Banshee: The Complete Third Season – Blu-ray review

By Mike Bax
HBO Home Entertainment

“Everything you touch turns to blood.” Deputy Brock Lotus (Matt Servitto)

While I hasten to compare Banshee (a dark, b-movie caliber neo-noir series) to Game of Thrones, both shows deal with a myriad of cast members, dark and highly sexual plotlines with some occasional comic relief. As the third season of Banshee unfolds, we are reminded that nobody in the cast is particularly safe, and that the show is definitely hell-bent on over-delivering its signature heightened realism within the Pennsylvania Amish country burg called Banshee.

Created by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler, the Cinemax series is set to soon deliver its final eight episodes, closing off the series at the end of Season 4. The storyline is centered on an ex-con (Antony Starr) assuming the identity of Banshee’s murdered sheriff, Lucas Hood, as a means of staying hidden from the sinister crime-lord Rabbit (played by Ben Cross). There’s a myriad of side plot-lines of course, but it’s this overall storyline that provides the backbone to the series. It’s crime-noir with a comically Amish twist.

After a jaw-dropping Season 2 finale, the ten episodes of Banshee: The Complete Third Season work their way through a heist that could net the players involved millions of dollars.

True to its two-season predecessors, Banshee: The Complete Third Season looks stellar on Blu-ray. The 1080p digital transfer looks and sounds amazing throughout all ten of the season’s episodes. The colours are sharp and detailed from the brightest of outdoor scenes through to the gloomy low lit nighttime interiors with little artifcating or noise present at all.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray set is a twenty-minute featurette entitled The Heist, a multi camera dissection of the showpiece heist sequence that is the highlight of the seventh episode of Season Three.

Also included on the set are:
– Making of the Episode 2 Title Sequence: The title sequence for the show is changed up on this episode, and there is a short featurette included here on what went into this introductory clip.
– Banshee Origins: Eight prequel videos featuring the cast of Banshee offer some insight into things that happened before the current storyline.
– Banshee Origins Saga: Lucas, Carrie, Job and others from the show are highlighted in these clips detailing the characters’ lives before they made their way to Banshee.
– there’s also Burton vs Nola Camera Movement; Burton vs Nola Stunts; Genoa Rehearsal; Zoomed in, Episodes 1-8 & 10; Deleted Scenes; a Sins Promo; Episode Recaps along with some insightful Audio Commentaries featuring the Banshee Cast & Crew

Whether you are new to the season or are buying this package to watch the season again before Season 4 starts on the 1st of April, you won’t be disappointed with Banshee: The Complete Third Season – the best bang for your buck when it comes to sex and violence cast against a Pennsylvania Amish background.

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