The Pitch
Taylor Sheridan's Paramount+ mob show where Sylvester Stallone plays Dwight "The General" Manfredi, an aging New York wiseguy running a scrappy crew out of Oklahoma. Season three opens with Dwight's operation grown up a little, a new old-money adversary clan called the Dunmires circling, and Samuel L. Jackson arriving as a hitman from Dwight's past. Robert Patrick slides in as a heavy, Kevin Pollak shows up as a federal agent, and Dwight's weird found-family of Tulsa misfits is still orbiting him. If you've seen seasons one and two, you know the shape of it. If you haven't, the show tells you everything you need in about ten minutes.
The Argument For
Stallone is the whole engine, and he's genuinely good here. He plays Manfredi tired, amused, and a little sad in a way that only works because it's him doing it. Jackson walking in and sharing scenes with him is the kind of casting that sells itself; two guys who've been movie stars for forty years mostly just enjoying being in rooms together. Robert Patrick brings menace without trying. The Oklahoma setting still works as a visual gag that pays real dividends, cowboys and mobsters in the same frame. Sheridan's writers' room knows how to end a scene on a line that lands. When the show gets out of its own way and lets Stallone grumble at someone across a desk, it's as watchable as anything on Paramount+.
The Case Against
It's the same show. Season three repeats season two's rhythms with slightly bigger guns. The plotting leans on action beats to cover for a story that isn't really going anywhere new, and when it slows down the dialogue can get speechy. Supporting characters still feel more like job assignments than people. Jackson is great but underused, parachuted in to goose the premiere and then rationed out. If you were cool on seasons one and two, nothing here converts you.
Who This Is Actually For
People who watched Yellowstone, nodded along, and figured they'd try Sheridan's other stuff. Fans of late-period Stallone doing the grizzled charm thing. Anyone who liked the first two seasons and wants more of exactly that. If you need forward motion, surprise, or characters who develop past episode three, you'll bail fast. Closer to Blue Bloods comfort viewing than to The Sopranos.
The Bottom Line
BACKGROUND TV is the honest tier. The craft is competent, the stars are doing real work, and the show never embarrasses itself. It also never surprises you. Scenes end where you expect, the Dunmires function as villains the way villains function on a whiteboard, and the season leans on action set pieces when the script runs out of things to say. There's no sermon problem here; Sheridan's not using Dwight as a megaphone, he's using him as a vehicle for Stallone to be Stallone. That's a legitimate choice. It's just not ambitious. You can fold laundry through it, miss two minutes checking your phone, look back up and still know exactly what's happening. Which is the definition of the tier.