Taylor Sheridan’s Tulsa King Spinoff May Be the Pulp Fiction Sequel Fans Never Got

Jackson Returns to Gangster Role

In Frisco King, Jackson plays Russell Lee Washington Jr., a veteran gangster and former assassin who met Dwight Manfredi in federal prison. Russell served 10 years, but the reason for his sentence has not been established.

After leaving prison, Russell is described as reformed and no longer working as a contract killer. He takes on the role of a fixer for different parties, marking Jackson’s return to a familiar gangster persona from roles including Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction.

A Link to Jules Winfield

Jules, Jackson’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, is a Los Angeles hitman who reconsiders his life after surviving a robbery. He interprets that survival as divine intervention and walks away from his work as a killer.

Frisco King does not establish that Russell and Jules are the same person. The characters share a rejection of violence, however, and Russell’s past leaves open a connection to Jules’s story. A rumored Tarantino plan for a standalone Jules project never came to fruition.

A New Criminal Empire

Russell becomes the head of a growing criminal empire in East Texas, rather than taking orders from a crime boss as Jules did from Marsellus Wallace. The series’ teaser presents him as charismatic and smooth-talking.

Dwight saved Russell’s life in prison 20 years before Tulsa King’s events. Russell also refused a New York mafia job to kill Dwight in season 3, suggesting the two will remain on good terms and that their operations may not clash.

Premiere Set for December 18

The show is Sheridan’s first series since Lioness season 3 to be written entirely by him. Its early episodes are expected to follow Russell as he settles in, hires associates and turns hustles into businesses.