Getting the Banshee Back Together One Last Time

I started watching Banshee on a lark.

I happened to be home on January 11, 2013.  I can't remember how the show came onto my radar.  I had read an unkind review of it that at least hinted at the pulp elements I thought I might enjoy.  I had seen the giveaway comic book sent out to promote the show. I had no preconceived notions.  I watched, and was entertained.

Four years and 37 episodes later, that's still the case.  I was always charmed by this batshit crazy show that still managed nuance and heartfelt character work when it mattered. What started as "What will they do this week?" became "I need to tell people what they did this week!".  I wish more people had watched, but cult shows don't tend to last 100 episodes.  I'm damn happy we got 38.

A bit of Key Art from Banshee season 4

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW

The end of Banshee season three stripped away much of what the show had been about, so season four was largely a reintroduction after nearly two years of story time had passed.  Production moved from Charlotte, NC to Pittsburgh, PA and there was no way to disguise the fact that the show just looked different.  I mourned the loss of some of the show's more human characters in this blog post, and though Banshee moved its timeline ahead, Lucas Hood and Carrie Hopewell were still trying to work past the losses of Siobhan Kelly and Gordon Hopewell, to say nothing of their kidnapped colleague Job.  While Lucas and Carrie searched for Job, Brock Lotus finally got to be sheriff, Kai Proctor took over as Banshee's mayor, and the local white supremacist faction consolidated their power while manufacturing drugs for Proctor and his mysterious, powerful allies.

Oh yeah, and a Satanic serial killer decided to set up shop in town and start killing and mutilating young women, leading to the introduction of FBI Special Agent Veronica Dawson, Violent Crimes. That storyline also killed off one of the town's most interesting and dynamic characters, Rebecca Bowman.  This did not make me happy.

Matt Servitto as Brock Lotus and Eliza Dushku as Veronica Dawson

It's easy to bag on the serial killer trope, and it's one of the rare instances when going for something weird didn't really work on Banshee. Every action/cop show does a serial killer eventually, and unfortunately Declan Bode wasn't what the show needed when only eight hours were left to spend with the original cast and their collection of stories.  Dawson certainly worked as a new character in this milieu and Eliza Dushku was game to play this damaged, crack-smoking anti-heroine and possible love interest for Hood, but in a town already rife with Native American terrorists, Amish gangsters, toxic skinheads and corrupt military officials, body-modding Satanists might have been a bridge too far. The serial killer story ultimately worked as a red herring to set up a final episode twist, and it maneuvered the show into one of the best scenes of its run when Hood and Lotus are captured and tied up together, allowing Lotus to finally go full Frank Pembleton on Hood.  I understand the writers wanting to continue to expand the peculiar underground of this wackadoo town, but more time with Kai Proctor, his skinhead minions, and his machinations with higher authorities would have been welcome.  Also, leaving Job, their most purely entertaining character, off the board for a short while, then having him deal with PTSD for most of his screentime, certainly allowed Hoon Lee scenes worthy of his admirable talent, but took some of the alchemy that made Banshee work so well out of the equation.  Lastly, I don't know much about the behind-the-scenes production aspects of the show, but one of the things that made Banshee unique were its action scenes: brutal fights, jarring killshots, labyrinthine chases, and innovative camera-work.  I'm guessing that fight budgets were slashed, leaving most of the impressive action for the final episode.

Ivana Milicevic as Carrie. Burn, Baby, Burn.

But I come to praise Banshee, not bury it. The finale was vintage stuff, featuring a raid on Proctor's drug shipment ending with an exploding big rig (and Lotus with a rocket launcher), a brother vs. brother showdown between Kurt Bunker's reformed skinhead deputy and his brownshirt asshole brother Calvin, and a bloody creek bed brawl four seasons in the making between Hood and bow-tie-wearing killing machine Burton.  Carrie's role as town vigilante, taking down Proctor's agents whenever and wherever she could not only allowed Ivana  Milicevic to use a flamethrower (file under: FUCK YEAH!) but allowed the show's female lead a great deal of agency after she had been wrung out over the three previous seasons. Former manwhore Hood not jumping into bed with Dawson kept Siobhan's death meaningful, Job's revenge on his kidnapper was juicy and appropriate, world-weary Sugar Bates walking away with a fortune honored all the shit that guy had to put up with, and finally seeing Brock Lotus wear that sheriff's star was as dramatically satisfying as anything this show has done.  Ending a show in a fulfilling fashion is tough as hell, and if the show's fourth season was a little slow out of the gate, it was accelerating as it crossed the finish line.

So Banshee has concluded its run, and as a complete story, it's going to pick up new bingewatching viewers as time goes on.  Twin Peaks, a show that influenced the tone and tenor of Banshee, is coming back after 25 years away, and in an age where intellectual property is being redeveloped, rebooted, and reimagined constantly, I firmly believe we'll see the characters and setting of that bugfuck Pennsylvania town again, hopefully played by the same talented actors who gave this show more soul and sweat than I ever would have thought possible on January 11, 2013.

And I'll be watching.

RIP Banshee