Sorry
I'm a little late with this one, been waylaid by illness recently.
Anyway, we're back with another episode of Hannibal, a direct sequel
to the previous one which at the time I considered to be possibly the best of the season. Though the new episode relies on a particularly gruesome
gimmick that I think (or at least hope) is somewhat unrealistic, it
was nonetheless another top notch installment that proves why this
show should be getting a lot more praise, and a lot more viewers,
than its gotten up to this point. The only reason I know what the
title of this one means is because of an old Dexter's Laboratory
cartoon, but I fail to see what cheese has to do with any of it.
The
killer of the week in Fromage is a classical music obsessive who
turns his victims into living musical instruments, in this case
shoving wood down the mouth of a corpse and playing the vocal cords
like the strings of a cello. I wonder if we might be reaching a point
where the creativity of the killers on this show might be straining
credulity, but then I think we might have passed the point where that
is a legitimate complaint. I want to watch this show and charge that
real serial killers are never like this, rarely as intelligent or
erudite, and few are compelled to create these sort of tableaus we
find in every episode. And yet, the whole show is predicated on
exploring the life of Hannibal Lecter, a classic literary serial
killer far too smart to ever exist in real life, and I never
complained about that while reading the books or watching the movies.
In
any case, the mind games between Hannibal and this new monster are at
the heart of the episode, as Lecter's continued search for a
friendship he can keep while maintaining his charade of humanity puts
him in the path of the mad cellist, giving him the chance to finally
be honest with someone, even as the question of who will eventually
try to kill who is always at the forefront of their polite
conversations. I can't remember where I've seen the actor who played
the bad guy this week, and as always I'm too lazy to check even
though I'm literally online at my computer right now as I'm typing
this, but he's really good, and its a shame to see him go in the end,
as he must once he discovers Lecter's secret life.
Less
interesting this week is the Will Graham subplot, which after eight
weeks finally succumbs to the temptation of every network television
show by taking the two reasonably attractive opposite gendered
characters and revealing that they have romantic feelings for each other.
This is my least favorite staple of police procedurals, the
Castle-esque "will they or won't they" bullshit, and it has been to
this show's credit that they never forced this dynamic until now
(though now that I think about it, some Graham on Lecter action is
not without its entertainment value). That only makes it all the more
eye roll inducing when it comes a bit out of nowhere here, seemingly
at the expense of the much more intriguing auditory hallucinations
he's experiencing which unless I missed it were not resolved.
 |
| I am a MAN! |
Still,
overall another good episode that will add to the list of reasons for
my outrage should this show not be picked up. That question is
apparently still up in the air, as while it survived the recent
holocaust of NBC cancellations, there has still been no official word
as to its future. Given the commitment to stick to the cable model
of shorter seasons, its pretty much guaranteed that if it continues,
Hannibal will be a perennial mid-season show, only adding to the
annual tension surrounding its fate. I'm hoping they give it the same
chance they are now giving to Community, a show that gets to go on to
a fifth season despite it going from one of the best show's on
television to one of the worst. Hannibal is already one of the best,
so I've got to think it at least has something going for it.
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