Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

The wailing.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 3, 2016

A banshee is a figure in Irish mythology who typically emits a high frequency shriek to augur the death of an individual. Any banshee worth her salt (or whatever mineral banshees prefer) would be shrieking big time in Banshee, the titular town where Banshee takes place, for it’s a burg where the population tends to diminish rather dramatically given the murderous impulses of various inhabitants, not the least of which is Sheriff Lucas Hood (Anthony Starr). Any sheriff whose last name is a synonym for a thug is probably not going to be a paragon of virtue, but it’s worth noting (minor spoiler alert for those not yet up to speed on the various intricacies of this show) that Hood isn’t actually Hood, having assumed that identity when this never named individual took the place of the real Hood after that character’s death. Banshee has never really been content to simply detail the comings and goings of its large and somewhat ungainly cast, instead regularly upping the ante into all sorts of hyperbole as everything from Native Americans to Amish to neo-Nazis have entered the fray. Add to that gaggle of unlikely cohabitants a fondness for outrageous violence and pretty graphic sexuality and the stage is set for a show which rarely pauses to take a breath, so to speak. This fourth (and final) season of Banshee continues to go for the gusto even as it attempts to slowly but surely wrap up various plot strands. This season has a number of odd referents, with a central murder mystery which may remind some of the (early) premise of Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery, and a drug running subplot that plays a bit like Breaking Bad: The Complete Series by way of Narcos: Season One. It’s frequently manic, and often noisy, as perhaps befits a show whose very title references a frenetic, screaming spirit.

For those wanting to catch up on Banshee’s fairly labyrinthine story so far, our review of the series’ previous seasons can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray review

Banshee: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray review

Banshee: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray review

Note: Certain unavoidable plot dynamics of Banshee’s fourth season are detailed below, so those wishing to avoid any potential spoilers are encouraged to skip down to the technical portions of the review, below.

Perhaps surprisingly (or not, given my failures as a “prophet”), the fourth season of Banshee does not start with an attempt to resolve the plot predicament for Job (Hoon Lee) which capped the third season, something I mistakenly predicted would be a major fulcrum around which the coming season would hinge. While the Job “issue” is ultimately addressed (which isn’t a surprise), the series instead actually segues forward in time a considerable distance, and finds Hood as a scraggly and pretty hirsute hermit living in an abandoned cabin in the woods. The long suffering Brock Lotus (Matt Servitto) is the new Big Man (i.e., cop) on Campus, and in fact it’s Brock who discovers Hood holed up in the cabin in the season’s opening episode. It’s a convenient and not especially artfully explained discovery, one which just so happens ties in perfectly with Brock’s investigation into the murder of Rebecca Bowman (Lili Simmons), a plot point which becomes the “who killed Laura Palmer?” aspect of Banshee’s fourth year.

Brock isn’t the only one to have moved up in the world, so to speak, and Kai Proctor (Ulirch Thomsen) has also assumed a new role in Banshee, making him even more powerful than he already was. That would seem to be setting up the scene for an expected (final?) showdown between Proctor and Hood, and while that does indeed occur (another not exactly surprising development), there’s a twist (or maybe several) that may keep even ardent fans guessing, at least with regard to the Rebecca Bowman subplot. Again somewhat predictably, all clues as to Rebecca’s murderer tend to point squarely toward Hood, and he ends up being accused of the crime. Just as predictably, he of course ends up figuring out who the real culprit is. There’s a brief attempt to inject some actual human emotion in this particular plot element, despite what is otherwise often a fairly ludicrous enterprise (a similar attempt was made during the third season of Banshee attempted with regard to another relationship, that between the ironically named Hopewells).

Banshee’s gonzo proclivities are probably even more pronounced in this final season, especially with regard to an almost obsessive focus on torture, something that plays into Job’s fate, but which is not necessarily limited solely to that character. One of the interesting things about this final year, and another way I fell disastrously short as a reviewing Cassandra (so to speak), is in its treatment of Carrie (Ivana Miličević). I completely misread where the series was going with regard to this character, and that’s testament to the fact that writers manage to have a few aces up their sleeves, even for those who pride themselves on guessing how everything’s going to turn out. That said, the series’ finale may leave some viewers wanting more, if not in terms of another season or two, at least in terms of actual conclusions for some characters.

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Cinemax with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This season follows in the excellent footsteps of the show's three previous outings in high definition, though once again this season exploits a whole gamut of color gradings (often in aspects like flashbacks) and other tweaks that intentionally distress the image (see screenshots 2, 3, 8, 12 and 14 for some of the grading gambits, and screenshot 13 for one example of "other" approaches). Those stylistic choices can occasionally lead to at least slight deficits in detail levels, but when taken as a whole, the fourth year of Banshee features excellently sharp and clear imagery, with consistently high detail levels, especially in close-ups. As with previous seasons, contrast and black levels are consistently solid throughout the presentation, though it should be noted that contrast is toyed with in some of the same ways that other image elements sometimes are.

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with previous years of the series, Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is an often raucous affair, delighting in huge crashes, shots, slugs and other signs of action hyperbole. Immersion is consistent throughout the series, as is regular exploitation of lower frequencies. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and there are no issues with problems like dropouts or distortion.

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Banshee Origins (1080p; 26:09)


• Zoomed In (1080i; 6:26) covers the three episodes on this disc. Each featurette is also available under the individual episode menu.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 00:46)


• Season 3 Recap (1080p; 3:01) is kind of non-intuitively placed in the Episode Index submenu.


• Episode 2 Recap (1080i; 00:47)


• Episode 3 Recap (1080i; 00:47)

Disc Two

• Zoomed In (1080i; 6:30) covers the three episodes on this disc. Each featurette is also available under the individual episode menu.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 7:43)


• Audio Commentary Episode 6 Only One Way a Dogfight Ends with Jonathan Tropper (Creator/Executive Producer/Writer/Director) and Adam Targum (Executive Producer/Writer)


• Episode 4 Recap (1080i; 00:47)


• Episode 5 Recap (1080i; 00:47)


• Episode 6 Recap (1080i; 00:47)

Disc Three

• Zoomed In (1080i; 5:09) covers the two episodes on this disc. Each featurette is also available under the individual episode menu.


• Episode 7 - Deleted Scene (1080p; 1:03)


• Cast Retrospectives

  Job's Best Outfits (1080i; 2:33)

  Favorite Fights (1080i; 5:10)

• Audio Commentary Episode 8 Requiem with Jonathan Tropper (Creator/Executive Producer/Writer/Director) and Greg Yaitanes (Executive Producer)


• Episode 7 Recap (1080i; 00:47)


• Episode 8 Recap (1080i; 00:47)

Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Banshee's final year rarely lets up, as with previous seasons, but that may be part of the problem with this overstuffed series. The murder angle gives this season what would seem to be a firm anchor, but the writers continue to go off on flights of fancy at regular intervals, which may leave some viewers feeling breathless. I was actually personally impressed that at least a couple of predicted aspects didn't come to pass, something that in and of itself may point as well as anything to how wacky this show can be at times. Technical merits continue to be first rate, and with caveats noted, Banshee: The Complete Fourth Season comes Recommended.