Banshee - S4E1 - Something Out of the Bible

This review will contain spoilers for the 4th season premiere of Banshee, ‘Something Out of the Bible.’

Banshee has gone all Twin Peaks on us in its final season as it seems the 8-episode run will mainly focus on the murder of Rebecca Bowman (Lili Simmons).

You read that correctly. Rebecca is dead; brutally murdered and left naked in a field. While investigating the area close to where her body was found, Brock (Matt Servitto), Banshee’s new sheriff, finds Hood (Antony Starr) looking like a Duck Dynasty reject. It’s been 18 months since anyone has seen Hood, and him living in a cabin on Proctor’s (Ulrich Thomsen) land and near the scene of the crime makes him a suspect for a hot minute, but the police aren’t ready to rule out a serial killer who has already killed twice before.

The rest of the episode plays out with present-day movement in Rebecca’s case, and flashbacks to the months leading up to the murder. Carrie (Ivana Milicevic) is in therapy to work on anger management issues in order to regain custody of her children, who are now living with her in-laws. When not talking about her feelings, she’s renovating her new home and taking to dark alleys to beat up Banshee’s unsavory element. That’s right. Carrie is now Batman.

Guilt and other demons kept Hood company after Gordon’s death and Job’s (Hoon Lee) abduction, but it was Rebecca who literally pulled him back from the brink and convinced him take the barrel of his gun out of his mouth and live in her uncle’s cabin. It’s not clear how close they got during those months, but her murder is more than enough to draw Hood out of fake cop/hermit retirement.

Back in town, he learns the Banshee PD got the come up in a fancy new building and Proctor is now the mayor. Having no faith in the Banshee police, and knowing his and Hood’s methods of getting things done is typically frown upon by law enforcement, Proctor secretly enlists Hood with finding out who killed his niece.

Despite being an elected official, Proctor still has hands in all kinds of illegal activity with connections to the Aryans led by Officer Kurt Bunker’s (Tom Pelphrey) brother, Calvin (Chris Coy). Calvin has an office job, but between fantasizing about brutally killing his boss and actually brutally killing a rival (in a totally gross, hard-to-watch scene involving a head in a vice), something tells me it won’t last long. That guy’s a racist dick, is what I’m trying to say. But Kurt is having sex with Calvin’s wife behind his brother’s back so…. yah? Also, karma.

The other season’s mystery is: Where the hell is Job? Hood, Carrie, and Sugar (Frankie Faison) exhausted all avenues trying to find him before Hood eventually called it quits. Sugar clearly feels as though they stopped too soon. That plus Hood’s disappearance makes for a somewhat frosty reunion between the two. Considering Lee and the character are such fan favorites, I can’t see this mystery remaining one for too long - at least not to the audience - and we only have seven more sexually graphic, extremely violent, and wonderfully over-the-top episodes left.

Who’s New?

In addition to the expansion of Calvin’s role and the introduction to his family, there’s a new officer in the department, Deputy Nina Cruz (Ana Ayora) and she reminds Hood of Siobhan. She also seems to fit right in because she’s not above torturing a suspect while he lies in a hospital bed.

What’s The Same?

Burton is still creepy as fuck.

Who Killed Rebecca?

The too obvious answer would be her uncle, Proctor. But his breakdown and destruction of her bedroom in the mayor’s mansion felt more like real grief and not murderous guilt. We do know that shortly before she met her fate, Rebecca sat in Hood’s driveway, watching him for afar, but changed her mind about seeing him and drove away. Something about the way she looked at him makes me wonder if their relationship had changed during that 18-month time span. Also, the wounds to her abdomen and chest could suggest an unwanted pregnancy were her killer’s motives. Curious to learn how the prior two victims were killed and found.

What did you think of the premiere? Leave your thoughts below or on our Facebook post for this review and we’ll read them on the Banshee podcast.