The cabin in the woods.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Cinemax's artfully pulpy Banshee returned for its fourth and final season, kicking things off with a compelling-yet-clunky opener featuring a two year time jump (complete with a handful of fill-in flashbacks).
Now, it's very possible that the outlier feel/vibe of this final run was inescapable. After all, following the Season 3 finale, and Hood's official resignation as town Sheriff, the series - for all intents and purposes - stopped being the series. At least on a basic premise basis. That of an ex-con posing as a top cop. Without that, we're just left with the characters themselves. Which can be a good thing, because many of these characters are interesting and deep, but it also means that things might feel a bit empty without that core story holding everyone in place.
And so yes, that core is now gone. And everyone's been scattered to the wind. Which means a new core needed to come in and draw everyone back together for one final eight-episode arc. And here it was the brutal and mysterious murder of Rebecca. An act big enough to suck in Hood (who was fond of her), Proctor (her uncle), and Brock (the new Sheriff). And all signs pointing to this being the act of a serial killer (*shrugs*). That doesn't mean that it is, just that the show now has cause to bring in the FBI.
The season premiere, "Something Out of the Bible," was a little frustrating at first. Because of the time jump, honestly. Because the end of Season 3 seemed to suggest that we were about to watch Hood head off and work for Proctor in some capacity. And that still could be the case. We still may get to see that in a flashback. But it wasn't here. I was, however, willing to give the episode a bit of time to explain itself. And it did, for the most part.
After a while, we were given a few looks back as to how Hood wound up in such a disheveled, drunken mountain man state (which let us see both Lili Simmons alive and well as Rebecca and David Harbour's final stand as Dalton). So we got a few crucial puzzle pieces before the end credits rolled. Not all the pieces though, but I'm going to assume those parts are coming.
I will say too that there are elements to a time jump that can work. You do start to get curious as to where everyone landed/wound up. Whether they're in charge of a new fancy police station like Brock or struggling to regain custody of their children like Carrie (who's now couch tripping it with a therapist played by Dexter's Erik King). You know, when she's not violently taking out Proctor's goons in back alleyways after they get sprung from jail. And so there is value to watching all these characters find their way back into one another's lives. It's just that there were certain mechanisms of momentum in play coming out of Season 3 and this final season opener kind of acted like a steep speed bump.
Also, the Kurt Bunker stuff doesn't work as well now given the speed bump. His burning incident is, as of the premiere, two years in the past and, aside from him now sleeping with his brother's wife, there doesn't seem to have been any progress in the story over this whole time. It really does feel like someone hit the pause button on it and just now unfroze everything. So this storyline, along with the possibility of a serial killer hunt (which may turn out to be not a serial killer in the end, mind you) sort of worked to sputter and stall this premiere a bit.
The Verdict
"Something Out of the Bible" felt like a drab season opener when compared to premieres of the past. Granted, there was a time jump involved and most of the characters were still emotionally reeling from the events of Season 3 (or events that took place soon afterward), so everything had a maudlin feel. It isn't long though before you start remembering how much you enjoy these characters. And that, despite being given a cliched trial killer story as the show's new spine, you're still invested in them.
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