Mike Meets His Match In Anchor Bay’s Imposing New Warden — Plus, Grade It!

Anchor Bay gets a new warden and a new inmate in the “Mayor of Kingstown” Season 4 premiere, and no one is happy about either one.

The prison drama’s first episode back marks a reset of sorts, the kickoff of “a season not like all the other seasons,” executive producer David Glasser told TVLine in September. “It’s energized. It’s power-packed.” The new run of episodes gets underway with the town’s remaining factions jockeying for control now that the Russians are gone — and a new player who enters right at the top of the hour seems like someone who’s going to upset the balance even more.

In a moment, we’ll want to hear what you thought of the Jeremy Renner drama’s return. Read on for the highlights of “Coming ‘Round the Mountain.”

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The Fallout From Robert’s Shooting

Turns out, Kyle received a two-year sentence for shooting fellow cop Robert on the bridge. With good behavior, he’ll likely be out in six months. But even that is too much, Mike fumes. “I made a choice on that bridge, Mike. I did it for the right reasons. I can live with the consequences,” Kyle says. Mike reassures his brother that he’ll have eyes on him at all times on the inside, and they plan for Kyle to turn himself in the next day. Then, Ian calls Mike to the railroad tracks.

There, McLusky sees what we did at the opening of the episode: Someone tied a bunch of men to the rails, placing them directly in the path of the locomotive that decapitated them. All of the dead men are Russians. “Someone’s cleaning up Konstantin’s mess,” Mike says, looking not too pleased about it. “This is the devil we don’t know.” But we do: The guy is named Frank (played by Lennie James, “Fear the Walking Dead”), and he’s scary.

Meet the New Boss

Now it’s time for us to meet Nina Hobbs (Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie”), Anchor Bay’s new warden. She’s previously run five prisons — both state and federal — and she’s very aware of how jacked-up things are at her new place of business. “I fix flawed institutions,” she tells her corrections officers; Carney wastes no time and starts sucking up to her immediately, but it seems like she’s wise to him. And she makes sure that everyone knows it’s a new day at Anchor Bay: “Kareem may have been a good man, but he had no place as a warden,” she says. “And I will not bide any lingering loyalty.”

Later, Carney shows a new CO named Cindy Stephens (Laura Benanti, “Younger”) around the Administrative Segregation, or “ad seg” aka solitary confinement section of the prison. Carney calls the men housed here the lowest of the low — except for the new guy who’s coming in that day. (Obv, he means Kyle.) He explains that the newbie is a cop who’s there “for being a stand-up guy,” and she should protect him with her life.

Elsewhere, Mike is doing his part to make sure things go his way (really, Kyle’s way) behind bars. Bunny assures him that Raph will keep tabs on Kyle. And then Mike warns Bunny that whoever hit the Russians will come after him, but Bunny is unbothered: He coolly says he’s making moves to keep the streets quiet.

Mike looks unimpressed. “How long’s that gonna last?” he wonders.

Meanwhile, an upset Tracy begs Kyle to tell the truth about why he shot Robert. But he gently say no, reminding her that he’ll do his time, then they’ll leave and “start over.” (Side note: I’ve never known a TV character who says that and then goes on to thrive, my man.)

Meetings With Unsatisfying Endings

Evelyn presents Ian with a potential deal. “Give me Robert Sawyer, Kyle walks free,” she says, but he won’t agree. So she pulls out the big guns: She has video footage that put him on the street the day Ben Morrissey died, and she’s taking it to the grand jury. (Translation: Not good!)

Later, Ian sees Robert stalking Evelyn and yells at him for following the assistant district attorney around. All Robert has to do is bide his time, Ian reminds him, because Kyle took a bid for him and won’t talk.

Around the same time, Mike goes to formally meet Hobbs. If she’ll take care of Kyle, he posits, he’ll take care of her. “There’s not a problem in here that I can’t solve for you,” he adds. We’ve only known this woman for a few minutes, but I highly doubt she’s interested, and I’m correct! She turns down his offer, saying that this isn’t her first penitentiary rodeo: “Violence reduces like a sauce wherever I serve.” Then he asks for Carney to be stationed in Ad Seg, a request she denies. We also learn that Merle Callahan is in the prison infirmary, but Hobbs promises Mike that he’ll get nowhere near Kyle. (Psst: File away that last bit for later.)

Mike doesn’t like that Hobbs doesn’t seem to care who he is or what he can do. Things get heated. He leaves her with this: “I have sway in these walls, OK? If anything happens to my brother, there’s going to be consequences. You want peace in your castle, you’ll protect him.”

When he’s back at his office, Evelyn shows up and begs Mike to get Kyle to tell the truth and get himself out of prison. “Evelyn, you’re dead to me,” he snarls. “F—king dead. Get out.” So… that’s a no?

The Long Goodbye

The next day, Kyle says goodbye to Tracy and baby Mitch, then goes to a bar for a sendoff with his police buddies. In the car afterward, Kyle mumbles to his brother that he feels like he deserves his fortune, for “Mom.” Mike doesn’t want to engage, so he tells him to roll down the window and pop a pill to sober up, because Mike’s got wisdom to impart. “Killing a cop is prison royalty,” he says, which means Kyle will have a target on him literally every moment of every day. He offers some tips on how to stay safe among the very violent men he’ll be living with, then urges him “Do not become them to survive.” The brothers hug and say they love each other, then Kyle goes inside Anchor Bay by himself.

Mike’s feeling a lot of emotions, and a nicely timed distraction would be good right about — oh look, a car chase! Ian lets him know that he and Stevie are in pursuit of someone who drove up and started shooting at Bunny’s car, and Mike is ALL IN. The chase winds up coming to him, and Mike shoots one of the men the cops are trying to grab. The other survives, though.

Making Friends

All of the inmates are aware that Kyle has arrived, thanks to Hobbs’ insistence that he be walked by the yard upon his arrival. So by the time he gets to his cell, another inmate who appears to be cleaning the unit attacks the guard escorting Kyle and then starts beating McLusky with a lock in a sock. He does a lot of damage by the time Stephens and two other guards come running; it’s bloody and awful.

Stephens later goes home; we see that she’s the mother of three kids. At Anchor Bay, as Kyle writhes in pain in his bunk, the man in the cell next to him advises him not to go to sickbay. Kyle can’t see, but we can: It’s Callahan, who is very much NOT in the infirmary like Hobbs said.

Now it’s your turn. Hit the comments with your thoughts!

Read the original article on TVLine.