Reviews

Hannibal: Buffet Froid, Review

A veritable buffet (just as the episode exposes) of delights this week. But no recipes, which makes for a sad Gerri.

By Gerri Mahn | May 31, 2013 | | 0

RENEWED! RENEWED! RENEWED!

Earlier today NBC announced that Hannibal has been renewed for a second season! That high pitched shrieking you hear? That is the sound of me (and Bryan Fuller) screaming like a Belieber. How I heart my cannibal goodness! Yet I still can’t help but feel the series is missing something; something sweet … like baking! Sure, we have been enjoying all those wonderful, savory, meat dishes but when will Lecter take off his clothes? Er. I mean, try some baking … yeah. “Baking”.[Editor: Gerri… You’re drooling.]

Anywho.

This week on Hannibal, Gerri’s fantasy of cannibal sexy time remains unfulfilled, Lecter gets downright diabolical on Will’s ass (figuratively), and for the first time a crime procedural psycho drama TV show scares the crap out of me using some good old fashioned horror movie techniques! It was a busy friggen hour.Open scene: a young woman comes home to her secluded house (complete with creepy shed), and her little yellow canary.Random; but okay.The ceiling in her bedroom starts to leak (the prospect of which, I can tell you, as a new home owner, is 100 times more terrifying than any serial killer). She goes up into her creepy attic and discovers a hole in the roof. Once that is fixed she heads back to her room, only to discover wet footprints leading to her bed. Moments later someone reaches out from the shadows and drags her under.

Ha ha! What a sweet, whimsical, metaphor for Lecter and Will’s relationship. Lecter is the monster and Will is the quiet girl in her slippers and bathrobe trying desperately to claw her way out from under the bed. Sorry sweetheart, this is not going to end well for you. Not only is Lecter determined to suck Will under, he wants to drag his bromance to the deepest, darkest, and most terrifying corner of that horrible netherworld. Hey, how else is Will going to reach his full potential? Meanwhile, Will knows he is in the process of cracking up. He starts to confess his deep, dark, issues to Lecter during their quiet therapy sessions (where they stare deeply into one another’s eyes). You know how they love quality time; But the session isn’t all fun and games. Lecter asks Will to indulge him a deceptively simple exercise; he asks Will to draw a clock. Will does so, under the impression that he has drawn a normal one. No sally. What he hands the doctor is all kinds of fucked up. The numbers are crowded on the lower right side of the page. What in the Dickens is going on here? Hemispatial neglect? Delusion? But along with the headaches and the sleepwalking these are all symptoms of a possible physiological or psychological malfunction. Wackadoodle thinks he has a tumor.Personally I like that idea. I like to think Will had a twin in utero which he absorbed and one day a doctor will find a tumor in his head and they will biopsy it and find hair and teeth. From his twin. Like Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I am just going on record as saying that would be awesome.Lecter, however, can smell the encephalitis from across the room. Shit. He is more reliable than WebMD. Lucky for Will, Lecter has a buddy who will lie to him about his raging case of brain inflammation. How else will Lecter be able to continue exploring the many facets of Will’s wackadoodle if he gets all better? How else will they continue to share a bond? Instead of steroids or antiviral medication, Will gets a different diagnosis: dick doctor tells him that he is certifiable.And poor Will can totally see it; he is all kinds of off his game these days. He flounders around in the crime scene, contaminating it to the point of worrying Crawford (that he might have broken his favorite toy; dick). He guts a fish that bleeds like a person. He chases a strange creep show-type lady with peel away skin around in the snowy woods. Poor muffin needs a hug.Speaking of the sad skin lady who likes to lurk under beds; she has been sick for a long, long, time. Starting back when she was 9 years old and told her mother that she wanted to killer her. What the doctors never realized was that the sad skin and the mental health issues were directly linked and could be treated. So all that time she has been in a catatonic state? Just a complete waste of a life. Wow, she is having a tougher time than Will. Thank god she was able to follow him. To his home. Despite the fact that she is not dressed warmly, and is homeless, and bloody. And it is snowing and wintery (speaking of, has anyone else noticed that it is always snowing when Lecter is sitting down for dinner with guests?). Oh, and the big pack of doggies Will lives with neglect to bark at the lady as she walks into his house. And creeps under his bed.I do so hate overly convenient leaps of plot. Also, those dogs SUCK. They should be fired. I tell my cat the same thing. If she does not live up to the required levels of cuteness necessary to compensate for the ridiculously high-end food I buy her, she is totes out the door. God help her if she was a non-barking dog. Or several non-barking dogs.Anywho. The really horrifying twist of the night? The scene where sad skin lady walked in on Lecter as he killed his neurosurgeon friend. And he wasn’t just killing the man, he was really putting his back into it; cracking that jaw open. While wearing a sexy, translucent, rain slicker (sadly with clothing underneath). Rawr (you can imagine my mental image).[Editor: Gerri.. Drooling again.]Full disclosure: I do not like heavy handed social messaging; thankfully that is not what is going on in this episode. What we have here is the perfect venue to broach mental health in extreme cases, for the purpose of narrative. But it is rare for a TV series to take an in-depth and sensitive look at such issues. TV is built for quick fixes, not coping and merely “managing expectations” as is necessary for families dealing with the abnormal as normal. Day in and day out.Unlike Will, who’s inflamed brain and crazy pants behavior are going to be absolutely finite.UPDATED! Because I am a friggin’ idiot, I neglected to notice that the killer from Hannibal Episode 10, named GEORGIA, was played by ELLEN MUTH from Dead Like Me. I woke up this morning, drank my coffee, made the blindingly obvious connection, and promptly had a fangirl seizure. She will be reprising her role over the next few episodes (possibly while searching for Mandy Patinkin). Note to Bryan Fuller – I am available for sexy time at your convenience.