Season one of Paramount+’s critically acclaimed drama Mayor of Kingstown ended with Mike (Jeremy Renner) and his brother, Kyle, emerging from the prison riot and immediately embraced by their mom. The prison riot capped a first season in which Mike rarely had a moment of peace. But as season two episode one, “Never Missed a Pigeon,” opens, he’s taking time out from solving problems he didn’t create to help Iris continue to recover.

(This is a recap so there are SPOILERS AHEAD.)

Iris (Emma Laird) is blindfolded as Mike takes a small boat out to a larger boat on the lake. The boat, “Bad Optics,” was seized in a drug raid, and Mike believes sleeping on it might cure both their problems: his insomnia and her fear of bears, and life in general.

A voiceover by Mike informs us his dad couldn’t wait to grow old so he could forget his scars and the scars he gave others. Mike’s dad told him to keep a journal full of only good things. When his memories faded, he could turn to it and read about his happy life.

“But minds don’t forget so easy and the horror that we witness and endure takes root,” says Mike.

The prison guards and officers witnessed horror during the brutal prison riot, and Captain Kareem Moore (Michael Beach) is experiencing PTSD. His wife wakes to an empty bed in the middle of the night and finds her husband downstairs, tucked away in a small room, and screaming in terror when she opens the door. She does her best to assure him he’s home and safe, but it’s going to take more than comforting words to calm his mind.

Our first visit with the inmates in Mayor of Kingstown season two shows they’re housed in large tents with porta potties at a temporary outdoor facility after destroying the prison. It’s miserable and crowded, and the guards no longer step in when fighting breaks out. They just stand by and watch, and Mike’s voiceover explains that after riots the inmates will take down their old leaders and new ones will emerge.

Another consequence of a riot is that without leadership among the gangs inside, there isn’t leadership among the gangs outside. The result is chaos in the streets as well as in jail.

Morning arrives, and Iris would rather stay on the boat while Mike heads off to work. Reluctantly, Mike agrees but warns her not to go anywhere. They don’t know who’s still looking for her.

Ian (Hugh Dillon) and Stevie (Derek Webster) are at the scene of a gang shooting when Ian calls Mike to join him. There’s a massive Pit Bull inside one of the cars and it’s eating one of the victims, but they’re not sure what to do about it since citizens are filming on cell phones.

Ian doesn’t think they have a choice other than to shoot the Pit Bull before it leaps out of the sunroof. He fires multiple rounds at the dog (in a clear case of overkill) as Mike arrives. Mike’s shocked by the scene; Ian didn’t give him any warning before opening the car door. They all realize this is what life’s going to be like until the gangs in the jail sort themselves out.

Mike’s unhappy to learn that Bloods called in a tip on a cookhouse belonging to Bunny and the cops took it down. Mike believes going after the peacekeepers will just make it more difficult to keep the peace.

And speaking of the devil, Bunny (Tobi Bamtefa) is pissed when he calls Mike about the raid. The cops asked him to stand down and then raided his cookhouse.

Miriam (Dianne Wiest) returns to her job instructing female inmates, but the atmosphere’s dramatically changed. There are multiple armed guards inside the room with her, and the inmates no longer have desks. Instead, they sit in a semi-circle, each chair separated by a few feet.

She delivers a lecture on choices but gets flustered by the presence of so many armed guards and asks them to leave or else class is over. The head guard immediately orders the students to stand and empties the room.

Miriam was not expecting that response.

Elsewhere, Captain Moore speaks with a psychiatrist and claims he’s just happy to be alive. He denies he was raped by the inmates, and the doctor points out that other guards claimed to have witnessed his rape by multiple inmates. Moore continues to insist he wasn’t sexually assaulted. If he was, he’d join the class-action suit against the prison and the State. He’s not joining it because it didn’t happen. All he wants is to go back to work to provide for his family.

Captain Moore wants to finish out his years on the job and get his pension. The doctor clears him for duty after Moore assures him he isn’t seeking revenge.

Mike visits Bunny on the roof of a store his gang’s now using as headquarters. Bunny explains he’s on the roof to keep safe from drive-bys, and Mike fills him in on why his cookhouse was raided. They got a tip from a Blood and the cops had no idea the place was Bunny’s.

Bunny threatens to call in tips on the Bloods, but Mike says he hopes they can calm everything down. But that won’t happen without new gang leaders in prison. Bunny explains they can’t pick new leaders because everyone worthy died in the raid. The only way to make a name and stand out now is to kill a cop/guard.

Mike warns that if that happens, law enforcement will basically wipe out the entire jail population. Bunny says without being able to get messages in and out and without being able to get drugs in and money out, life on the streets will remain in chaos. Bunny blames everything on the guards. Mike thinks the answer is the world needs to get real quiet, real fast.

Bunny reminds Mike about how many inmates died, but Mike immediately counters with his own statistics. 33 guards were killed and the rest were raped, and the guards are now on edge – just waiting to kill more inmates. In the meantime, the inmates sweat it out in tents without phones, drugs, or anything they’d normally have in prison before the riot.

Before Mike leaves, he warns Bunny not to continue with his territory grab. This store was under the Bloods’ control a week ago.

Mike’s next stop is a meeting with Ian, Stevie, Carney (Lane Garrison), and Robert (Hamish Allan-Headley). Carney reports the inmates are suffering in the heat and the Mexicans seem to be poised to take control. The whites lost their leaders inside and out, and the Bloods and Crips are constantly fighting. No one has any weapons, so it’s all about fistfights right now.

Mike wants the raids on cookhouses to stop, and Robert points out that raiding them is his job. Mike claims the Crips need to be in control since Bunny’s the only reasonable person, and raiding his cookhouse makes him weaker.

Mike becomes frustrated when the guys suggest the solution is to take out everything they can right now and clear the streets. Mike reminds them there must be a pecking order inside for life outside to get back to normal.

Mike asks Ian to pull back a little and give things time to settle down. Ian agrees.

The talk turns to Milo and, apparently, it’s only at this point that they realize he’s unaccounted for. Carney points out there are still 300 dead bodies waiting to be identified. The inmates burned all the medical and dental records, so it’s slow going.

Back at the prison, Captain Moore and a squad of his Corrections officers – including Carney – have three prisoners tied up, on their knees, and with sacks over their heads behind the porta-potties. A blanket’s held up to block the view of the other inmates as Captain Moore hits the prisoners with his fists and the butt of a rifle. Moore doesn’t care if he kills one (or more), and neither does Carney.

Mike meets Assistant D.A. Evelyn Foley (Necar Zadegan) at the coroner’s office which is busy processing the bodies from the prison riot. Evelyn admits they’re still finding bodies, so they haven’t got a final count yet. Plus, Robert and his SWAT team are going to be investigated for killing unarmed prisoners. Mike doesn’t care what Robert did to save Kyle. (Kyle’s taken a job upstate.)

Evelyn confirms Milo isn’t listed on any roster. She didn’t tell Mike because she assumed he knew it since he normally knows everything before she does.

Mike stalks out of the building and Evelyn chases after him. She’s got nearly 800 active criminal cases from the riot and multiple jurisdictions to work with. Basically, it’s a clusterf**k. Still, Mike is certain Milo just walked out of the prison without anyone noticing.

Mike wants Evelyn to issue an alert that Milo has escaped. Evelyn’s reluctant but admits that none of the bodies they still haven’t identified look like Milo.

With the possibility of Milo on the loose, Mike rushes back to the boat and picks up Iris. Milo will definitely be searching for her if he’s escaped.

A short while later, Mike watches an elderly man attach a note to a pigeon and send him on his way. The pigeon’s heading to the man’s son’s house in Detroit, and it’ll take about four hours to get there. He prefers this method of communication over phones since he and his son miss phone calls but never miss pigeons. (Hence, the episode’s title.)

Their talk’s interrupted by the arrival of the Feds who are setting up a safe house for Iris. They have a temporary safe house here and will take Iris to it, but Mike can’t come with them. He can’t know where she’s staying in case he was followed.

Iris has been waiting in Mike’s car and doesn’t want to go. Mike insists she’ll be set up with a new identity that will allow her to go back to school and start a new life. Iris is upset she won’t be able to call or visit him, and Mike confirms that’s true. She wonders why he took her out on the boat if he’s just sending her off. Iris thinks the boat was actually to help him, not her, and in her anger, she finally gets out of Mike’s car and walks over to the Feds. (She needed to be mad to leave Mike’s side.)

While this is going down, Miriam purchases alcohol at a store and is brutally attacked before she can get in her car. The mugger punches her multiple times in the face, knocking her to the ground. She’s bleeding as she begs him to just take the money and leave the wallet.

He does and flees. She clutches a photo of her sons that fell out of her wallet.

With 10 minutes left in the Mayor of Kingstown season two premiere we finally get our first look at Kyle (Taylor Handley) in action as a member of the Michigan State Police. He’s on a boat pursuing a smuggler, and his partner can’t believe Kyle’s putting on a vest and has his weapon ready. Kyle’s partner points out the smuggler is Canadian, and Canadians don’t have guns. Kyle insists all smugglers have weapons.

The smuggler turns the boat around and tries to outrun the Michigan State Police, but it’s not even a close race. Kyle and his partner board the boat and Kyle’s instantly in full-on attack mode. His partner’s calm and collected while Kyle’s ready for the situation to go south any second.

The partner finds the smuggled goods and Kyle checks out a barrel. He’s surprised it’s maple syrup and demands to know where the drugs are hidden. Even his partner’s surprised by that question. The smugglers in this area smuggle syrup from Canada, not drugs. They’re just trying to avoid paying the tariff.

Kyle’s partner asks the smuggler if he wants to pay the fine now or follow them in. Kyle has absolutely no idea what this new job involves, but never thought it’d be about busting syrup smugglers.

Kyle yells at his partner for not warning him, and his partner explains the drugs leave the States, not the other way around.

Stevie and Ian speak with Miriam, informing her that her mugger has been taken into custody a few blocks away. He’ll be charged with armed robbery, but Miriam says he never displayed a weapon. It doesn’t matter because he had a knife when he was arrested.

They bring him to Miriam’s location and he’s a bloody mess now. She’s shocked and Ian claims it’s because he resisted arrest. Miriam refuses to press charges and wants her attacker let go. She also doesn’t want Ian or Stevie to tell Mike what happened.

Iris is at the safe house when she hears the agents discussing Milo. She had no clue Milo hasn’t been accounted for; Mike didn’t tell her. Iris doesn’t believe they can protect her (three Feds died the last time they tried), and demands to be allowed to go for a walk by herself.

It’s nearly 10pm when Mike finally makes it into his old office. Rebecca’s still there and he sends her home. Iris walks in and asks if it’s true Milo escaped. Mike doesn’t know, but his heart tells him it is.

• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 2 “Staring at the Devil” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 3 “Five at Five” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 4 “The Pool” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 5 “Kill Box” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 6 “Left with the Nose” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 7 “Drones” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 8 “Santa Jesus” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 9 “Peace in the Valley” Recap
• Mayor of Kingstown Season 2 Episode 10 “Little Green Ant” Recap

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We’re sending positive thoughts Jeremy Renner’s way as he continues to recover from his horrible accident. Renner suffered blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries on January 1, 2023 after being run over by his snowplow. He’s doing well and is making progress, but still has a long road to recovery.