Banshee wrapped its eight-episode fourth and final season this past Friday, and after an intense and superb run in season three, the swansong season paled in comparison to both its direct predecessor and the reputation of the show as a whole*. Most of that came from the unnecessary introduction of a serial killer who added almost nothing to the show, stealing valuable screentime from the already established arcs and characters. Perhaps more importantly, it gave Banshee a procedural element that it struggled to know what to do with.
*Obviously, that third season added immensely to the show's overall status, but focusing solely on the first twenty episodes still suggests a level of quality only glimpsed at this year. Season four, no matter what it did, was going to have a near-impossible job of topping last year's output, but that it barely scratched the surface is mind-boggling.
With each scene involving Frederick Weller's Declan Bode, it felt like watching a standard episode of a CBS procedural. Not to say that as a bad thing against those shows and those who like them, but it's not something that Banshee needed; it was a crazy enough show before. A pulp action thriller centered on an ex-con who takes over as sheriff of a small town and has to deal with the Amish gangster that effectively runs it while also attempting to reunite with his former flame and mother of his child as her father, a Ukrainian mobster, hunts both of them. And that's just the very basic premise. It's ludicrous, and only got more preposterous each season passed: Throw in a bunch of Native Americans including one the size of a house, a group of neo-Nazis and other minor characters along the way, like the overweight and mostly immobile Raymond Walton Brantley, and you've got a mixture of madness. It should never, ever have worked. Yet it did, but it teetered on the edge of crazy but genius to crazy and problematic.
Season four crossed that line, and all for no good reason. Because virtually every character on the show is a serial killer, so introducing a character purely for that reason is baffling, particularly in the final season and especially when so many exhilarating and fascinating storylines have been set up over the previous 30 episodes. To name just a few: The war between 'Lucas Hood' and Kai Proctor, the conflict between brothers Calvin and Kurt Bunker, Rebecca Bowman's journey from innocent Amish girl to working high up in her uncle Kai's criminal empire, Job's disappearance at the end of the third season, Hood's backstory and so much more.
Season four added in things like Job's PTSD after 20 months of torture, Carrie Hopewell's one-woman vigilante quest to take down Proctor once and for all, Proctor's deals with the Aryan Brotherhood, Brock's newfound role as Sheriff of Banshee, the murder of Rebecca - yes, that was born out of Bode's inclusion, but had they wished to do that, there would have been other ways to get it done - among other things. Most of these elements were rushed or pushed aside. Hood and Proctor had a bit of a rivalry early in the season when the former sheriff was accused of murdering Rebecca, but that soon subsided. Job's return in the great third episode was considered and smartly handled, but his subsequent PTSD was given a few passing glances before he returned to his normal self (not that I'm complaining about Job being Job again, but it would have been nice to see some more development from Job curling up in a ball on the floor because he can't sleep thinking about the torture to the Job who is the funniest character on television). Hood's backstory was ignored almost completely, save for a short scene in the premiere as he killed his former boss - and one-time saviour - Dalton.
Strange, then, that the creative team thought it necessary to add an extra layer to the story and to feature it so prominently, particularly when it added almost nothing, mostly disregarding much of the arcs the show had built up. Sure, FBI agent Rebecca Dawson came along as a result, and while her opening episodes indicated her as little more than a stock Banshee character (if there is such a thing) - broken yet pretending to be strong with dark secrets in the closet - the show pushed her towards unlocking Hood's psyche which was something that required exploring before the series was out, so I'm prepared to give her something of a free pass**. But again, there are other ways to introduce such a character, and Bode's inclusion left very little time for Dawson to get inside Hood's head to the extent that she should have done.
**Spending as long as the season did establishing her character before moving to the few moments of good stuff wasn't ideal, but without the serial killer plot using up much of the screentime, that would have been far less noticeable.
It seemed to be a trend for Bode's story that the impact it had on other storylines was far more intriguing than the Bode story itself. The aforementioned Dawson; Rebecca's death and subsequent tension between Proctor and... well, everybody, but Hood in particular; Hood's grief from the death of his occasional lover and would-be mother of his second illegitimate child; Brock finding out the hard way that the job he's wanted for years is far less enjoyable than he might have expected. All of it worth exploring, and yet, like the previously and newly established plots elsewhere, it was all relatively sidelined in favour of watching Hood and Dawson and Brock run around Banshee, chasing their tails as they searched for clues on Bode, occasionally intercut with grim shots of sadistic rituals and murders.
And things started well, too. The first three episodes may have introduced a serial killer, but some creative things came out of it all. The flashbacks to Rebecca's life shortly before having her heart cut out were clever ways of filling in the gap after the much-needed time jump and managed to keep Lili Simmons around longer. Hood needing to be brought back to town and resume his search for Job along with that search for Job followed on well from where we left off last season. Proctor losing the plot trying to balance the burden of being mayor while running the criminal underworld and grieving over his niece's death gave Ulrich Thomson more chances to show that he's the best actor on Banshee. Calvin trying to lead the Brotherhood as his deal with Proctor hits frequent snags while Kurt sleeps with his wife and searches for a way to take down his brother provided an exciting new story that hit the right emotional beats for both brothers. Carrie on her mission to take down every criminal in town gave her a good arc after skipping over the fallout from Gordon's death (and made for a nice comparison to her actions after Hood's imprisonment). Such promise, extinguished somewhat by a reliance on tired old clichés involving a devil-worshipping serial killer, attempting to emulate every single show in that very ordinary genre. Banshee even resorted to using an age-old trope in its penultimate hour, showing Hood and Brock seemingly closing in on Bode as he appears to be walking in on them, only to reveal that they were in different locations; that, along with Dawson's line in the finale - "The butler did it? Seriously?" - indicate the problem on display this season.
What's more is that the finale, "Requiem" - which was the first and only truly excellent episode of the season - managed to deliver a satisfying conclusion yet make the fourth season as a whole much worse. The reveal that Burton, not Bode, killed Rebecca, makes that whole arc completely pointless and it's only more frustrating to consider what could and should have been instead. Granted, the impact of the Burton-Proctor final moment after the reveal made it worth it (Burton breaking down in tears on Proctor's lap after a beatdown from Hood was one of many gut-punches from the finale), but it's disappointing that we had to wait so long and suffer through so much mediocrity to get there.
Perhaps the biggest appeal of the show, the action, has been vastly lacking, likely as a result of the rumoured budget cuts. While I appreciate that losing a certain amount of funding forces cutbacks - and given the movie-like nature of Banshee's sequences, they were always going to be first to take the hit - this season has been virtually devoid of action, which, combined with a lacking story, doesn't make for a good mix. "Requiem" delivered almost all of the season's major set-pieces, with Brock taking a rocket launcher to Proctor's drugs, Hood and Burton having a brawl in the mud and the Bunker brothers fighting to the death (on the jarringly calm setting of Brock's overly large garden with the town as a backdrop) all providing glimpses at Banshee's most publicised element***. With the latter two, the emotion behind the fistfights were arguably more important than the battles themselves, and again, both mostly worked; the lack of anything even remotely resembling remorse from Burton in the past slightly limited the impact in the former, while introducing Calvin so late into the show's run at the end of last season and not spending masses of time with him and Kurt meant the latter's angle was a touch underwhelming.
***While the series has grown to embrace more than just blood and bullets, with some excellent character development for every major player, the pulpy, over-the-top violence is still the main reason why most people want to watch the show, and Cinemax market it as such.
Once the action was wrapped up two-thirds of the way through the finale, attention turned to goodbyes for our main cast. Proctor met his end in appropriate fashion, Tommy Gun in hand as the Cartel came for him having lost everything.
For Hood, Job and Sugar - the latter of whom suffered greatly from the move in production from North Carolina to Pittsburgh given his one locale - it was farewell in fitting fashion. Job, after being rescued by his friends using all of the money acquired at last year's Camp Genoa heist, paid his tab and then some, giving Sugar a large retirement fund as a thank you for all he's done. While there's rarely been a moment in four seasons where the two have shared a scene without Job poking fun, Banshee has clearly developed a deep-seated friendship there and so ending this way feels very in character. Hood, meanwhile, got one final piece of advice from Sugar, who said that he needed to not let the past keep him locked up any longer. And so, on the same motorcycle on which he rode in, Hood left Banshee for the final time, an act I doubt he - or most of the audience, including myself - would have anticipated prior to his near-death at the hands of Burton. That's a smart conclusion to his arc, leaving it open enough to interpretation yet wrapping up the story as much as it needed. If people want to contemplate what Hood will get up to in the remainder of his life, then great; if, like me, you're happy knowing that he is - for now - alive somewhere, that's fine too.
So the impressive nature of the finale leaves me disappointed with the remainder of the season, leading me to wonder whether or not Banshee needed more than these final eight episodes to wrap up, certainly if it wanted to do all that it did. Without Bode, eight episodes was almost certainly enough. But it's curious that the minds behind the show - Jonathan Tropper and Greg Yaitanes, along with co-creator David Schickler (the latter of whom hasn't been listed as an Executive Producer since the end of the second season, so his creative involvement at this point would seem to be limited if not non-existent) - decided that the story had run its course midway through planning out the fourth season. Tropper and Yaitanes have frequently said that they envisaged Banshee as a five-year arc, yet here we are with the show saying goodbye at the end of its fourth year. In an article he wrote at Grantland, Tropper suggests that "the story, as it was originally conceived, was over. Whatever we did next came with the risk of dilution to something potentially mediocre." Based on this final season, I'd argue that Tropper entered the very territory he sought to avoid, opting to explore a needless avenue rather than build on the excellent work that had been done in the previous three seasons.
In the end, "Requiem" was an excellent end to a substandard season of one of the best, most underrated shows of recent years. This is not How I Met Your Mother or Dexter, where claims as to the show's problem-filled final season ruins the legacy of the show entirely. Banshee is still a great show regardless of its missteps this year, one that will live long in the memory of those few who tuned in. But it could have been so much better.
All that's left to say is, in the slightly altered words of Job: Banshee, Pennsylvania.
Some other, more random thoughts on the finale:
- We never got to learn Hood's real name, and I'm fine with that. Not knowing his true identity is part of the fun of Banshee, and erasing that would add very little to the series. He's Lucas Hood, even if he's not actually Lucas Hood.
- Dawson knew all along that Hood wasn't who he said he was, which, while nice to consider that this woman who had her own criminal side had little interest in doing anything about this ex-con-turned-Sheriff does seem to indicate that her line earlier in the season, "I'd say you're more criminal than cop," was based on knowledge as opposed to probing speculation, a thought that disappoints me since I had hoped Dawson would work it all out herself.
- The way Banshee used flashes of the past was always very effective, and continued to be so here with brief glimpses of moments between Hood and Carrie/Ana from the past 17 years or so as they said goodbye.
- Deva, who was also a victim of reduced screentime this season, headed for college. Not sure that she'll fit in especially well there, but it's nice to see her attempting to have a normal life, unlike her parents.
What did everyone think of the finale - and the final season as a whole? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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