‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Kills Off Hated Character in Season 4 Finale

Mayor of Kingstown just killed off a truly hated character in Sunday’s Season 4 finale of the Paramount+ hit.

While Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) had plenty of his own reasons to kill Merle Callahan (Richard Brake) by the end of the season, it was actually his brother, Kyle McLusky (Taylor Handley), who pulled the trigger, despite Mike’s attempts to keep him safe while he was locked up in prison.

After a season of resisting Callahan’s attempts to lure him over to the Aryans while in Anchor Bay, Kyle was bereft to learn that Callahan had gotten his revenge by killing his wife, Tracy (Nishi Munshi), upon his escape from behind bars.

Having murdered Tracy, Callahan turns himself in to the local police, thinking it will keep him safe from the vengeance-seeking Mike, Kyle and Det. Ian Ferguson (Hugh Dillon), but what he didn’t expect was Captain Walter (Rob Kirkland) having the realization that Callahan will never truly be punished in prison.

“An evil man can never go right,” he muses before telling Ian to take Callahan out the back, knowing he wants him dead.

Ian then drives Callahan to a showdown with the McLusky brothers at the railroad tracks, with Mike allowing Kyle to be the one to pull the trigger and kill him. “It’s over,” Mike tells Kyle, who breaks down in his brother’s arms. “You got him.”

Renner told Entertainment Weekly that it was important for Mike to allow his brother to be the one who killed Callahan, explaining, “That’s one way to sort of… not really protect, but help forge a path for healing because of what [Callahan] did. There was no other pathway.”

“The beautiful end of it all is at least they [Mike and Kyle] have each other,” the actor added of the tender moment between the brothers at the end of the episode. “That was something I really had to fight for [at] the end of this show. It was very, very, very important to at least give the audience that. Give them something good.”

He continued, “The beautiful part for us is the release of that toxic character and then the two brothers falling into each other — and at least they have each other through it all. So that’s some kind of hope, right?”

Mayor of Kingstown is streaming now on Paramount+.