Cinemax’s violent and pulpy drama-noir “Banshee” and HBO’s sobering (but exciting) R-rated news magazine “Vice” may not seem like natural fits but they are both premium cable breakouts that air on Friday nights and are mostly enjoyable even when (or perhaps especially) when going over the top.
“Banshee” …This season of Banshee didn’t live up to the outrageous highs of season 1, where we never knew exactly what the hell we’d be watching from week to week. [Things we saw: An exiled Amish crime boss who uses the old world Dutch discipline to rule the underworld and is carrying on a strange flirtation with his niece; A recently released felon takes over the identity of a murdered sheriff with help from a transgender Asian computer hacker; An albino prison thug being paid by a Ukrainian crime boss to make said identity thief’s life a living hell while in prison, etc.] This season felt a little more scattershot and the focus kept slipping from established compelling characters (like Kai Proctor’s crime boss or the Ukrainian crime princess whose hideout as a suburban housewife is exploded early on) to stray subplots that didn’t quite deliver (like the real murdered Sheriff Hood’s estranged son who inexplicably doesn’t feel a need to tell on the impostor who’s taken his dad’s place or the whole thing with the skinheads).
Banshee has always towed the line between semi-believable noir and outlandish Cinemax action serial and it was one of TV’s finest odd ducks last year. This year may have had more far-fetched and loose plotting, but of course I’ll still be watching season 2; even If only to see the impending war between the Proctor family and an enormously muscular Native American supremacist gang leader…above all else, Banshee continues to create singular characters.
One major complaint: the skinhead gang killing black cop Emmett and his white wife after already beating her into a miscarriage two episodes ago. It was beyond gratuitous and disgusting (and not in the good “Banshee” way), and just reinforces my long standing complaint that interracial couples are too frequently targeted for misery on TV shows. [Banshee already featured the murder of a Native American girl for dating a white guy earlier in the season, and had a Native American chief murdered by the white woman he was having sex with…one scene after Emmett’s death.] Grade for season: B …Grade for finale: C
“Vice”…An excellent show and an exciting premiere episode that delved into Brazil’s campaign to clean up Rio’s slums before the Olympics and World Cup. Even better: the story about the unfathomable waste happening in Afghanistan where a billion dollars can disappear overnight. [The money line: a fraud specialist saying that money disappearing from domestic government will get someone arrested, but a general can lose any amount of money in Afghanistan and get a promotion.] The Afghanistan story should be required viewing for every American. Grade for tonight’s premiere: A