Banshee "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" Review: What Is, and What Could Never Be

Banshee S03E06: "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday"

If you're the Banshee creative team, how do you follow an episode like last week's all-timer (and one that will go down as one of the best TV episodes of 2015)? It's not an easy question to answer, especially when you've just killed off a central and very popular character, basically destroyed one of your key sets, and seemingly broken the spirit of your always-moving-forward main character.

That's why most TV series bracket off major episodes like "Tribal" by saving them for the end of a season: To build in some time—both for the audience and the production team—to grieve and to ponder where the show might go next. But if there's anything we've learned from Banshee's third season, it's that Banshee is not like most TV series, and so "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" tackled that big question head-on, with generally meritable results.

In situations like this one, where a significant character has just gotten the boot, I always want shows to make me feel the impact of that character's death. "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" certainly did that. From the very beginning of the episode, we were locked into Hood's unsurprisingly shattered emotional state, which was reinforced not just by his stoicism or revenge-seeking actions in the present, but also by a collection of What If scenes that replayed Banshee's initial story moments in a new way. Filmed in lovely black and white, Hood "changed" the course of time by destabilizing that robbery in Sugar's place with the real Lucas Hood and saving the new sheriff's life. That move didn't bring Hood any particular happiness in the new timeline, as he still experienced the pain of learning about Carrie's new life as a Hopewell, but he did share a brief meet-cute with Siobhan outside the diner. Nothing really came of the scene, and nothing really could. However, it was nice to see Siobhan alive and well one last time, and for Hood to at least try to move toward something other than utter despair.

Moreover, that little sequence of scenes illustrated that there are always trade-offs. Hood could've saved the real Hood, never become sheriff, and maybe Siobhan would still be alive. But then Hood and Siobhan never would've had the time they shared together, and that'd be a tragedy in its own right, you know? Plus, what would've happened to Siobhan when those outlaws burned down her house in Season 1 or when her ex-husband returned in Season 2? Would she even make it through those horrible events without Hood around? We all mull different scenarios in our heads when we lose someone close to us; Hood should be no different, even if his scenarios are likely more violent than yours or mine would be.

Of course, Hood's musings were all just an (admittedly poetic and enjoyable) exercise in the Road Not Taken. The main timeline underscored that whether or not Hood was actually imagining the other world into existence in his mind, reality was a tough place to navigate. He couldn't bring himself to physically attend Siobhan's funeral, he sat quietly in the bar around those closest to him (and they had no idea what to say), and he concentrated on one very important goal: to take out Chayton and the Redbones.

While I actually might've liked to see a full episode dedicated to the What If timeline and then a separate hour dedicated to the assault on the Redbones camp out here in "reality," this one did a fine job of weaving those two elements together to emphasize Hood's fragile headspace. Bringing in the FBI task force didn't really do it for me, but it provided a moderate obstacle for Hood (and Job! Job got to take part in a murder run!) to avoid once he discovered Chayton's location out in the middle of the reservation. The Hood/Chayton showdown was never going to live up to the anarchy of "Tribal," and Banshee knew that. After last week's loud, chaotic affair, Hood and Chayton's tussle was much more intimate, both in physicality and sound. No guns, no grenades, no loud-ass explosions, just a pair of dudes who hate each other fightin' to the death in a small space, and then moving into the woods. That scene displayed the deep-seated issues between the two, but also reinforced just how skilled the Banshee team is at crafting diverse action and fight choreography.

Best of all, Chayton got away. Hood let his desire for revenge get the best of him in Chayton's tent by waiting for the big, bad SOB to wake up—for suffering purposes, obvs—and unsurprisingly, it takes a lot of stabbing and shooting to bring down a Kinaho warrior. But more to the point, revenge was kind of all Hood had to go on. He needs to kill Chayton so badly that when it didn't happen, especially when he had such a prime opportunity to do so, he finally came unhinged and destroyed most of Siobhan's trailer. He can imagine different timelines, keep to himself around his friends, and just try to get through the day, but without revenge, Hood is going to break, and break, and break. I've already said this numerous times so far this season, but Antony Starr's performance was once again awesome and heartbreaking, bringing out the pain and desperation in Hood's demeanor without overdoing it. While the character's generally quiet nature definitely helps in that regard, Starr is in such great control of his facial expressions and body that "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" got a lot of mileage out of close-ups on his eyes and sunken face. Hood looks like he's only surviving on rage and a thirst for revenge, and that's not easy to pull off. And before I move on, shout-out to Geno Segers, who's always great as Chayton and who brings more than gravitas to a role that could obviously be a big, bad stereotype.

Although I loved everything having to do with Hood and the search for Chayton, the rest of this episode didn't quite work for me, if only because it's difficult to bring together that really emotional stuff and lesser (but not bad) plot threads into one cohesive unit. Bouncing back and forth between Hood and Proctor and Rebecca... or between Hood and Deva's newfound friendship with a house of young dirtbags... or between Hood and Carrie working Stowe to obtain the necessary material for the safe job sucked some of the air out of the hour's best moments. That's not an indictment of those other stories; Banshee has a lot going on and it wouldn't necessarily be smart of the show to bring almost everything to a screeching halt for two full episodes. No matter what, "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" just goes to show why outstanding episodes like "Tribal" are so challenging to follow.

Nonetheless, the most successful of this week's supplemental stories had to be whatever in the world was/is happening at the Proctor residence. We've been waiting for the proverbial bomb inside Rebecca to go off, and if it didn't entirely explode here, it at least began to leak some radioactive material. Having apparently ignored the dying message of her great aunt, Rebecca told her parents to shove it at the woman's funeral and then acted quite emboldened in the workplace without Kai around. Unfortunately, while it's one thing to deal with a mouthy strip club bouncer with a 2x4, it's an entirely different beast to tackle the politics and the specifics of the drug trade. Rebecca's faulty handling of the Philly crew forced Kai to dress her down in front of Lennox and his men, and wouldn't you know it, that didn't go over well.

Rebecca's arc hasn't quite reached the point where she realizes that she's entirely in over her head, but this was a nice step forward—presuming that's where we're headed, I guess. Kai's increasingly chummy relationship with Emily only further muddied the water for the Amish exiles, as it seems like Kai has found someone else to confide in (among other things), leaving the brash Rebecca on her own in a way. It's not that Kai doesn't care about Rebecca; he's simply starting to consider what her place in this world is doing to her, and to his business. You just know that Hood is going to find his way back in the middle of that sooner rather than later, and we also can't forget the hellfire that's going to rain down when Brock discovers that his ex-wife is having relations with his sworn enemy. Somehow, these feuds are even more personal than they were a few weeks ago.

Elsewhere, the poor Hopewell family is still on a bit of a story island. There's enough time left in the season for Carrie to rise back to prominence, especially as the team gets closer to making a run at all that money in the safe, but she didn't have a whole lot to do this week. Deva fell in with a "bad crowd," and that's a story we've seen millions of times, but it was altogether fine. And Gordon can shoot! Cool, I guess. Though not every character is going to receive spotlight time in every episode, I'm hoping we'll see more action for everyone in this little corner of Banshee's universe in Season 3's final episodes. They're great, after all.

All things considered, "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday" did right by the things it needed to do right by. Hood's sadness permeated every minute he was onscreen in "real time," and returning to Banshee's early moments with a new spin showed us what could've happened if Hood hadn't intervened that day in the bar. Those scenes rightfully honored Siobhan and incorporated the perfect combination of sadness and anger. The rest of the episode was a bit less successful, but only in comparison to those exceptional moments in the main story. It's going to take Hood a long time to get over everything that's happened this season, but thankfully for us, he'll keep moving forward, and so will Banshee.

NOTES

– I really enjoyed the way that director OC Madsen used space in the frame in a few of this week's scenes. That shot of Deva and dirtbag Charlie on the street is a good example of what I'm talking about, and another came when Chayton tried to choke out Amy in the woods. The former emphasized Deva's small stature and the latter hammered home just how big Chayton is.

– Great line alert! The task force dude told Hood that he'll have Hood's badge for his assault on Chayton, to which Hood responded, "Get in line."

– I need more scenes between Carrie and Job. Or Proctor and Sugar. There are so many wonderful combinations of actors on this show.

– Hey, good news: Banshee was renewed for a fourth season on Thursday.

What did you think of "We Were All Someone Else Yesterday"?