‘Tulsa King’s Martin Starr Breaks Down Bodhi’s Heartbreaking Backstory Revelation

Amanda BellFri, October 23, 2026 at 4:34 PM UTC

0

Martin Starr as Bodhi in Tulsa King, episode 2, season 4, streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Steve Swisher/Paramount+ - Steve Swisher / Paramount+

The latest episode of Tulsa King delivered a truly gut-wrenching revelation about one of its original characters. Warning: Spoilers for Tulsa King Season 4 Episode 2, “Blind Rooster,” ahead!

Following the death of Margaret Devereaux (Dana Delany) — along with Cal Thresher (Neal McDonough) and others on their flight — Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) was stone-faced and unable to address his feelings over the loss in Friday’s (October 23) new episode… until Bodhi (Martin Starr) spoke up about his own experience with tragedy and severe grief.

The revelation came after Dwight took a rather cruel swipe at Bodhi in a team meeting — after Bodhi suggested he take time before getting back to business, Dwight replied, “Why are you even here?!”

Bodhi was unfettered by the insult, though, and got to work devising a new scheme that could help make up for the losses the family was facing with the new governor, Amanda Clark (Gretchen Mol), siccing absolutely all of her dogs on Dwight and shuttering his business one by one. After discovering that the expensive wine Dwight ordered from the Italian restaurant owner was fake, he had an idea to capitalize on it.

However, what he really wanted to talk about with Dwight first was the exact reason he sympathized with him in this very vulnerable moment.

“Are you ever going to say Margaret’s name?” Bodhi asked his boss.

“What’s the point of talking about something that’s like the worst thing that ever happened in your life?” Dwight countered.

“You’re holding onto a time bomb, and if you don’t release it, it will explode,” Bodhi warned. “Right now you’re just numb, going through the motions.”

“That’s survival,” Dwight then said.

“That’s surrender,” Bodhi countered.

After Dwight said that he didn’t understand his pain, Bodhi explained that he, in fact, did know it. He then revealed that he had a wife and daughter who were both killed in a car accident.

“I was in denial — refused to grieve, angry at the world. Just like that blind rooster that screams into the darkness until I realized that if I didn’t let it out, that grief would kill me,” Bodhi explained.

By the end of the episode, Bodhi’s words had landed with Dwight, and, in a chapel, he finally listened to the last voicemail message he’d ever get from Margaret.

Bodhi has always been a quietly deep character, but this conversation was next-level for these two. To discuss this very tender exchange and more, TV Insider caught up with Martin Starr.

I wanted to start with the backstory. When you were creating this character for the first three seasons, did you have any idea that that was something they were going to do? Did you imagine him having that tragedy in his past before?

Martin Starr: We had, I think, briefly talked about it. I don’t know if it ever actually came up in the writing, but we had kind of hinted at this earlier on. But I didn’t really know that it would ever come up like this. I think it gave an opportunity, with the tragedy that Dwight is going through, to try and give them a new avenue for connection.

Related

'Tulsa King': Neal McDonough Reacts to Deadly Season 4 Premiere Twist (Exclusive)

That’s one of the more difficult parts of television, is finding those contradictory aspects of the character that develop as you go along, because the longer it goes, the more opportunity there is to reveal things, and you never really know quite where the writing will take you. So it’s interesting to have to find new depths or complexities that maybe don’t seem to, or are counterintuitive to, the way that the character was played or shown earlier in the show.

It’s not just the story itself, but the way he delivered it. Bodhi was unusually persistent with Dwight, and in a vulnerable moment, usually he’d kind of back away. But he was like, “You’re going to hear this story because you need to.” I felt like that was a really interesting development for the character, too.

Advertisement

Yeah, I think those two characters have grown stronger for each other. Dwight’s obviously very capable in business, but he’s getting to learn from whatever business acumen Bodhi has, and vice versa. I think Bodhi’s coming into his own, confidence-wise, to kind of take what he needs from life.

We also see Dwight during a team meeting say, “Well, why are you here?” And it seemed like maybe that was like a slap in the face for him. Do you think that was? Because he had initially stopped doing the ecstasy trade with Tyson, but then he went for this wine scam. So, do you think it was because of what Dwight said that he just felt like he needed a kick in the pants or something?

Yeah, I mean, I think, like a good coach, Dwight finds his times to instill some drive in his team. So he gets the job done. We know that.

As an actor, is it fun for you to get into all these different schemes? It seems like every season you guys get to start something new.

Yeah, definitely. Every year is a new exploration, and it feels like we get a new [adventure]. I mean, Season 5, we’ve already started getting the scripts for, and I get a new adventure this time around again. It’s fun to get to not only learn new things as a person, but get to explore more things in the story and just take the character on a new ride.

In the beginning of the show, obviously, Bodhi had been forced to be a part of this team. Do you think at this point in the story that he wants it now? That he’s not just doing it because he has to?

I think, yeah, and it happened pretty quickly. I mean, I think there’s many factors keeping him there, but certainly one of them is recognizing the growth that he’s had in business. I mean, clearly there’s a financial aspect to it, but also I think there’s a fear in losing the protection that he has now. Once you enter the mafia, if you leave, you’re now at risk, and I think that’s maybe too big a risk to want to take on unless you can disappear.

Steve Swisher / Paramount+

I’ve spoken to Sly before, for Season 3, and we talked about the team atmosphere and how there is this kind of family bond. So in that scene where he’s at the Bred-2-Buck giving a pep talk, I just wonder, in addition to the character hyping up the other characters, is that also your team leader kind of hyping you guys up at this point?

He loves to give a hype up speech. That guy is very good at them, so I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, I guess it always feels real because you’re still here with this legend, so it hypes everybody up.

And for you, getting that one-to-one scene, that was such a vulnerable exchange. What was it like for you to chew that kind of scene and all that detail with him?

It’s deep. It’s deeper than we’ve gone, really, in our emotional relationship on the show. They teased at the very beginning, part of our relationship evolving into some kind of family, for him to be kind of a father figure to me, and that evolution, the way that that’s actually shaping up, is really interesting. And to get to see these, to get to read these beats, I get really excited to get to explore that with him because he’s such an incredibly capable actor.

I think he’s obviously more well-known for being an action star. But if you go back to Rocky, I mean, Rocky had some pretty deep emotional beats. There’s a reason why it resonated with audiences the way it did and really launched his career because he is very capable. So it’s fun to get to play with him, with something that maybe less of our writing is geared towards. But, obviously, this season is a little bit tougher with what he goes through, losing someone so close to him.

What’s it like for you to play this character who always has an answer, always has a solution, and he’s so multi-talented?

I mean, it’s fun to be the number two is what it feels like. It feels like there’s always this hierarchical battle going on inside the group as to kind of who is there, but I feel like in the way that the family has developed, we have different purposes, and in a business sense, I think Bodhi has always kind of been the second in command when it comes to those big business issues. [Dwight] tends to go to me to try to solve those problems, and obviously, other problems require other people. So there may not be, in an official sense, a second in command, but there are people that he can always rely on for different problems, and that’s kind of ideal that we all serve our individual purpose, and that kind of keeps us all there. It makes the whole machine work. We all serve different functions.

Going back to the Tyson thing, with Bodhi stepping away from the X, with what you were just saying, is it that he doesn’t want to jeopardize his place by participating in this adventure that probably is going to end badly?

I think he’s always a bit uncertain as to how things are going to go, so trepidation is top of top. That’s up here at all times, I think, for Bodhi…  Also, in Season 1, we set ground rules that drugs weren’t going to be a part of our operation, and so beyond it going badly, I also think that Bodhi wants to be a man of his word as best he can, and sometimes that falters, but…

Tulsa King, Fridays, Paramount+

Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”