Banshee: Season 1 (Blu-ray + Digital Copy) (Cinemax)

Amazon.com Cinemax is still on the hunt for a golden show along the lines of Homeland that will help them catch up to the gold standard of HBO originals. Enlisting a creative crew headed by Alan Ball, who helped establish HBO's reputation with Six Feet Under and True Blood, the cable channel made a good bet on Banshee. The series has a nice concept of small-town corruption where criminals lurk in the seemingly bucolic landscape. Its outlaw hero is hiding in plain sight, a not-always-sympathetic protagonist who wears the disguise of a tough-guy sheriff. Fresh out of prison for a crime we learn about as the episodes progress, Lucas Hood (Antony Starr) lands in Banshee, Pennsylvania, looking for the loot that's owed him. He's also back on the radar of a sinister New York mob boss named Rabbit (Ben Cross, dapper and dangerous), who was the target of the caper that sent Hood up the river. Banshee is in Amish country, a detail that will assert itself in lots of interesting ways over 10 episodes. It's also the kind of place where a charming, determined criminal beast like Hood can disappear while plotting his moves and pulling heists. It's no accident that he ended up in Banshee, though a fortuitous twist of fate allows him to slip in on the lowdown and stick around. It's pure luck when he interrupts a bar fight that claims the life of a guy who has also just come to town--to be installed as the new sheriff. Hood doesn't kill him (though he does kill the killers), but he assumes his identity since the guy's been hired sight unseen by Banshee's young mayor (Daniel Ross Owens). This nifty setup unfolds in a roadhouse run by Sugar Bates (Frankie Faison), an ex-boxer turned barkeep who hides Hood's new secret and helps him along on his duplicitous new life, not least by conveniently letting him move into the room upstairs. Hood pulls off his con for the most part, though his new underlings are puzzled and often put off by his unconventional policing techniques. Matt Servitto, Demetrius Grosse, and Trieste Kelly Dunn as Banshee's deputies all take part in keeping the entire ensemble cast a well-oiled machine. The female lead is Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic), who was romantic and criminal partners with Hood, but got away when he took the fall for them both after the big score against Rabbit 15 years earlier. Now enveloped in her new identity as the respectable wife of district attorney Gordon Hopewell (Rus Blackwell), Carrie feels the pull of the old days with Hoo