Hannibal, Episode 1: "Kaiseki"
Oh man. That was an amazing premiere. Hannibal debuted with an incredibly strong premiere that promised lots of good stuff to come. If you've watched, hit the jump so we can take a deep dive into the start of season two.
I'm going to be honest and admit that I watched the opening fight between Hannibal and Jack a couple of times once it was released by NBC. It was just as phenomenal watching it during the episode. Everything about it just works. The expressions on Crawford and Lecter's faces when Jack first comes into the kitchen. Hannibal's reflection in the butcher knife. The sudden explosion of violence seems to come out of nowhere and the brutality of the fight is something you don't see on television very often and you feel every hit, every slash, when Jack flips Hannibal over and he hits the floor, I felt that. The scene ends with Hannibal slashing Jack's throat with a shard of glass, and leaves Jack bleeding out in his wine cellar. It's such a great way to start the season and it doesn't detract from what's to come it adds to it. You want to know more than ever what leads to this brutal confrontation now that you know it's coming.
Twelve weeks earlier, it's a very different situation. Jack and Hannibal are having a civilized dinner of kaiseki and discussing how they both failed Will. It's always intriguing to watch Hannibal and Jack interact. It's even more intriguing in this instance since Hannibal's sincerity is certianly in doubt. No one is really taking Will's allegations seriously, but Jack has to clear Hannibal just to make sure that his i's are dotted and his t's are crossed. Hannibal agrees readily. He almost seems giddy at the thought of the FBI investigating his background.
Cynthia Nixon makes her debut this episode as Kade Prurnell, an invesigator in the Inspector General's office. She has been brought in due to a complaint filed by Alanna Bloom against Jack and his handling of the Will Graham situation. Prurnell is tough and she is not happy to be meeting with Jack and Dr. Bloom in the first place. Nixon's short scene is phenomenal and speaks for big things to come. She tries to strongarm Alanna into recanting and makes an awesome metaphor about bayonetting wounded soldiers on a battlefield. I'm hoping to see Alanna and Prurnell go head to head in future episodes.
Will isn't just cooling his heels while he's imprisioned. You may thought there would be less Will with him being out of commission, but you'd be wrong. The show did a great job of keeping Will front and center. He had his sessions with the slimy Chilton who Will refuses to speak to. He had a super cool hypnotherapy session with Alanna. What an amazing visual of Alanna as that ebony T-1000 looking thing. I was worried that now that Will's encephalitis was cured we'd lose the fantasies and visions that had become the series trademark, but it doesn't look like we'll have to worry about that. Even though it seems at first that the therapy hasn't worked, we found out later in the episode that it did. We also learn how Abigail Hobbs' ear ended up in Will's sink. I had a lot of theories about that, but none of them included Hannibal forcing the ear down Will's throat so he would throw it up in his own sink.
We are also treated to some A-1 acting from Mads Mikkelsen and Gillian Anderson as Hannibal shares some time with Bedelia Du Maurier, his own shrink. I love these scenes, because with Du Maurier, Hannibal lets his guard down a little. You start to see a little bit of how he thinks and there is so much that neither character says. You pick up more in the asides and the pauses between the two characters. From the start, there has been a question of how much does Du Maurier know about Hannibal's true nature. When Lecter brings her signed consent to discuss him as her patient to the FBI, Du Maurier's reaction tells us all we need to know. It's also made clear that there are things that Lecter may have to hold over Du Maurier. I'm hoping that nothing untowards happens to the good doctor because there is nothing better than watching those two actors verbally spar.
It wouldn't Hannibal if there weren't some gruesome crime scenes and this episode delivered the goods in that regard as well. Bloated dead bodies were pulled from a river that had been pumped full of heroin and coated with some sort of resin to keep them preserved. The team with Hannibal aka the "new Will Graham's" help deduced that these were discards and that more "perfect" bodies were likely somewhere else.
And even though Will had been seemingly replaced, he still received a visit from Beverly, who was looking for help trying to determine the killer's motives or patterns. Within minutes, Will had arranged the photos of the missing people and determined that the killer is making a human color palette.
The episode ended with a chilling scene of the killer's most recent victim waking up adhered to other dead bodies in the bottom of a silo. Shiver.
So, how did you like the premiere? Are you excited to watch Hannibal unravel? Will Jack bleed out? How long do you think Will will be locked up? Let me know in the comments.
Twelve weeks earlier, it's a very different situation. Jack and Hannibal are having a civilized dinner of kaiseki and discussing how they both failed Will. It's always intriguing to watch Hannibal and Jack interact. It's even more intriguing in this instance since Hannibal's sincerity is certianly in doubt. No one is really taking Will's allegations seriously, but Jack has to clear Hannibal just to make sure that his i's are dotted and his t's are crossed. Hannibal agrees readily. He almost seems giddy at the thought of the FBI investigating his background.
Cynthia Nixon makes her debut this episode as Kade Prurnell, an invesigator in the Inspector General's office. She has been brought in due to a complaint filed by Alanna Bloom against Jack and his handling of the Will Graham situation. Prurnell is tough and she is not happy to be meeting with Jack and Dr. Bloom in the first place. Nixon's short scene is phenomenal and speaks for big things to come. She tries to strongarm Alanna into recanting and makes an awesome metaphor about bayonetting wounded soldiers on a battlefield. I'm hoping to see Alanna and Prurnell go head to head in future episodes.
Will isn't just cooling his heels while he's imprisioned. You may thought there would be less Will with him being out of commission, but you'd be wrong. The show did a great job of keeping Will front and center. He had his sessions with the slimy Chilton who Will refuses to speak to. He had a super cool hypnotherapy session with Alanna. What an amazing visual of Alanna as that ebony T-1000 looking thing. I was worried that now that Will's encephalitis was cured we'd lose the fantasies and visions that had become the series trademark, but it doesn't look like we'll have to worry about that. Even though it seems at first that the therapy hasn't worked, we found out later in the episode that it did. We also learn how Abigail Hobbs' ear ended up in Will's sink. I had a lot of theories about that, but none of them included Hannibal forcing the ear down Will's throat so he would throw it up in his own sink.
We are also treated to some A-1 acting from Mads Mikkelsen and Gillian Anderson as Hannibal shares some time with Bedelia Du Maurier, his own shrink. I love these scenes, because with Du Maurier, Hannibal lets his guard down a little. You start to see a little bit of how he thinks and there is so much that neither character says. You pick up more in the asides and the pauses between the two characters. From the start, there has been a question of how much does Du Maurier know about Hannibal's true nature. When Lecter brings her signed consent to discuss him as her patient to the FBI, Du Maurier's reaction tells us all we need to know. It's also made clear that there are things that Lecter may have to hold over Du Maurier. I'm hoping that nothing untowards happens to the good doctor because there is nothing better than watching those two actors verbally spar.
It wouldn't Hannibal if there weren't some gruesome crime scenes and this episode delivered the goods in that regard as well. Bloated dead bodies were pulled from a river that had been pumped full of heroin and coated with some sort of resin to keep them preserved. The team with Hannibal aka the "new Will Graham's" help deduced that these were discards and that more "perfect" bodies were likely somewhere else.
And even though Will had been seemingly replaced, he still received a visit from Beverly, who was looking for help trying to determine the killer's motives or patterns. Within minutes, Will had arranged the photos of the missing people and determined that the killer is making a human color palette.
The episode ended with a chilling scene of the killer's most recent victim waking up adhered to other dead bodies in the bottom of a silo. Shiver.
So, how did you like the premiere? Are you excited to watch Hannibal unravel? Will Jack bleed out? How long do you think Will will be locked up? Let me know in the comments.
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