Jeremy Renner And Edie Falco Tee Up Mayor Of Kingstown Season 4 Power Struggles And The 'Life Or Death' Reasons Behind Them

Since "Mayor of Kingstown" Season 1, Mike McLusky has bent the Kingstown penal system to his will for reasons politically and personally expedient. In the Paramount+ drama's upcoming Season 4, however? This time, it's personal.

Mike's younger brother, Kyle, is an inmate at Anchor Bay prison this season, following his conviction for killing Robert in the Season 3 finale. As a cop, Kyle is in a special type of danger once he enters the gates and puts on the inmate scrubs, and no one knows that better than his big brother.

So the moves Mike makes this season, series star and executive producer Jeremy Renner says, are "not about having the power. It's about his brother being — as a cop, being in prison already is a giant problem. So to have any headwind whatsoever to not be able to help him, the helplessness, I think, is much more of the [impetus]."

Given the danger in which Kyle immediately finds himself when his sentence begins, all other factors — and there are many; it's not like the power vacuum left by the Russians hasn't thrown the whole town into chaos — pale in comparison, Renner adds. "It's not even about ego-bruising. It's like, this is a life-and-death sort of situation," he says. "He's quite desperate to be able to protect him."

Complicating matters: After the murder of Warden Kareem Moore, the correctional facility has a new boss who's an unknown quantity at the start of the season. Warden Nina Hobbs, played by "The Sopranos" and "Nurse Jackie" alum Edie Falco, arrives to fill Moore's spot and quickly makes it clear that she is highly disinterested in being Mike's buddy.

Despite the chilly welcome, "I think she's pretty solid," Falco tells TVLine. That said, "She hadn't anticipated that she would face the headwinds that she did, or that she would feel vulnerable to them. She learns pretty early on that this may not be the walk in the park that she had hoped it would be."

Still, make no mistake: This woman doesn't play. "It takes a lot to shake her confidence," Falco says. "She's had to face all kinds of stuff as a woman in a typically man's job, in a man's world.

"She still sees herself as ultimately the victor," she adds, "but she's gonna have to work a little harder for it this time."

In the video above, I also sit down with executive producer/star Hugh Dillon about the pickle in which Ian finds himself at the start of Season 4 ("He has a terrible relationship with accountability," he says, laughing), and new series regular Laura Benanti ("Younger") about playing newbie corrections officer Cindy ("What she ends up becoming a part of is not what she thought would happen," she teases).

"Mayor of Kingstown" returns Sunday on Paramount+. Until then, press PLAY on the video at the top of the post to hear Renner, Falco, Benanti and Dillon talk about the mess their characters have gotten themselves into this season.