4.8 Requiem It’s fair to say Banshee was not what I expected. There’s something special about discovering a show in its infancy, realising you’re watching something special, and then following it through as it develops and grows and becomes spectacular. I always looked on Banshee with a sort of weird pride, and as it came into its third season and critics everywhere started to acknowledge it as one of television’s best and most exciting shows. But hey, the finale was really good. When all is said and done, with Declan Bode out of the way and the stage set for the titular requiem, I finished the episode with a smile on my face. Only a few television shows have ended in a wholly satisfying way, and even after the huge flaws of this season, Banshee pulled it off in an episode that was far more gentle, emotional and heartfelt than we could have expected. With the exception of Proctor’s inevitable demise, all of our principals seemed to get something akin to a happy ending and as Hood rode off on his bike at the end there’s a great sense that his adventures will continue. But the show was called Banshee and the story of his time in the town had reached a natural endpoint. Part of me wonders if this season would have been better served as a two-part finale special, or even a movie. I respected Tropper saying last year that they simply didn’t have enough plot to do another two ten episode seasons, but having finished the show I don’t think there was even enough plot for the eight episodes we got. Subplots spent this season treading water and the Declan Bode storyline ultimately amounted to a season long red herring; a reveal that I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or angry about. On the one hand Bode didn’t kill Rebecca, which is a relief, on the other hand we had to spend several episodes thinking that he did, and the fact that he wasn’t her killer poses the question of why we spent so much time focussed on the hunt for him. The Bode plot might have worked if it was introduced and resolved in one or two episodes; not dragged out the way it was. Now that we’ve seen the full story, it simply didn’t justify the time that was spent on it and was ultimately too separate from everything else to really get away with being part of the final season. I really appreciate the fact that Banshee didn’t try to go for a grim, tragic or depressing finale. For all its darkness it was never really that kind of show; Banshee set itself as a cut above from the start by merit of a tremendous amount of heart and affection for its characters, and in the end, that was the element that came to the forefront. Heart made Banshee special and heart saw it home. Most of the back half of this episode was just a series of farewells between various characters, and after three years on this wild journey it felt completely earned. Hood and Carrie may not have ended up together, but they parted with one last kiss and a final acknowledgement of how much they mean to each other. Hood found a reason to live in the form of his daughter and in his final fight against Burton it was the thought of her that brought him back from the brink. Sugar got to retire a rich man, Job sauntered off with one final “suck my tit” thrown in the direction of the town he always hated, and Proctor went down in a blaze of glory. I can understand that maybe some people will feel let down by the fact that we didn’t get a final showdown between Hood and Proctor, but at this point engineering a reason for them to fight would have been contrived and done both characters a disservice. Once it became clear that Proctor did not kill Rebecca, there was no reason for that fight to happen, and I appreciate the fact that the show didn’t try to force it. And besides, we’ve had Hood and Proctor fights before; what could we see in another one that we haven’t already seen? In fact, maybe that’s the reality behind so much of what went wrong in Season Four. Season Three was an exercise in holding nothing back, delivering episode after episode of increasing imagination and audacity. It’s a tough act to follow and you have to respect the Banshee creative team for going in a different direction, albeit one that didn’t entirely work. The fact is that after everything we have been given over the run of this show, asking for any more feels churlish. Banshee may not have bowed out at the absolute top of its game, but at least it knew that the time had come to pack it in and gave us an ending worthy of the show that preceded it. I realised I haven’t discussed the Brothers Bunker yet; this is predominantly because I like to pretend that Calvin isn’t a character I have to watch, but at least in the end we got a great fight and a performance from Tom Pelphrey that somehow managed to sell his anguish despite the weakness of the plot that was being resolved. Even mired in a pretty terrible storyline, Bunker remained one of my favourite characters and he emerged from the mess more or less unscathed. Seeing him and Brock sitting down over a cigar at the end and agreeing that sometimes they have to take the badge off to do the right thing was a simple, understated and totally fitting end to both characters. The good guys won, and after four seasons of chaos it was nice to see our heroes breathe for once. So, when all is said and done, what is the legacy of Banshee? It was a show unlike anything else on TV, a show that eschewed pretentions of prestige in favour of glorious pulp storytelling underpinned by great writing, memorable characters and a huge heart. It was a show that seemed to delight in its own existence and even in its uneven early days there was a giddy joy to all it did, a sense of throwing everything at the wall, seeing what stuck, and swiftly moving on from anything that didn’t quite work. It was an approach that paid off in spades and even when it stumbled towards the end it reverted to the core ingredients just in time for the finale, giving us a fitting and wholly satisfying send-off. Read Gabriel’s review of the previous episode, Truths Other Than The Ones You Tell Yourself, here. UK viewers: Banshee season 4 currently airs on Fridays on Sky Atlantic.
