The best television shows don't just get your attention. They lay their hooks deep inside you and pull real hard. Shows like Cinemax's Banshee make such a deep connection with their audience that they convince you somewhere in the world these characters exist. While the truth about unicorns is they don't exist, Banshee made you believe. The characters may not have been real but the actors who played them put every ounce of sweat and effort into bringing them to life. This wasn't just a television show. It was an experience. Good luck to all the existing shows and future shows in topping this feeling. Before I drink all the whiskey in Arkansas, let's recap the series finale.
Season 4 has carried a few different shades and taken fans in many directions. Like a river with multiple streams, the final season has kicked up some harsh feelings while revealing new ones. Things such as:
*Brock Lotus being sheriff finally but being hampered by Kai Proctor's oversight as Mayor.
*Lucas and Rebecca reconnecting again only to have it end in her brutal death. A murder that kicked up a mystery which seemed to divide the Banshee diehards.
*The Bunker brother madness taking an extra step up with Kurt's affair with Calvin's wife Maggie. The extra juice that brought the rivalry.
*Proctor going into business with Calvin and also the Mexican Cartel.
This finale was flooded with so many painful moments and realizations. So let's break into them.
CARRIE/JOB/BROCK UPEND PROCTOR
The whole time this scene at the airstrip went down, I kept thinking Brock finally got his justice on Proctor. He had been trying for a decade to put this guy away. When he unleashed that RPG, Lotus was blowing up the last chance Kai had at a future.
Carrie finishes what she started. After blowing up Kai's warehouse, she targets the shipment that the Neo Nazis get made for Proctor's deal with the Mexican cartel. The truck opens and she is sitting inside of it, smiling. When Ivana Milicevic smiles, the world can stop and play tricks on you. She's a bad bad woman but it's hard to not admire what she can do with a single look. After some foreplay, Carrie and Job(armed with that machine gun he got from Fat Au back in Episode 301) run away as Brock's missile blows up the truck.
The cartel leader awakens and Proctor takes him down while Burton takes care of the rest of them. However, the damage is done. After the episode started with Calvin Bunker trying to take him down(only to be stopped by a Senator who supposedly oversees all Neo Nazis), the Mexican cartel won't back down. Proctor and Burton know this.
LUCAS/PROCTOR/BURTON
It turns out Declan didn't kill Rebecca Bowman(Lili Simmons). Nope. The Satan loving folks had a schedule they abided by and her death wasn't on it. As I called in week 2, the killer was Burton. Matty Rauch's sidekick was always unnerved by Rebecca's erratic movements. "I See You" could have been translated as I know you are no good. To him, Rebecca was a tornado so when he sits cradled in Proctor's arms after a beating from Lucas and he says "I did it for you", I believed the guy.
How about that fight? Finally. Antony Starr's Lucas Hood and Rauch's Bowtie Guy squared off in a fight that could have been cut out and sold as pay per view on HBO. From the moment Hood stepped towards Proctor in Season 1 and saw a well dressed man step toward him, it was on. Only a matter of time before these two lions got in a cage. It just took a dead Rebecca(which I called Burton being the killer after Episode 402).
After Lucas flings the car carrying Proctor and Burton down a hill, he stomps on Kai's broken leg and throws Rebecca's necklace at his chest. Yeah, that necklace. After Agent Dawson finds out the Satan couple had no play with Rebecca's death, they go to the Proctor estate and find the hidden basement. "Nothing good happens in basements" comes out of Veronica's mouth and it couldn't be more true. Starr's face clinches up as he realizes the killer all along was Burton.
I loved the shot of Burton's bloodied glasses lying in the wrecked car. Lucas goes looking and Burton catches him with the first few shots. After a quick exchange, the two of them are on the ground and Burton has him in a monstrous choke hold. He's been here before. With the Albino and Chayton, but this is different. Burton has a better grip and Hood seems to be fading. Stunt Coordinator Marcus Young once called Lucas a Rocky type like fighter. He can take a licking and keep on ticking. He told Deva that he would come find her when she is off at college, and a promise is a promise.
With that thought, Lucas gets Burton off him. He cracks his arm in two pieces, and gives him a series of vicious head butts. He isn't done. He drags him over to Kai to do the final honors. Lucas and Kai exchange a long look that ends in a nod. Basically, these two are good. Done. Kai saw Rebecca in the lake as Lucas and Burton were fighting, imagining a young woman he let get away. As Burton looks at him with guilty eyes, Kai shows him the last bit of love before snapping his neck like a twig.
The man he looked up to and would do anything for was really the only one to stop Burton. The Proctor trio took a big hit. Remember them at the end of Season 3 bringing the house down on the Black Beards. That seemed like yesterday but here they were. Burton killed Rebecca and Kai finished off Burton. A house that collapsed on itself. Jealousy is a dangerous and deadly thing.
BUNKER BROTHER FACE-OFF
Tom Pelphrey and Chris Coy make it hurt. I've said it all season. Another collision that must end with one man leaving and one man dying. Brothers at birth but adults stricken as grown-ups, the two of them do battle outside Brock's home as Maggie watches. I'll hand it Coy. He made you pity and feel sorry for the isolated Calvin. He gets stripped of his leadership in the Nazi family and then he finds out his brother is sleeping with his wife. All he can do is knock Kurt's teeth out, which he tries.
It's almost as if Kurt tried to resist fighting back. He takes a few healthy shots from his younger brother before tossing him around a couple times. Finally, he lays on top of his troubled sibling and pounds away. When Calvin doesn't resist and threatens to hurt his son and Maggie, Kurt puts him down for good. Cuffs weren't going to work.
{"url":"https://twitter.com/ivanamilicevic/status/733849281866567680","author_name":"ivana milicevic","author_url":"https://twitter.com/ivanamilicevic","html":"&#lt;blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"&#gt;&#lt;p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"&#gt;this, right now is my favorite scene of &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/banshee?src=hash\"&#gt;#banshee&#lt;/a&#gt; season 4. &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/MrChrisCoy\"&#gt;@MrChrisCoy&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/TomPelphrey\"&#gt;@TomPelphrey&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/banshee?src=hash\"&#gt;#banshee&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/ForeverFanshee?src=hash\"&#gt;#ForeverFanshee&#lt;/a&#gt; BRAVO!!! YOU WIN!&#lt;/p&#gt;— ivana milicevic (@ivanamilicevic) &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/ivanamilicevic/status/733849281866567680\"&#gt;May 21, 2016&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;\n&#lt;script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;","width":550,"type":"rich","cache_age":"3153600000","provider_name":"Twitter","provider_url":"https://twitter.com","height":null,"version":"1.0"}
The collapse of Calvin into Kurt's arms is so well played by the two actors. The rage in his face turns to emotional tears and he holds his dying brother in his arms. He gave him countless warnings and it didn't work. Any other show would have shuffled this story line quickly and ended it. Jonathan Tropper gave it life and let it string along on its own terms.
THE TAO OF LUCAS HOOD
Or whoever he is, right? Dawson laid a file on his bed before departing. He may not want to know his original name(or the one Job gave him back in the day) but there it was. Lucas walks away a free man. Where? Who knows? He makes his stops.
He asked Carrie to go with him. While she would love to, the audience knows full well she can't. At least not at the moment. Max is coming to live with her and it wouldn't look good with the courts if she flew out of town a day later. So we get the dramatic sendoff between two of the best characters on television ever. The most romantic couple that never gave in to genre expectations. Lucas leaves without the only person that ever knew him but she can join him later. The entire time I kept thinking, go rebuild the farm. Unicorns may not exist but home insurance sure does.
{"url":"https://twitter.com/antonystarr/status/733855625126510593","author_name":"Antony Starr","author_url":"https://twitter.com/antonystarr","html":"&#lt;blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"&#gt;&#lt;p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"&#gt;Massive thanks to all the fans out there that tuned into banshee and took t he ride.u guys are awesome.See you on the next one...Hood...out.&#lt;/p&#gt;— Antony Starr (@antonystarr) &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/antonystarr/status/733855625126510593\"&#gt;May 21, 2016&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;\n&#lt;script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;","width":550,"type":"rich","cache_age":"3153600000","provider_name":"Twitter","provider_url":"https://twitter.com","height":null,"version":"1.0"}
He said his goodbye to Brock with a knowing nod at the station. Hood was a guy who broke good in order to recover part of his soul. Brock was a man who broke bad to find a way to justice. They needed each other and while they may never like each other, the respect is there. After all, Brock brought him back to the land of the living.
The goodbye with Sugar(Frankie Faison) is the toughest. He was the first face Lucas saw in Banshee. Before he was Lucas, the guy was a released ex-con taking refuge in a bar before hell broke out. When it settled, the two were inseparable friends. Hearing Faison release his final speech about Lucas needing to let go of the past and finally embrace a future that doesn't include demons or guilt could have been a wrap on the show. it wouldn't be complete with Hoon Lee's Job firing off an insult at Banshee, Pennsylvania and handing Sugar his stash of the money. Going to miss his wit and charm.
There wasn't a better idea than having Lucas ride that chopper out of town. The same way he came in. The bike swirling through the streets. Streets as lonesome as they were when he rode in and brought a tornado of trouble with him. Now he starts over, a man torn apart by his past yet thinking about leaving those struggles where they belong.
BSD COLLECTIONS:
*Great touch by panning up from Hood as he walks out of the BSD for the last time and it shows the town emblem.
*Another haunting Methodic Doubt score used in the finale that we haven't heard yet. The way they were able to twist themes and create a beautiful and dare I say methodical(Bing!) piece of work for an action love song is something that will last. You want to make me pause, drop everything, and contemplate the meaning of life? Play the Lucas/Carrie love theme.
*Best line of the night goes to Servitto when he asks Pelphrey an important question. "Your name's really Kurt Bunker, right?"
*The Calvin shutter when he got silenced by the Senator is now Chris Coy's calling card from Banshee. If he does that in public, watch out.
*The look on Matty Rauch right before the end is why he's a great Shakespearean actor. A lot with a little.
*I'll miss Antony Starr's smoldering grimaces inside a fight. The dude never quit.
THE WRAP:
In the end, Hood wasn't the cause for all the problems. The Kinaho Tribe would have still made their move. Kai Proctor's moves still caused a lot of crime and trouble. Maybe even Siobhan goes down in the crossfire. However, Lucas was the stick of dynamite that truly ignited change in Banshee. Something had to give and it was an ex-con aka infiltration specialist who had to push things apart. Thank goodness for that.
I'm just glad Jonathan Tropper pulled this wicked fantasy out of his head, showed it to Greg Yaitanes, called in OC Madsen and Adam Targum, and got Cinemax to film it for four years, 38 episodes, and four different sets of six month shoots that brought the cast together and made them a family.
It's not easy letting go of a beloved television series. It's like losing a best friend that can only come back via memories. Nothing new. Just a look back instead of forward. Banshee taught us one thing. If you are going to do something, make sure it stands out. There's nothing worse than being something others have already seen. Banshee never stopped trying to blow us away and delivered the best series finale I've ever witnessed. Everything that was beautiful about this show's inception was brought back to vivid reality in its wrap-up.
Now, we will all drink a little more than usual and toast a show that will never ever die in our hearts. BUDMO! HEY! One more time! BUDMO! HEY!
