Critic Reviews

As a drama, Banshee is preposterous. It is ludicrous. It regularly defies laws of both plausibility and physics, and there's usually at least one moment per episode where I have to pause the action because I can't stop laughing at how ridiculous it all is.... And that is why I've come to love it.

Despite the somewhat strained setup, Banshee is a kick: ultraviolent, over-the-top, and wickedly fun. [11 Jan 2013, p.80]

For the most part, the new season (I've seen four of the eight episodes) is excellent. Tropper and company find new contexts for most of the characters to match their altered surroundings. ... But in the middle of this comes a brand new kind of story for the show, and one that made me cringe not with delight at Banshee's latest impressive bit of the old ultraviolence, but with concern that Banshee had become TV's latest drama to prominently feature a serial killer.

It's the characters of Banshee and their labyrinth of relationships that make the show an engrossing, entertaining portrait of a fictional small town.

Its smartness comes shining through despite the claptrap (none worse than the parade of sex scenes, soft-porn variety, whose noisiness is exceeded only by their unconvincingness); its story, littered with intriguingly repellent characters, like Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), local evil tycoon, grows ever more enticing.

A taut, enjoyable second season.

Banshee isn’t reinventing the wheel. But unlike, say, Homeland, which no longer makes much sense as a show given the departure of its finest asset (Damian Lewis), this Cinemax series knows it’s crazy. It delights in its trashiness, its pulpiness.

If you aren’t watching Banshee, I’d say now’s the time to climb aboard. It’s a show that’s just hitting its stride, and that stride averages about 100 miles an hour.

The bottom line is that Banshee is both the same as it ever was and full of new purpose.

Tucked away on Cinemax and by now almost doggedly proud of both its cult status and its utter unpredictability, Banshee remains a pure pleasure machine, at once vulnerable and sturdy, and determined to go out on its own terms, whatever the hell those may be.