“Killing must feel good to God, too. And are we not created in his image?” A chilling quote from Hannibal Lecter in episode two of the series Hannibal. The episode picks up where the last one left off. Will is still experiencing nightmares from his murder of the serial killer Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Jack Crawford sends him to get evaluated by Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Meanwhile a new case has popped up in Minnesota. A man has been burying victims alive in order to grow his own mushroom farm, as well as perform a disturbing thought experiment.
This episode was fantastic, and while not as good as the pilot, it definitely matched it in quality. The writing was superb and had sprinkles of dialogue from the book spread throughout it. This episode gives us our first look at Freddy Lounds, who in this universe is a female named Fredericka “Freddie” Lounds. She runs the tabloid website “Tattlecrime.com”, a more modern version of The Tattler newspaper from the book. This will probably be somewhat controversial amongst purists of the book and films. However, I found that not much has changed about the character in this version other than the gender. She is just as rude and nosy as the original character; she’s also very crafty and finds ways to get pictures of crime scenes for her blog. I’m interested in the ramifications it has for the later seasons when they decide to adapt Red Dragon. I also have a feeling that Hannibal will be toying with her throughout the season. We know what happens to rude people around the guy, but Freddie seems to be someone he despises. I think he will have fun with her before the main course.
The way they portray Will’s psyche is fascinating, it gives a surreal touch to the show. We already have Serial Killer-O-Vision, so the hallucination and PTSD moments do not seem as off-putting. What was very off-putting, however, was some of the music used in the episode. However, they used this to their advantage. When a couple of boys find the killer’s mushroom farm in the woods, we hear a very creepy out of tune score as the camera pans over the victims. Not only is the music terrible, but it makes you feel the way anyone would feel discovering these bodies.
The acting is excellent these episodes. Hugh Dancy is slowly becoming better than Edward Norton. And as much as I love Mads Mikkelsen’s performance in this episode, he still has a long way to go before topping Anthony Hopkins. I think it might be the accent. It’s good that they made him more foreign, seeing as Hannibal is a foreigner himself. However, the accent is a bit to thick in places and make it hard to understand the dialogue. Regardless of that, he still performs his lines creepily enough to where he could possibly come off as menacing if he needed to. We need to remember though, this is pre-incarcerated Lecter. He is also trying to hide his evil side from everyone, therefore he will not come across as the same Hannibal we know and love.
We got another fantastic episode this week. This show is slowly becoming one of my favorite prime time dramas. It has great character building, good suspense, excellent writing and fantastic direction. All together I would give Hannibal: “Amuse-Bouche” 9 mushrooms out of 10.
—Coty
The Nerdicon 