Unclench everybody. Since my last review, it was finally announced that Hannibal, a show that's been on the bubble pretty much since it premiered, has been renewed for a full second season. I keep going back and forth on whether or not I can muster up enough passion to care about the fate of the show, as some episodes remind me why I liked it so much in the first place, and others remind me how much better Brian Fuller's Munsters would have been instead. This weeks episode is sort of in the middle, much better than last week, but not quite up to the standards of what we've seen as the best of this series.
Buffet
Froid is actually somewhat aptly named even though I don't know what
the phrase means, as the famous psychiatrist referenced in the title
perfectly represents an episode all about human psychology and
diseases of the mind. We finally find out what's going on with Will
Graham's head, but thanks to Lecter he never does, and is forced to
live with the fact that his condition is escalating dangerously. We
even get an official diagnosis for the killer this week, who isn't
just random TV show crazy, but actually suffers from a real condition
compelling her to kill, which I thought was a welcome twist to the
norm.
The
killer is actually mostly sympathetic this time around, unable to see
faces and killing those her paranoid mind tells her she can't trust,
even though they are really her close friends. This results in some
of the creepier imagery so far seen in the show (which is saying
something), including a Joker style face cutting that Wikipedia tells
me is called a Glasgow Smile, and a final scene depicting the insane
woman's encounter with Lecter mid-murder, where her delusion presents
him as a faceless alien menace. It never occurred to me that there was
a way to make Mikkelsen's Lecter more frightening, but apparently
there is, and that way is to take his face away like The Question
from DC comics.
The
rest of the episode finds Graham finally seeking help for his
hallucinations after he loses it at a crime scene and at first begins
to suspect that he might have blacked out and committed the murder
himself. Luckily this unbelievable proposition is never taken
seriously by anyone else in the show for too long, but its enough to
send him to a neurologist, where he finds out that nothing's wrong
with him, thanks to Lecter manipulating his doctor. I assume this is
setting up the first confrontation between the two of them when this
finally comes out, maybe leading to Graham's first suspicions about
Lecter's other possible lies, which is something I'm obviously
looking forward to.
Chalk
this up as another reason this show should be on the air. Evidently
its one of the lowest rated shows to get picked up this season, but
episodes like this cause me to wonder why more people can't seem to
get into this series. Even at its worst, its better than most shows
at least on network TV if not all of television. And this is sort of
off the point, but the faceless Lecter scene convinced me that we
need a show based on The Question. We've already got Arrow, why not
Vic Sage? You could make it a spin off, and even bring back Jeffrey Combs. Eh, maybe not, but until then, at least I've still got
Hannibal to tide me over.
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