The plot is good and pulpy: an unnamed con walks free after 15 years in the big house and tracks down his former lover/partner in her new life in the middle of Amish country. Then, when the conveniently unknown Oregonian sheriff gets gunned down just before arrival, our antihero swipes the cop's identity and job. But describing Banshee like this is a bit like saying Lost was about some strangers having a cookout on a beach. Schickler and Tropper appear to have crammed every lurid idea they've ever not put into their books into this baby; it's the compost cookie of action thrillers. In the first episode alone, there's an Asian transvestite who works as a hairstylist but moonlights as a world-class hacker. There's a fetishistic, fallen Amish crime lord named Proctor who has an angel tattooed on his back and looks like Steve Doocy. There are chess-playing Slavic villains, the meanest of whom is called The Rabbit and is played by Spock's father. There are Indian chiefs and ex-prizefighters. There's a motorcycle chase and a shootout on the streets of Manhattan and a meth lab out by the local fishing hole. The not-long-for-this-world sheriff is named Lucas Hood — eventually, so is our protagonist — and he dies after suffering a series of conveniently stigmata-like gunshot wounds. ("Am I dead?" he asks just before bleeding out. "I hope my mother was right about God.") When not dodging convictions and beating men's teeth in, Proctor runs a meat-processing plant and, thanks to director Greg Yaitanes, the purplish splat of freshly ground beef imbues every violent frame of the pilot.