1.7 Behold a Pale Rider On reflection, even knowing the little we do about him, it would have been foolish to assume that Mr. Rabbit would want to wait a second longer to get his hands on Hood for what he sees as the stealing away of his daughter. As he looks out through the rain-battered windows of the plush suite he shares only with his concubine, Rabbit looks like the tyrannical emperor, finally preparing to claim his prize during this week’s opening scene. Throughout this episode, actor Ben Cross gets a chance to show us a little more of this chess playing overlord than we’ve glimpsed so far. Banshee drops a few hints as to its two lead characters’ states of mind during the ever-changing title sequence. It might have been a tad unnecessary to display Anthony Starr and Ivana Milicevic’s names alongside a picture of a moth and a flame respectively but it’s a nice touch. Like the identity of who will get each weeks post-credits scene, trying to work out what the show is foreshadowing each week with the changing images of the opening titles has become a highlight of watching Banshee. It’s another quiet week for Kai Proctor. He is visited by his brother in law, Rebecca Bowman’s father with a plea that he talk to his wayward daughter. It’s a small scene but builds upon the struggle that Proctor has with his family. He dismisses a clearly put out Clay Burton while he has the conversation. Rebecca’s father tells him they don’t want to lose Rebecca the way they lost Kai. Given what we’ve seen of Rebecca’s behaviour, they can’t have a full idea of what she’s been up to. As the opening titles sequence predicted, Hood goes to Ana when she calls like a moth to a flame, despite Job’s protests. The way Hood goes so eagerly shows us his incapability for rationality when it comes to Ana, but hey, haven’t we all been there? Fortunately, few of us probably ended up with a neck full of go to sleep juice for our lack of haste. Banshee really didn’t waste any time in moving this storyline along. Immediately you’re thinking that this is exactly the kind of situation that requires Lucas Hood. Unfortunately, he’s tied to a motel bed, awaiting all kinds of unpleasantness. Ana is honest with Hood as to why he’s there – to protect her family. Hood never betrayed her while he was in prison (although he didn’t know where she was) and she is confident he won’t do so now. The school siege is the first time we’ve seen the Banshee Sheriff’s Department gathered together since the rave in episode two. Then, all of them were slightly wary of Hood’s method of wading in, and it’s interesting to see how times have changed. Yawners wants to take a more Hood-like approach, while Deputy Brock Lotus sees this as his opportunity to take command of the department he was due to inherit. Back in episodes one and two of Banshee, the tension between Lucas Hood and Brock Lotus was one of the show’s best elements. Since then we’ve only seen odd glimpses of the animosity between the two but it’s always been there, bubbling away in the background. Here Lotus seems to be the only one who believes that they don’t need Hood. Meanwhile Mr. Rabbit is slowly closing in on his prize. En route to exact whatever unpleasantness he has in store for Lucas Hood, Rabbit delivers a cold monologue to his henchmen about how he avenged his father’s death. The recounting of how he took this man’s life and bottle of wine he was carrying verges on Hannibal Lecter territory and is expertly delivered by Ben Cross. If Kai Proctor is Banshee’s Darth Vader then Rabbit easily fills the role of Emperor Palpatine. Presumably so he didn’t get bored waiting for certain death, Ana’s left the motel room TV on for Lucas Hood. As if he wasn’t desperate to get out of his predicament enough, watching the televised report of Banshee’s latest disturbance strengthens his resolve. The moments where Rabbit and his entourage arrive at the motel were some of the tensest that Banshee has produced so far. Thanks to Job, Lucas Hood has slipped through the fingers of Mr. Rabbit for now, but he’s walking into the pressure cooker environment of the Banshee school siege. The robbers causing all this bother aren’t exactly cut from the same mould as Die Hard’s Hans Gruber. This is strictly amateur hour, and this makes them all the more dangerous. Doug Kruse and Kevin Gage make for a great double act as the panicking brothers. After the bikers, Wicks and now Nathan and Lance Mangan, Banshee may sometimes feel like it’s moving into a ‘villain of the week’ type set up, but it’s good at choosing its guest stars. Whereas at the rave, Hood waded in all guns blazing and we’re expecting him to do the same here, he takes a slightly more diplomatic approach, entering the school unarmed. While we’ve seen Hood’s methods rubbing off on some of his co-workers, this is perhaps a measure of how Lucas has changed too since his arrival in town, and his affection for the place, as well as Ana. For a while at least anyway, as pretty soon Nathan Mangan has a gutful of his own bullets. Lance Mangan has fled into the depths of Banshee high school, and guess who he now has as a hostage. Seriously, Deva Hopewell gets herself into more scrapes than Kim Bauer! There’s an interesting moment in the ensuing stand off between Lance and Hood. Deva seems to sense to move at the correct moment for Hood to place a bullet in Mangan’s head. This could be coincidence, or is Banshee furthering the feeling of a deeper connection between Hood and Deva, one of the paternal variety? There is of course one rather major drawback to saving the day and having your mug plastered all over national television when there’s a very angry New York mobster after you. Banshee never followed up on the YouTube style footage of the Sanchez Vs. Hood fight that surfaced at the end of episode three, perhaps because it was foreshadowing this twist. Rabbit now knows where Hood is, and Ana. After the events of the rave, the biker invasion and now this school based skirmish, you begin to wonder if Banshee might be the unluckiest town in North America. Rather cleverly, these thoughts are voiced by Kai Proctor to Lucas Hood, as if Hood is a bad luck charm who has brought these things upon the town since his arrival. It’s a nice sequence which shows that Hood and Proctor are currently in a ‘you don’t f**k with me, I won’t with you’ holding pattern, but also one which shows just how smart, once again, the Banshee writers, Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler are. They have pre-empted what their audience will be thinking and voiced it through the show. It’s things like this that make Banshee a programme that really connects with the viewer. The finale of this episode is Anthony Starr’s rawest scene as Lucas Hood to date. When he happens upon Ana in his room, he almost breaks down completely, he’s actually trembling. Although it is so much fun watching Starr do Hood as the comic book anti-hero, dealing out beatings left, right and centre, it’s when we see the less confident side of Hood that Starr shows his power in the role, and here we see that Ana has complete power over this man. The music in this scene is perfect. Lilting, creeping, reflecting the final barriers between Ana and Lucas crumbling. There’s an understandable lack of trust between the two which comes over well in their unusual restraint during this sex scene and it all combines to make a wonderfully touching sequence. The end credits song rings out with the line “Nothing keeps you away from the one you really love”. It echoes this moment of happiness for two people for whom it has been in short supply, no matter what they may have told themselves. It’s a fantastic rise in the flow of Banshee’s narrative and one which leads us to believe that, as Mr. Rabbit’s associate arrives in Banshee, it may be the last happy moment for Hood and Ana. It’s the high point that the rollercoaster ascends to, before it comes crashing and thundering back down the other side of the track, shaking everyone aboard. Read James’ review of the previous episode, Wicks, here.
