This is the 7th episode, and it still hasn't been made clear just what Mike does for a living. Maybe he really is the Mayor. He seems to have the cops at his beck and call 24/7. He somehow has control of the prison, and he is being paid $2500 a month as a snitch for the FBI, though his handlers are both dead.
His weird, socialist mom teaches revisionist history at two prisons, or maybe more, who knows. The mom is played by that dowdy, homely Dianne Weist, who is only capable of playing dowdy, homely leftists. Taylor obviously wrote her into the screenplay in order to push his own insane social theories. At least he has restrained himself from having the meth cooks fly Confederate flags, though that may still happen. In Yellowstone, he had a meth lab in a trailer on the Rez, flying a Confederate flag, since Taylor thinks that only rednecks cook meth.
In the interest of keeping spoilers to a minimum, this is as far as this review will go.