TV TUESDAYS: BANSHEE (CINEMAX)

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For a show that has a very interesting set up (and from the creator of True Blood), a notorious ex-convict taking up the identity of a murdered sheriff in the town of Banshee, Pennsylvania which oddly is split between the people of normal society and the Amish, I was bored out of my mind up until twenty three minutes into the show. The whole beginning was flat in storyline, like Anthony Starr plays a convict who just leaves jail, steals a car, goes to a bar, screws a waitress, goes to a ‘friend’s’ salon (Job, played by Hoon Lee) and asks about something convict like, so you can see Job has been a helpful buddy in his past and then goes into town to have a guy chasing him and shooting at him like he was Jason Bourne. It was a very intense, fiery scene full of car accidents and collisions but to me it was wasted time over questions I wanted to know like who is this guy and what is his purpose?

It’s only after the bar scene where there is a few killings that Anthony Starr loses his past and picks up the present as he picks up the new dead sheriff Lucas Hood’s phone and pretends he is him. From then on things get interesting, he runs into a past lover/partner in crime Carrie Hopewell (played by Ivana Milicevic) who is married with two children, but with very steamy and sexual flashbacks you can see the love for him still lingers in her. With those flashbacks we learn about Rabbit, someone Carrie and Lucas were both afraid of as cons, and still afraid of now even though Lucas is out of jail, which means he has a debt to be paid to Rabbit and trying to keep his life under the radar as much as possible.

Another interesting character that ties the Banshee, PA Amish society with average society is Kai Proctor (played by Ulrich Thomsen). He plays a lucrative businessman and local crime lord who has a violent streak in him, especially when people talk about the ‘Dutchies’ aka Amish people since he was once apart of the Amish community of Banshee. Very interesting connection and this kept me intrigued about him and the society as well. Even though he is a vicious man I can’t help but to wonder how he went from Amish boy to Banshee’s crime guy.

So cinematically I was concentrating more on the storyline than the camera and symbols of the show because the subtext was layered into the show and I really had to pay attention to understand the nature of the show but once Lucas picks up that sheriff star the world he was living in started to develop around him and that caught my attention.

 I have to say though to have a crime drama set in Amish country is very interesting and new so I think that’s the thread that is holding me on. Also, the cast is new they aren’t big names and for it being on Cinemax they have the ability to do what they want and with the violence, sex, crime and drama I think there is some potential here to grow. This show was first aired on Cinemax on January 11^th 2013 and has been renewed for a 10-episode second season for 2014.