TV Equals: "Banshee returns for its third season in a few days and to help with the wait, I thought I’d tell you 6 Things You Can Expect from the new season."
AVClub: Did the man who became Lucas Hood deserve to walk out of Banshee alive? That’s the question I’ve been chewing on in the wake of “Requiem,” an episode that ended with a surprisingly optimistic bent for this oft bleak and brutal show. For an episode named after a funeral dirge and a series that’s named after an Irish spirit whose scream is a portent of death, it’s almost remarkable that Hood would be able to make his way to the end. Sugar even says as much to him as they share their final bourbon, and Hood can’t find a single point of disagreement with that. And yet he does, and our final glimpse of the man is not his broken body but riding out of town, on the very same bike he rode in on.
AVClub: As it’s aged, Banshee has indulged itself in its episode titles in a way that few other shows on television permit themselves. Rather than cryptic references or hidden reveals, Banshee likes to take memorable bits of dialogue and throw that at the front: “You Can’t Hide From The Dead.“All The Wisdom I Got Left.” “Even God Doesn’t Know What To Make Of You.” “A Little Late To Grow A Pair.” (“Bloodletting” was called “Innocent Might Be A Bit Of A Stretch” until the last minute, an annoying choice for someone who writes his reviews in advance.) Those titles usually touch on themes of the episode or the series as a whole, trading brevity for an odd sort of poetry as they all stack up.
AVClub: Over the last week I’ve been thinking about my ambivalence toward the final season of Banshee. While my complaints about what the season’s added to the mix have been loudly voiced over the last few weeks, I think the real problem is what’s missing, the elements that last year convinced me I was watching one of the best shows on television. How wonderful it us then that “Only One Way A Dogfight Ends” makes an effort to restore some of those missing pieces to Banshee,and they almost do so in a way that makes up the sins of the season—sins that are unfortunately getting all the more glaring as we get closer to the finish line.
