Hannibal (Season 1)

I'm not sure how Silence of the Lambs and serial killers became one of the themes of my social distancing times. I think I've been telling people that I've been getting into horror to distract from the horrors of real life but that seems dramatic. I also heard someone on a podcast talk about Hannibal and it seemed like the right time to check it out. I'm just saying, this might not be the only serial killer movie or TV show I review in the next few weeks.

Hannibal is a prequel series to the same series that brought the iconic movie of Silence of the Lambs to the big screen. The series mainly stars Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter before the events of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. He provides psychological advice and support to a unique FBI agent named Will Graham (played by Hugh Dancy) as he hunts down serial killers with his unique perspective and approach to gathering evidence.

The show also stars Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, Will's boss pushing him to track down these killers, and Caroline Dhavernas who plays Dr. Alana Bloom, a fellow FBI psychologist who has a somewhat confusing role in all of it that mainly boils down to a romantic interest for Will. I know she does more and I do think Dhavernas does a decent job in the show, I just know the show needs a weak link and she's probably the least well written, only showing up every once in a while to create some romantic drama with the troubled Will Graham.

I think one of the strengths of this show is the unique characters of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. Graham is an interesting character because they explain him as having complete empathy and being able to use that empathy and his imagination to recreate crimes in his mind and help find the killers. Every episode has a sequence where the crime is recreated but its Will doing it, and these are done really well.

My one issue is that, especially in the beginning, he's treated kind of like a child or a person with special needs (even mentioning that he's probably on the spectrum) and he becomes a bit of a blank slate that is figuring out these crimes, often with that slate being colored in by the help of a serial killer in Hannibal Lecter.

And of course we get to the only reason this show was green lit, Dr. Hannibal Lecter played by Mads Mikkelsen.

Mads Mikkelsen is a very good Lecter. Half of what's going to draw people into this show is him maneuvering behind the scenes, manipulating others, and avoiding getting caught.

The main manipulation worth mentioning is that of Will Graham who Hannibal spends the entire show poking and prodding without giving himself away and driving Will's mental state spiraling farther down.

And on a funnier more devious note, if you're watching the show, you probably know a little bit about Silence of the Lambs and the nickname of Hannibal the Cannibal. The show also makes it clear that Hannibal is a cannibal and he spends the whole show cooking and you're never really sure if he's feeding people human or not.

And that's the other half of the appeal of this show. How far this show was able to take this premise, especially on a network like NBC in 2013.

This show is not for the faint of heart. I debated even showing some of the imagery from this show because it is truly horrific. I think one thing was how this show was probably right on the edge of what kind of gore you could show on network television no matter how late it aired. But what's more, the gore and horrific imagery is used to create a really cerebral experience as you watch this FBI agent envision these murders and slowly seem to lose his mind.

Its entertaining because you start to question how much of it is Will losing his mind and how much of it is Hannibal messing with him.

Now the show is not perfect and I think that's mainly due to the limitations and requirements it needed to meet as a network TV show in 2013. If this show was pitched today, it'd be an 8 episode season with tight succinct stories and even deeper characters.

As it stands, despite having some great characters. Hannibal is your typical serial killer of the week procedural. Victim is killed, Will does his re-enactment of the crime, investigation happens, killer is brought in or killed. Rinse and repeat.

Now again, I have to give the show credit for the imaginative ways they can create different kinds of serial killers and unique ways of murdering people. But the show really lost some steam halfway when it felt like they were just riffing and making weird murderers show up for no reason. There's a whole subplot half way through with one of Lecter's other patients played by Dan Fogler and that was the point in the show where it really started to slow down and feel monotonous.

Now the long form of 13 episodes does allow for there to be a lot of build up with the character you can tell the show cares about. Obviously there is Will and Hannibal, but Laurence Fisburne's character Jack Crawford is fleshed out pretty well (though not as well as Will and Hannibal), as well as the daughter of one of the first killers, Abigail Hobbs (played by Kacey Rohl) who is pretty interesting. The show delves into the deranged versus the mentally ill and explains that that line is often blurred.

But then there's tertiary characters that the show clearly didn't know what to do with but needed to create to be the forensic experts that do autopsies and give the diagnosis's that Will and Jack can't.

Characters played by Hettiene Park, Scott Thompson, and Aaron Abrams (and I would even include Caroline Dhavernas in this list sometimes) are just there for that tertiary role and sometimes give bad comic relief but are mainly pointless.

The show sometimes doesn't know what to do with Hannibal at times but since the show is named after him, they have to engage him in one way or another, often times in ways that wouldn't really make sense if this was realistic. Furthermore on that, the fact that he is so involved all the time makes it a little unbelievable that people don't suspect him of wrong doing more. I know part of that is information bias because as the audience we know everything and that's what helps in some of the suspense, but I did have moments where I getting frustrated with the obtuseness of character for the sake of the plot.

Also there's this tabloid writer played by Lara Jean Chorostecki who has her moments where she's really interestingly utilized, but other times they just feel like they need to remind the audience that this is a character in the show.

Also Gillian Anderson is in the show and this isn't really a critique, but that woman is uniquely stunningly talented.

All in all, the show is pretty well crafted. I would add that there are some ham fisted homages to Silence of the Lambs just for funsies. But overall, the show seems like it was trying to break from the mold of network television shows at a time where premium and well crafted shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and House of Cards were really starting to take off and would shape the future of TV story telling onward, but I imagine Hannibal is probably one of those that is one of the more underrated during those times.

I will say the show has made me want to revisit True Detective Season 1, because I think that show might have overshadowed Hannibal as it was able to take steps that Hannibal couldn't. But that doesn't mean that I don't recommend the first season of Hannibal, though I recommend it with the caveat that you need to be prepared for some horrific imagery and dark subject matter. But the show is well acted, it is cerebral and mind bending, and despite some slow episodes in the middle, the show pushed the boundaries of what could be shown on network television.

But those are my thoughts on Hannibal Season 1. What did you think? I'm also starting to read Red Dragon. For those who have read the books, how does the show compare to the books and/or the movies? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog!

Thanks for Reading!