Hannibal Series Blog: Episodes 1-6

One character clinging onto life, one character falsely imprisoned, one character murdered and displayed like a Hurst exhibit, and the eponymous character still eating people. Served with disturbing sound design and beautiful visual aesthetics; the second season of Hannibal is turning out to be quite the course. The first episode, aptly titled Kaiseki after the traditional Japanese meal, already suggests a twist on what we have already seen, the multiple course meal being a counterpart to European Haute Cuisine, the inspiration for the titles of the first season. This twist comes in the form of Will Graham’s (Hugh Dancy) unjust imprisonment at the hands of the titular cannibal, Bryan Fuller provides both a brilliant homage to the films that made the character famous, and provides a fresh, original and truly inspired take on the original author, Thomas Harris’ characters. Another slight twist has come in the form of the soundtrack, twisting from haunting ambience into a cacophony of loud disjointed, chilling, and otherworldly sounds, complimenting the almost otherworldly crime scenes and Will Graham’s fractured psyche.

Season 2 begins with one of the most exciting and nerve racking in medias res openings in recent years, flashing forward to a brutal fight between Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) and Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen): it is clear that at this point, the secret is out. The fight ends with Jack’s fate in the balance, with a cut back to the present day. Will Graham is imprisoned in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Hannibal’s home in Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal has replaced Will Graham as a consultant on the (rather surprising amount of) somewhat artistic murders that Crawford and his team of FBI agents confront, which are placed a little more in the background this season in favour of more serialised storytelling. The role reversal illustrates the duality of the protagonist of Will Graham, and the antagonist of Hannibal, as each takes on elements of the other in order to get what they want – as Jack Crawford points out in Will’s assessment of Hannibal in ‘Kaiseki’, “you just described yourself”.

This is made increasingly clear, as the opening of episode 3, ‘Hassun’, shows a vision of Will in an electric chair, with Will flipping the switch. After, a sequence of shots showing Hannibal and Will getting ready for Will’s trial. So, in the first 5 episodes, Will takes on Hannibal for the master manipulator award, attempting to move pieces into place in order to clear his name, and bring out his “reckoning”. The beginning of this reckoning takes the form of “Will’s” copycat killer, whom Will directs to kill Hannibal; while he fails, the audience is rewarded with the first sight of Hannibal in a vulnerable position. It must be noted that Will does not resort to murder by proxy on a whim, the attempt is in response to the death of trusted colleague Beverly Katz (Hettienne Park). The demise of one of the agents raises the stakes even further than the fight that opens the season, Hannibal becoming more of a direct threat than ever before. The episodes entailing her demise hit a perfect blend of horror, suspense and emotional resonance, while cementing Hannibal’s status as an utter bastard.

Bryan Fuller provides both a brilliant homage to the films that made the character famous, and provides a fresh, original and truly inspired take on the original author

As for the FBI, the crime scenes they find are more grotesque than ever; during the first two episodes the team enlist Hannibal’s help to pursue a killer who has stitched corpses of various skin tones into a mural of an eye. Hannibal finds the killer and stitches him into his own mural, and taking his liver as a consolation prize.

It must be noted that, despite all the horror, gore and psycho-drama, Hannibal strides along confidently with its tongue firmly in cheek, with gleeful symphonies accompanying a scene where Hannibal slices a limb into bits in preparation for a meal, Will reciting a Sesame Street nursery rhyme while mentally examining a crime scene. The most recent example of the delight with which Hannibal revels in its sometimes absurdist nature, comes in the conclusion of episode 6, with Hannibal serving up Abel Gideon (a serial killer brilliantly realised by Eddie Izzard, of all people) his own leg as a last meal.

Speaking of Hannibal, the casting of Mads Mikkelsen continues to pay off in dividends. Not only does he make the character alien and terrifying, but charming and human as well: enough to fool the audience into thinking him likeable in the first season, and enough for us to enjoy his continued freedom in the second. Hannibal is not the revolting, sneering monster of The Silence of the Lambs fame yet, and perhaps he never will be – part of the joy of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal is seeing a surreal, fresh take on a character previously inseparable from Hannibal’s actor in Lambs, Anthony Hopkins. Even more fascinating, is the more human nature Mikkelsen brings to the character, whether through a self satisfied smirk, his (somewhat morbid) curiosity, or his complete fascination with Will Graham. As of last week, the series has turned yet another corner, with the return of Jack Crawford’s supposedly dead colleague and the source of much of his guilt, Miriam Lass (Anna Chlumsky) – found armless in a cellar, in the middle of nowhere. Her mental state however, is yet to be seen.

Amongst the sudden flux of serial killer related television shows in the past couple of years, Hannibal continues to impress, as one of the scariest, most unpredictable and daring series to emerge from American network television, since the last Bryan Fuller project. Much like the dishes served on-screen, Hannibal is twisted, wrong, beautiful and delicious, if you can stomach it. Here’s to it lasting more than 2 seasons.