Don’t get me wrong. I’m a certified fangirl of just about anything Taylor Sheridan produces for TV and film. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I wanted to add Mayor of Kingstown to my Taylor Sheridan checklist after having already checked off Yellowstone, Tulsa King – the two Yellowstone prequels, just starting Bass Reeves now –  and a couple of his films. I love the characters, the dialogue, the settings, the bleakness and I certainly don’t flinch at the excessive violence.

I only have minor issues with Mayor of Kingstown and that is only because I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life. Granted, plenty of TV series have been filmed in different locations from which they are set – Northern Exposure, Stranger Things, Ozark and the X-Files, just to name a handful. But I’m puzzled as to why they didn’t pretend that Mayor of Kingstown was set in…let’s say Pennsylvania – instead of Michigan. The series is filmed in Kingston Ontario but set in the fictional town of Kingstown Michigan. The aerial shots of the area – which I briefly saw on a 1993 road trip are quite lovely, but sadly, they are not shots of Michigan itself (which has plenty of beauty – and ugliness of its own). I get it – Michigan doesn’t have the same tax incentives for filmmakers that it used to have (I wish it did).

Why set the series in Pennsylvania instead of Michigan? For starters, Pennsylvania is a “Great Lakes” state, like Michigan. Also, Pennsylvania allows the death penalty, and Michigan does not, which raised my eyebrows when the series showed a prison execution in the first episode. Pennsylvania also allows smoking in “some bars,” whereas Michigan has a statewide smoking ban that includes all bars. I understand creative liberties, but damn it, don’t give viewers false ideas about my state!

My only other minor quibble is when Jeremy Renner’s character says that his brother “took a job upstate.” NOBODY in Michigan talks like this. They would say that he “took a job Up North,” or say which exact place it was.

Again, these are only minor quibbles. I can’t wait for season 3 in June!