Cinemax’s Banshee
Season 2, Episode 4: “Bloodlines”
Directed by Ole Christian Madsen
Written by Evan Dunsky

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “The Warrior Class” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “The Truth About Unicorns” – click here
 Carrie (Ivana Milicevic) is finally let out of jail. Time served in full. Surprisingly, Gordon (Rus Blackwell) is there. He says it’ll take some time. Regardless, she wants to tell him “everything” now. Max and Deva (Ryann Shane) see her again, too. He’s a little more excited than her.
Except she turns around to find Hood (Antony Starr). Her own self coming out the door. “Where‘s Ana?” the family asks. All a dream. A great dream sequence at that. Carrie’s still in jail. One day at a time.
 Nola and Alex Longshadow (Odette Annable/Anthony Ruivivar), along with the Kinaho Tribe, lay the murdered young woman to rest. Of course Hood shows up. He and Nola finally are introduced properly, instead of hopping into bed or one of them aiming a gun at the other’s head. Anyway, they’re all still wondering who killed the girl. She says Chayton Littlestone (Geno Segers) is too hardcore Native American to have killed a Kinaho girl. Even so, Hood is wary.
In jail, Chayton’s busy preaching race to Deputy Emmett Yawners (Demetrius Grosse). At the same time, Brock Lotus (Matt Servitto) spearheads the next bit of action, as Hood doesn’t mind delegating a bit of work. Meanwhile, brother and sister Longshadow differ on their approach towards their next step.
I feel bad for Carrie, and I don’t all the same. I feel bad because she was trying to get away from a gangster father. Then she made some poor choices in her attempts at doing so. Partly, you have to remember – much as it’s tough she didn’t visit Hood in prison, Rabbit was sitting on that place, he would’ve found her immediately. Still it is hard to reconcile that with the pain it caused Hood not to see her. Now, her family is mixed into a bunch of mess all because of the fact Hood is tangled up with her, and then she went and started a whole new family. The heart wants what the heart wants, double time.
Hood and Job (Hoon Lee) are dealing with Jason Hood (Harrison Thomas). They’re setting him up with a brand new identity. Naturally, Job ain’t happy to hear about the real Hood’s boy now showing up in town. Love this scene because it’s hilarious any time Job is confronted with a shitty situation.
In a diner, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen) finds himself confronted by Alex. They start with a few words, back and forth jabs. “I‘m not always the smartest guy in the room, but I‘m fearless, I‘m willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want and because of that people fear me,” Kai tells him. Then they move on to actual jabs. A nice dose of public violence.
Alex: “You‘re a criminal.”
Kai: “That‘s just semantics”
 Brock gets some intel on a kid that knew Solomon – Daniel Moses (Conor Donova) – but was later kicked out of the Amish community. Simultaneously, another problem child – Jason – is causing Job lots of trouble. For his part, Job is patient. Or at least as patient as he gets. He and Sugar are trying to keep him under wraps, though Jason’s a bit of a dummy and pushes Job’s buttons, more and more.
Brock and Hood find out where Daniel is squatting. After chasing him down, they end up getting to talk with the kid. Then we start to discover more of the underbelly in the Amish community. A man named Jonah Lambrecht (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a teacher, kept after Daniel for him being scoured by Satan, or whatever. The poor kid only liked to read books that the elders didn’t want him to read. Turns out Jonah is a “religious nut” and that can only mean bad things. He was scared that because of older sister Rebecca Bowman (Lili Simmons), Solomon might go “the same way“, unforgivable.
This leads Hood right to the doorstep of Jonah’s home. Inside, they talk a bit about Solomon’s disappearance, the dead Native girl. They even speak of love, something Hood knows all too well. Slowly, the Sheriff susses out things are not right. Especially once he eyes the big man has a bit of an injury, in the leg. Similar to where he shot the man that tried to grab Rebecca. At the very same time, Rebecca is letting her uncle Kai know what she’s discovered from her friend in Amish county; about the teacher. Probably good, as the big Jonah nearly overpowers Hood, despite the smaller of the two’s predilection for systematically brutal violence. What ends up happening is that Kai offers to yank the information out of Jonah. This one is a special case of crazy.
Kai gets the information. Brutally. He, Hood, and Rebecca then head out to get Solomon, luckily still alive and hidden in an old silo. A semi happy ending, though the Kinaho girl is forever dead and gone. Solomon is still left with the images of her death behind his eyelids each time they close. He survived this horrific experience, yet is left with an indelible mark upon him. Tragic in so many ways. But at least Jonah was stopped, and can’t go on doing anything mental like that again.
Now Chayton is being transported. Deputies Siobhan Kelly (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and Yawners are bringing him to the county line where the next county’s sheriff will be picking the big bad ass up. So off they go, an ominous air hanging over them. Particularly after Chayton starts breathing deeply, repeating Kinaho verse, over, over. The music behind the scene fits perfectly. Then, as if summoning the spirit of his ancestors right there in back seat, he smashes open the cage between him and the deputies, which sends the car flying into a barricade and through the car. A vicious crash.
At a diner, Jason eyes Rebecca from across the place. Is that any good? For anybody?
Well they head back to a motel room. Hook up, except Rebecca sort of checks out mostly. Pray that Uncle Kai doesn’t find out. Wouldn’t be good for young Jason.
Chayton survives the crash, as do the deputies. Emmett’s knocked out, as Chayton chastises Siobhan, the white man, and then promises Sheriff Hood will see him soon enough. He forebodingly marks Siobhan’s face with his own blood, like a strange war paint marking her as an eventual target.
Chayton: “What is it with white people and chains? From the day you got here, you‘ve been lockin‘ people up.”
Constantly, Job wants to get out of Banshee. He doesn’t care about Hood and his new found daughter Deva, none of it. “Bad shit happens to people standing too close to you,” he warns the man known as Hood, advising to start getting out of town soon as possible. He just doesn’t realize exactly what is happening in Hood’s life. He’s getting closer to Siobhan, now more so that there’s so much crazy stuff going on with Chayton, the Kinaho, everything else. That’s only going to create more reasons for Hood to stick around.
Over at Alex’s office, he and Nola receive Kai Proctor. He brings with him 7 teeth out of Jonah’s head. He offers to let it stand that Alex took care of things, in a sort of peace offering between the two. For the time being, the Longshadows step back. That doesn’t mean Nola is into the way her brother handles things.
She has other ways of dealing with tribe business. Sneaking into the BPD, she puts one of those excellent tomahawks right in Jonah’s skull. That’s how the Kinaho get down, baby! Eye for an eye. Tooth for tooth. On her way out, she comes across Job. They hilariously compliment one another’s outfits.

In prison, Carrie gets a surprise visit from Papa Rabbit. Now she knows he’s still alive and kicking for sure. Though not overly surprised. “It seems you and me are both very hard to kill, it‘s a family trait,” he rasps while connected to an oxygen line. They talk about his wife, or he talks mostly. He goes on about love, his own insanity, y’know – all that warm, gushy stuff. Then tells his daughter they’ll never see each other again.
After the credits, we see the sinister Rabbit crush his little oxygen mask, looking more evil than ever. Excited to rewatch the next episode, “The Truth About Unicorns”, which is another favourite of mine in the series; it starts showing us how Banshee, beneath all its action-crime-thriller skin is a love story, in the most awesome sense.