Mayor of Kingstown: Season One Blu-ray review

Sep 15, 2022- Permalink

Mayor of Kingstown is the latest Paramount+ project from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and Headstone lead singer and actor Hugh Dillon and, no, the two shows aren’t related. Jeremy Renner plays Mike McLusky, a power broker in a town where incarceration is the biggest industry. Mike’s family has been running the show in the town for years and the series tackles the corruption, inequality and racism that plague the system. The series also stars Dianne Wiest, Hugh Dillon, Tobi Bamtefa, Taylor Handley, Emma Laird, Derek Webster, Hamish Allan-Headley, Pha’rez Lass, Aidan Gillen, Kyle Chandler and Nishi Munshi. Paramount has just released Mayor of Kingstown: Season One on Blu-ray.

The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 2:1 aspect ratio. The show’s story is gritty and dirty and the show has adopted a gritty visual style to reflect it. In lighter scenes, many of the colours in the palette pop. The detail in the image is evident in the facial textures, clothing and locations. Darker scenes still manage to hold their detail as well. There are no encoding issues to report.

On the audio side of things, the show offers an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. Subtitles are available for English SDH. Though the soundtrack is often front-heavy, ambient sounds and action effects occasionally populate your surround speakers. The music is clear and dynamic and dialogue is clear, centred and well prioritized in the mix.

The ten episodes of season one are spread over three blu-ray discs. There is no digital code for the season. Extras include insights into each episodes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a look at the characters, and a collection of the cast’s favourite scenes.

We’ve seen dramatic stories of prison corruption before. Mayor of Kingstown gets its strength from the great cast that has been assembled. If this type of story is your thing, then you’ll want to pick up the Mayor of Kingstown: Season One Blu-ray.