Banshee Recap: “Behold a Pale Rider”

Banshee Recap: “Behold a Pale Rider”
Original Air Date (Cinemax): Friday February 22, 2013
Season 1 Episode 7

by Julianne Snow:

In the seventh episode of Banshee, titled ‘Behold a Pale Rider’, Carrie calls Lucas as he is discussing robbing the casino with Job and Sugar. The call’s subject is of great importance to Lucas; she’s found a fence for the diamonds they stole from Rabbit. Agreeing to meet her and the fence, Lucas meets her in a parking structure where Carrie plans to hotwire a car. Under the guise that Lucas can hotwire a car better than her, she gets him close enough to stab him with a hypodermic full of sedative. Lucas awakes in a motel room, handcuffed to the bed. When he asks her what’s going on, Carrie tells him she’s giving him up, along with the diamonds, so that she can get Rabbit off of her back.

Deputy Yawners is at the local convenience/drug store purchasing a pregnancy test for his wife when he realizes there is a robbery in progress. The robbers are dressed in banshee masks and in the confusion, one of them shoots and kills the cashier. Thinking he’s going to die, Yawners closes his eyes and waits for the moment of his death. When he doesn’t feel the sting of the bullet, he opens his eyes to find that the gunman has spared his life. While he’s thankful for his life, he doesn’t waste a moment in going after them. Following them, he ends up at Banshee High School where the gunmen take several hostages – among them the mayor’s wife and a number of teenagers in detention including Deva.

Outside the high school, Brock, Yawners and Siobhan gather to assess the situation and tension arises when they cannot reach Lucas. As the news media ascends on the scene, so does the Xavier, the FBI Agent in town investigating how Proctor seems to evade prosecution each and every time. Xavier quickly begins to scramble a SWAT team from Philadelphia, knowing the situation is beyond the police in Banshee. Wanting to secure his escape, one of the gunmen, Lance, puts the mayor’s wife on the phone to negotiate his demands for a clear escape within the hour – or else he will kill the hostages.

At the motel, Lucas is strapped to the bed with TV as company. Knowing that Rabbit and his crew are on the way from NYC, he sees the news report about the hostage situation and struggles to get loose. At the last minute, Job arrives, having followed Lucas and Carrie via the tracker app he installed in Lucas’ phone and picks the handcuffs open.

As Lance and his partner, Nathan, argue in front of the hostages, Lance decides that he’s going to take the mayor’s wife away from the group. His intent was to rape her, but his plan is interrupted by a phone call from Brock: their transport has arrived. In a bold move, he agrees to let four of the students go, but as they prepare to let them, Deva and her friend make a run for it resulting in Lance pursuing them through the halls of the school.

Lucas arrives on the scene, which is a huge shock for Carrie and walks unarmed into the gymnasium. As he tries to convince Nathan to let everyone go. As soon as Lucas gets close enough to Nathan, he turns Nathan’s own gun on him and takes him out. The hostages, free from their captor leave and Lucas goes after Lance, who is now holding Deva at gunpoint. Communicating with Deva, he signals her to drop, giving Lucas the opportunity to shoot Lance.

Proctor meets Lucas as Sugar’s bar in order to thank him for ending the hostage situation as well as for getting the murder charges dropped against him. Lucas is his normal flippant self and when he retires to his apartment, he finds Carrie. Mistrustful of her, he pulls his gun on her, but she turns the table by taking him into her arms. The connection between them is palpable and Carrie offers herself to him by taking off her closes. Lucas and Carrie end up in bed together as the episode ends with one of Rabbit’s henchmen making his way into town and inquiring at the local diner where he is.

The bonus scene is awesome because it contains one of my favourite characters – you’ve got to watch it!!

DarkMedia contributor Julianne Snow was first lulled into the horror genre by her parents during an ill-advised viewing of Alien when she was only 4 years old. Since that date, it’s been a given that Julianne will watch and read anything that is horror related. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies from Sirens Call Publications and Open Casket Press, as well as The Sirens Call and various other websites showcasing short fiction. She is the author of the Days with the Undead series, which can be found on her website dayswiththeundead.com. Her first novel, Days with the Undead: Book One was published in early 2012 and is based on her popular web serial. Find her on Twitter @CdnZmbiRytr.