Banshee: Season One (Blu-ray + Digital Copy) (Cinemax)

...there's a new sheriff in town...
Cinemax, my guilty pleasure. I don't know that Cinemax is even trying to veer away from its "skinemax" rep but it IS trying to flirt with a more legitimate identity as a series provider. STRIKE BACK and HUNTED are addictive shows, but they may not be as huge a guilty pleasure as BANSHEE which is, for my money, even more lurid and gratuitously violent.

For most of its debut episode we don't even know the lead character's name. BANSHEE introduces us to a master thief (Antony Starr) who'd just got done serving fifteen years of hard time. But the thief is anything but rehabilitated. Fueled by rage and longing he tracks down his ex-flame and partner-in-crime to a town in Pennsylvania named Banshee. In a bar on the outskirts of town, he witnesses the brutal death of Banshee's incoming sheriff, Lucas Hood. While burying the sheriff, the thief arrives at one of those last-moment epiphanies. He desperately needs to disappear. No one knows what the new sheriff looks like. It's easy...

pop candy for the mind
Prepare to be entertained! This show has everything. Every episode better than the last, you will love this show. I watch shows like Justified, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Game of Thrones. Those shows are great but sometimes the plot filler episodes leave you wanting. Not so with Banshee, every episode brings it! Enjoy and spread the word.

I've wanted this for years...
This show is like the very best of early 90's action flicks all rolled up into one package. Seagal and VanDamme wish they could have been in a show like this! It has kung fu fights, car chases, gun play, snappy dialogue, gratuitous nudity, comedy, drama, and even can be weird at times. I wouldn't have ever imagined Alan Ball being attached to something like this, but with True Blood becoming increasingly worse each season he had to find a new home, and this is a very good one. Each episode is like it's own action movie. The characters are well developed, and the fights are awesomely choreographed. I can't imagine Cinemax sunk a ton of money into the production of this show but what they did invest all shows up on the screen. If you are a fan of 80's and nineties action flicks in the vein of ROADHOUSE, Elmore Leonard stories, or just like a lot of action to numb a bad day at work this show will do that and probably more.

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