TELEVISON REVIEW: FTN reviews Banshee S2E01 “Little Fish”

Find out what we thought of the second season premier!

This a review of the SECOND SEASON of Banshee. If you have not seen it read no further, go watch season one, the spoilers in this article are huge!

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Banshee returned to our screens last night with not so much a bang as “Who’s going to clean this mess up?” The episode “Little Fish” takes place a very short time after the events of last season, Hood (Antony Starr ) is still recovering from his many wounds, hallucinating about Mr. Rabbit regularly, seeing his face over that of people speaking to him and nearly shooting them in one case.

In fact everyone is still limping about, for some the damage seems to be  permanent, particularly the damage done to the relationship between Anastasia/Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Miličević ) and her husband Gordon (Rus Blackwell ) and their children.

Now there a few things here that won’t make sense unless you watched the Origins webisodes so I’ll link the two major ones in appropriate places.

We are treated to a neat  recap and tying up loose ends session as an Agent Racine (Zeljko Ivanek – The Bourne Legacy) of the FBI hauls everyone in for a federal hearing on the incident. He swiftly dispenses judgement, puts the entire sheriffs department on probation and informs Mrs. Hopewell as she was a civilian she falls under the remit of the local D.A. ‘s office – her husband being the D.A. You would think that would be sorted pretty fast but instead he recuses himself and lets his assistant go after her. Agent Racine of course offers to make it go away if she would inform on her fathers whereabouts.

Bit of nerd niggle with that for me, as the last time she saw her father she shot him in the chest and neck, he’s not likely to be sending her updates on his address now is he?

They didn’t recover a body so everyone believes Mr Rabbit (Ben Cross) is still alive, we are treated to a cut scene where he’s lying on the forest floor, apparently dead, a squirrel runs up on his hand, he springs to life with a roar and it cuts away leaving us with the impression he was going to eat the squirrel raw. Frankly this looked like it belonged in Sleepy Hollow more than Banshee and it’s unclear if it’s another of Hood’s hallucinations or not.

If you notice the pause when Racine looks at Hood it’s because he knows Hood’s a crook: (Banshee Season 2: Origins – Interrogation)

FBI Agent Xavier thinks everyone is getting off too lightly and challenges Racines decisions, Racine informs him in no uncertain terms that nobody really gives a damn what he thinks, and he can either take a reassignment or the blame for the whole affair. This scene made me a little too happy, the Xavier character had really irritated me the whole way through.

They finally rob the armoured car from the Indian Casino, something they spent so long planning in season one, I’d given up on it actually happening: (Banshee Season 2: Episode 1 Clip – Truck Heist – Caution, contains strong language.)

Just as they think they’re in the clear a mysterious biker, armed to the teeth comes in and forces them off the road. Sugar comes to the rescue and Hood manages to grab a single bag, later revealed to contain slightly over a $100,000 during his escape. The shooter is revealed to be Nola (Odette Annabel), sister of Indian casino manager Alex Longshadow (Anthony Ruivivar).

This looks to be a pretty low reward for the amount of effort put in and risk taken but it seems to be part of a greater plan to weaken her brother’s, position with the Indian council, he is already on shaky ground with them following Proctors demolition of the hotel he was building. His sister seems to have an eye on his position and is revealed to be “having relations” with Hood at the end of the episode.

We only had a brief glimpse of Proctor in this episode so we can’t be sure what he’s up to but I’ve a feeling we’ll see the war between Proctor and the Indians become the main focus of the show with Mr. Rabbit being a bogeyman for everyone.

Agent Racine is an unknown element, he’s been chasing Mr. Rabbit for years and is determined to catch him by any means necessary before his cancers (yes plural) consume him.

We get to see him harassing Mr. Rabbits Eastern Orthodox priest brother yet again, though if you haven’t seen the first time in this webisode, his protest about the continued visits may seem odd: (Banshee Season 2: Origins – The Priest)

That webisode is particularly important as it reveals some history to Anastasia’s mother and really should have been in the actual episode.

It was an exposition heavy episode, but the rapid fire nature of Racine’s deposition alongside the robbery scene kept things chugging along nicely. This season looks to be more cerebral than the previous season though they are still overly fond of the sex scenes.

With this episode the second season is off to a very interesting start, if they can cut down on the sex in favour of plot and the awesome fighting they should have another massive season.