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Sunday 2 March 2014

"Hannibal" Season 2, Episode 1, NBC A great opener

For me the standout in his show is its visual style. This season opener is just as beautifully shot. The stunning image of the antlered demon (Hannibal?) rising out of the stream or the closing image of the entwined corpses (think Saul Bass meets mad old Ken Russell's "The Devils" meets Dante's Inferno/William Blake).
What a brave idea (the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fight between Jack and Hannibal) jumping forward to the climax of Season 2 (I'm assuming, as the rest of the episode flashed back to 12 weeks earlier).
Observations:

  • Last year it was French gastronomic titles, this season it's Japanese.
  • Great to see Gillian Anderson is back, calmly paring back Hannibal's layers. It was fun to see Cynthia Nixon playing the icy investigator (describing her job as 'putting down' the battle wounded). Bet she'd be a riot at the FBI Christmas party.
  • Will our hero, Will, being locked up slow down the pace in this season. Solving cases behind bars is tricky. Liked the sorting of photos according to colour palette.
  • Prissy Dr Frederick is still annoying (but I suppose he serves his purposes).
  • 'Psycho of the week' has been tweaked so it carries over to the new episode.

Still thinking of that stunning final creepy tableau. Quite groundbreaking for network television. Hope Bryan Fuller can keep this standard up.

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