Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Mayor of Kingstown season 3!

After finally getting his own position of power, Michael Beach teases why Kareem will be turning away from Mike’s plans in Mayor of Kingstown season 3. After serving as an interim warden in season 2 following the prison riot, season 3 picks up with Kareem now properly leading the charge of watching over the prison, though is showing a lot more pushback in going along with Mike’s efforts to keep the peace. Kareem also finds himself battling to determine who is smuggling the tainted drugs into the prison that’s killing his prisoners, as well as how to tame the war breaking out inside the walls.

During a recent interview with Screen Rant for the final few episodes of the season, Michael Beach opened up about Kareem’s arc in Mayor of Kingstown season 3. In discussing why his character frequently refuses to go along with Mike’s plans as the warden, the star explains that Kareem desires to restore the prison system to the “original idea“ of what it was meant to be, even if “there’s no way he’s ever going to win“. See Beach’s thoughtful explanation below:

I think it’s good, because obviously, in the show, there’s not many people that don’t just do whatever Mike says. Everybody, they may argue about it, but then they go, “Okay.” And ultimately, Kareem has known Mike for a long time, since when he was a prisoner, and I think he sees him more in line with what he is, which is a guy who is just making deals, but these deals aren’t really making things better. And Kareem is just trying to go back to how things are supposed to be run, the original idea of what prison and correctional responsibility was supposed to be. And of course, there’s no way he’s ever going to win, but that’s what he’s trying to do.

Because if you notice that in the first season, Kareem, obviously he’s been around, so he’s aware of all the corruption and how the deals are made and all of this stuff, but he kind of kept himself separate from that. Not that he wasn’t for it, and he wasn’t doing anything to prevent it, he just wasn’t getting involved. And his life was much better. He had a great home life, and he was able to contain what was happening in the prison and prevent it from getting inside of him. And then, obviously, with the riot, that just changed everything in his life, and he’s just trying to hold on now. It’s tragic, really. It really is…

I mean, I think even Kareem knows he’s trying to push a million-ton boulder up a mountain, but he’s giving it a shot, and he’s got these forces from all over the place, including Mike, who was obviously one of the strongest forces that is preventing him from doing this.

Yeah, that’s the thing about the show. Obviously, Mike is the central figure and the audience loves Mike, so it doesn’t matter, and of course, Jeremy’s performance is so amazing, that you’re just magnetized by him. So, anybody who’s going against him is considered the bad guy, or “What the hell are you doing? You need Mike. Tell Mike, Mike will fix it. Mike will do this, Mike will do that.” But as far as Kareem is concerned — because, it’s like the idea of “show me the good that he’s doing, show me the lives that he’s saving, because all I see is death and destruction.” There may be people that obviously, audience-wise, are like, “Oh, you like this guy,” or “You like her, so he saved her, and he saved him, but he’s dead, and he’s dead and this guy’s dead and that guy’s dead.” People are dying everywhere, all over the place, and so one of his lines is like, “What lives is he saving?” And I think that’s part of the big, big problem that Kareem is up against.

Kareem Might Have A Target On His Back Going Into The Season 3 Finale

While Beach’s character may have noble intentions for what he is doing as the prison ward, his frequent unwillingness to cooperate with Mike is sure to cause a lot of problems heading into the final episodes of Mayor of Kingstown season 3. It was already shown that a new prison guard that Kareem is taking under his wing is actually working for Bunny as an informant, even having killed the woman responsible for the tainted drugs getting into the prison. Kareem also doesn’t seem to be aware of this, instead distracted by the growing stress of the job.

With Kareem also slowly getting entangled in Mike’s complicated dynamic with Richard Brake’s Callahan, there are a variety of threats that Beach’s character will find himself targeted by in the remainder of Mayor of Kingstown season 3. Callahan is one of the major figures in the growing war within the prison between the Neo-Nazis, known as the ABs, and the Crips. Should this war bubble up into another riot in the same way as the Mayor of Kingstown season 1 finale, Kareem may get an even more brutal treatment than he did the last time.

Another potential foe Kareem could find in the remaining Mayor of Kingstown season 3 episodes is that of Mike himself, should he finally grow tired of the warden not going along with his plans. Though Jeremy Renner’s protagonist has rarely directly attacked anyone beyond the Russian mafia in town, the escalating stakes could find him in a place where he has no other choice but to take Kareem off the chessboard. However, with Kareem eventually caving to Mike for much of the season, he may instead find a way to work with the Mayor to find a solution that still aligns with his desire to correct the system.

The remainder of Mayor of Kingstown season 3 airs weekly Sundays on Paramount+.