Have seen a lot of film and TV, have reviewed a lot of film and TV, and I have never seen a "family intervention" like the one that popped off the top of this episode.
Yet another "oh wow" moment from a series that is becoming synonymous with patenting a new kind of Crazy from the Writers Pit.
What is distressing however (and please understand I LOVE this series, I am an addict, I have even started a 12-step program) is that, after the scene in question, in the dialog that followed between the parents, they made an "inside joke" actually using the word "intervention." As a critic, it is my job to tell you that is a warning sign. Just a small one, but a warning sign nonetheless.
I believe we now reached the point in Banshee -- and this is very rare for any show in the history of TV -- where the writers are now competing entirely against themselves. Because there is no other show left standing in this undeclared "cage match" that even comes close.
This is both good and bad.
Good because the fans get adrenalin shock after adrenalin shock from week to week as the writers go progressively insane.
Bad because, when you compete against yourself, you lose the yardstick of common sense. In the last few episodes the writers have gratuitously killed off some of the most memorable characters in TV history; and, in the view of this writer, the show's chewy moral center, which was always tenuous at best, is slowly disappearing. Deva (for example) is becoming a very unsympathetic character in a show which can no longer afford to add any more unsympathetic characters to its roster.
Just saying...
Yet another "oh wow" moment from a series that is becoming synonymous with patenting a new kind of Crazy from the Writers Pit.
What is distressing however (and please understand I LOVE this series, I am an addict, I have even started a 12-step program) is that, after the scene in question, in the dialog that followed between the parents, they made an "inside joke" actually using the word "intervention." As a critic, it is my job to tell you that is a warning sign. Just a small one, but a warning sign nonetheless.
I believe we now reached the point in Banshee -- and this is very rare for any show in the history of TV -- where the writers are now competing entirely against themselves. Because there is no other show left standing in this undeclared "cage match" that even comes close.
This is both good and bad.
Good because the fans get adrenalin shock after adrenalin shock from week to week as the writers go progressively insane.
Bad because, when you compete against yourself, you lose the yardstick of common sense. In the last few episodes the writers have gratuitously killed off some of the most memorable characters in TV history; and, in the view of this writer, the show's chewy moral center, which was always tenuous at best, is slowly disappearing. Deva (for example) is becoming a very unsympathetic character in a show which can no longer afford to add any more unsympathetic characters to its roster.
Just saying...