Big changes in little Banshee . . .
An ex-con behind the badge has gained ‘Banshee’ quite a cult following. Antony Starr reveals more about the final season, writes Debashine Thangevelo
BANSHEE quietly arrived on the small screen. However, it wasn’t long before the series had tongues wagging. It wasn’t so much the narrative that piqued interest, but the sex scenes and often gratuitous violence that penetrated the narrative.
Anthony Starr made for a formidable protagonist, despite the dubious circumstances of him inheriting the role of town’s sheriff, Lucas Hood.
Viewers have enjoyed learning more about his backstory, anchored in the powerful crime world, and his romance with Anastasia/Carrie (Ivana Milicevic ), who settled in Pennsylvania’s Amish country, living the perfect white-picket-fence dream until he arrived in town.
Job (Hoon Lee), a cross-dressing computer hacker; Sugar (Frankie Faison), the local bar owner and Lucas’s strong ally, and Kai Proctor, the local crime boss, have all contributed to the unfolding mayhem and violence, sometimes unsuspectingly so.
For the new season, the location has shifted from Charlotte, North Carolina to Pittsburgh.
In an interview, Starr reveals: “In season three, up to episode five, things were pretty good and then it deteriorated, culminating with the necksnapping of his lover, which was pretty traumatising. I think the rest of that season was basically about revenge and the initial stages of dealing with that.
“Then Job went missing and the sh*t really hit the fan, and there was a big hole there to get out of. The nature of this show is that when we see a character in a hole, we usually push them deeper into it, so that’s where we have gone with the start of season four. I’d say this is the season that Banshee grew up a little. It’s a little less frenetic, little less chaotic. And from my point of view, it’s been interesting because we focused a lot more on detailing things to do with character and story. Because the action component is such a huge part of the show, it can absorb a lot of our resources and time, so other things often get overlooked or squeezed into very tight corners. There’s a bit more room to move this season and the writers have really exploited that.”
In the third season, Lucas handed in his sheriff ’s badge. But has he completely retired?
He offers: “Yes, that sticks. I think once we cross that line of him resigning, he can’t go back. So I stay not the sheriff for quite a while. Through the whole season, actually.”
But his foothold in that world continues.
Although Lucas and Job share a seemingly fragile love-hate friendship, it is more profound than that and his disappearance brings this to light.
He says: “Lucas has to be involved. Those guys are woven so tightly together. They have quite an odd relationship, but it is very much a brotherly relationship, and there’s no way Lucas could give up on him. But certain things happen at the start of season four that will change that relationship for ever. There are a lot of big things for all the characters.
“The investigation is one of the skeletons of the season, the rest of the season hangs off that. But it’s more of a police-thriller-whodunit-noir mix this season than it ever was. To a certain extent, we’ve always had a procedural element – it’s a cop show, with investigative interviews and goodies and baddies – and this has that in a slightly different way, but is probably more pronounced. People who know the show are going to be very excited right off the bat.”
On viewers being privy to much more about Lucas than they were in the first two seasons, he notes: “Jonathan (Tropper) threw us a curve ball at the start of season three. He always intended the character to have some kind of military background, but I did the maths on my age and decided that would be minimal. But where they wanted to go with story, it became a requirement that I was ex-something. So it became this sort of a hybrid Black Op-y sort of thing.”
Will Lucas and Carrie finally get that happy ending fans have been pining for?
Starr admits: “Lucas and Carrie will always be connected because they have a kid together, and more than that, they’re also kindred spirits. So they’re always going to be together in some capacity. Their lives are interconnected, one of the main reasons that Lucas stays in Banshee is because of her and the family connection. But it’s a lot more interesting now that we’re not a couple. We get a lot more of our own independent storylines that intersect and, when we do, it’s a lot of fun, but it keeps both characters alive a lot rather than being co-dependent.
“But her situation’s going to be very different now because I led her husband to his death. Well, he led himself... turns out he’s a sniper. There’s a lot of people with a lot of military histories that remain secret until we find them out. That was a tragedy and a huge blow for Carrie, and she spends a lot of the season recuperating from that and trying to figure out what is next in her life, and what it means with the kids. And in a slightly more robust way, she gets up to a little mischief as well, a bit more than me this season. She’s a bit more physically active than I am; I do more chatting.”
As for how this season compares to the emotional intensity of previous instalments, he admits: “Lucas is on a slightly different trajectory, so a lot of the stuff that I’ve been involved with has been a lot less boobs-and-bombs. It’s been a lot more internalised, a lot more about the internal developments of the character.
“It has a different feel from my point of view, and I think it’s more of an ensemble this year, which I’ve loved because it gives me time to work on things properly, and focus a lot more on layering things and getting things to a level of quality. It’s probably my favourite season thus far.”