Mayor Of Kingstown Season 2 Takes a Page Out of Game of Thrones Playbook
What Milo Sunter from Mayor of Kingstown has in common with Petyr Baelish from Game of Thrones?
Well, to start with, they are played by the same actor, Aidan Gillen. They also both are villains, and to an extent their villainy is similar – they are both the mastermind sort.
But while Petyr prefers to do his scheming in person, and his key tool is maintaining a reputation of a harmless, useful man, Milo works through intermediaries, simply because he has to control his criminal operation from prison (at least until escaping in Season 1 finale), and remains infamous for his ruthlessness – he was the only person with whom Mike refused to work in Season 1.
But as Mayor of Kingston proceeded through its Season 2, more similarities between these characters has emerged, as Milo apparently had taken a page from Littlefinger's handbook.
Petyr Baelish incited chaos across Westeros in hopes of fishing in troubling waters, while trying to keep his involvement hidden whenever possible, and position himself out of harm's way when his role became obvious enough to paint a target on his back, as when he relocated from King's Landing to the Vale.
And similarly, Milo Sunter after his prison break does not openly move to take control of Kingstown's gangs and does not assert his position as a leader.
Rather, he strives to keep his activities hidden from all the factions and Kingstown's officials equally, establishing a hidden lair and trying to manipulate events to his advantage.
This is a good thing, as Milo shapes to be the biggest villain in Mayor of Kingstown, and while Season 1 established his viciousness and cruelty well enough, a character in this position also needs to be appropriately crafty. Now the script gives him a good chance to establish his credentials as an evil mastermind, who is dangerous not merely because he has no moral scruples, but also because he's intelligent and coldly calculating.
And thanks to Game of Thrones we can be sure that Aidan Gillen can do well portraying such a character – sure, there were complaints that Littlefinger in the TV series, particularly in its later seasons, did not actually come as all that clever, but people largely agreed that these problems were caused by the plot, not by Gillen's performance.