Review: Banshee ‘Behold a Pale Rider’ – Welcome To My World

Underneath all the sex and bloodied limbs, Banshee‘s done a solid job establishing a cast of characters struggling to find a new direction. Those new directions come crashing to a halt in ‘Behold a Pale Rider’, arguably the most thrilling episode of Banshee to date – and unsurprisingly  the least violent and naked of the seven episodes thus far. Centered around two hostage situations, ‘Behold a Pale Rider’ piggybacks on the themes of ‘Wicks’, inching towards the season endgame by pushing all of its pieces to the center of the table at the episode’s conclusion.

Up until the final scene, the buildup between Lucas and Ana pays off in satisfying fashion. Lucas can’t believe she would betray him, and though she struggles with the decision, seeing Ana leave him tied up for death is still a powerful moment. It shows the dedication Ana has to the life she has now: she’s willing to send the father of her daughter to death to protect the lies and peaceful life she has now. And that’s why I say it’s fantastic until the final scene, when she goes back to have apology sex with Lucas, knowing he won’t pull the trigger to the gun she has at his head.

Banshee‘s made a big deal about Lucas’s dedication to Ana, keeping her face in his mind for 15 years as he dealt with creepy inmates and butt raping Albinos. But would Lucas embrace a woman who sent him to his death? Even for a guy who walks into hostage situations calmly and imitates dead police officers, sleeping with Ana feels like a bit of a stretch. Even if she felt bad, realizing what she’d done as she drove away, it’s a bit odd that she runs to him – and even more odd that he welcomes her (after some arbitrary ‘struggling’), just hours after she stabbed him with a needle and left him to die. I suppose love is blind, but there’s only so far Lucas’s blindness can go before it kills him.

Elsewhere, the scene near the end between Proctor and Lucas looks to hold a lot of importance as the season moves forward. Essentially, the most powerful person in Banshee (Kai) comes to Lucas and thanks him for losing some key evidence (although with a witness already in the wind, it’s less of a gesture then it sounds). This small favor will certainly have implications with Rabbit heading into Banshee, having seen Lucas on a news clip while steaming over his misfortune in a hotel. When he brings hell into town, Lucas is going to need more than a drunk bartender, a hiding housewife, a a lipstick wearing bad ass to deal with the fury Rabbit is going to enter town with.

However, Kai’s relationship with Lucas may not be so peachy when they try and rip off the casino that Proctor’s knee deep in. The casino story lines have kind of hung in the background for the last few episodes, but its presence becomes crystal clear in the opening, where Job, Sugar, and Lucas sit around the bar, trying to figure out a way to rip it off. It’s not discussed long – except to mention that it will take a miracle to pull off, which suggests that when it does happen, it’s going to go sideways in some fatal fashion.

Despite some weak spots in the final third, ‘Behold a Pale Rider’ isn’t content resting on its laurels before heading into its final three episodes. It does a great job integrating character emotions into a largely superfluous hostage situation at the high school, weaving the dramatics of the self-contained plot with the larger narrative at play, and setting up some intriguing events for the season’s conclusion.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– the framing of the mayor and his marriage is a bit odd: his unsatisfied wife nearly gets sexually assaulted by Lance the All-state point guard.

– the black cop’s wife is pregnant! … which probably means that is going to end badly.

– What will Kai do when he finds out Lucas is banging Rebecca? matter of fact, what happens when everybody finds out about Lucas’s chain of tail in Banshee?

– the robbery spiraling more and more out of control is morbidly hilarious, and parallels Ana’s plan to get rid of Lucas quite well.

– no bloody stumps or broken limbs in this episode, and although there is the obligatory boob shots, the sex scene between Lucas and Ana is handled with surprising levity.

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