goodbye than to do the actual death. It’s like, “Hey, I know these 200 people!”

I’ll tell you one last quick story. This is how great of a crew and production this is. We got in a snowstorm here, and it was a Sunday, and I was to film the next day at 6:30 in the morning, [with] 500 crew people, 600 extras. And I went to the airport, and everything was closed, and I begged them. I said, “Ma’am, you don’t understand, I never do this. There’s like 1,200 people counting on me tomorrow to be there.” It’s like, “Well, we’ve got the last flight, the only flight out was to Philly.” I’m like, “That’s in the same state.” Fly to Philly. I don’t realize it’s seven hours away from Pittsburgh. I drive through a monster blizzard. The only person on the road. I rent the car, and he’s like, “You sure?” I’m like, “Yeah.” And I got there that morning, no sleep. Drove through a blizzard. It was the most harrowing drive ever, because that’s how great of a crew and cast it was for me to show them how much I respected them and their work. So I hope you all love the show. It was a wonderful run. Yeah, more to come. Don’t kill Mike!

Mayor of Kingstown, Sundays, Paramount+

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