Hannibal has always been one of the darkest shows on the air right now (its only competition is really True Detective). James Hawkinson’s camera finds the hidden nooks and crannies in landscapes and minds; his poet’s eye makes it repulsive and alluring at the same time. “Sakizuki” has the distinction of being maybe the scariest hour the show has produced to date.
Look at the cold open: last week’s latest addition to the mural, whose name we are told is Roland Umber, painstakingly pries himself free – emphasis on pain. He laboriously rips the stitches binding himself to the other victims, his skin peeling and tearing. It’s hard to watch, and I realized why: Hannibal shoots its food the same way it shoots its corpses. Director Tim Hunter, a veteran of American Horror Story, Dexter, and Breaking Bad, feel right at home here.
Roland’s escape goes south, unsurprisingly. When his body is found, Dr. Katz returns once more to Will, who advises her to look in or near corn fields. But Hannibal is one step ahead of him, showing up in a creepy plastic jump suit and telling the killer “I love your work.” When the mural is dismantled, it’s discovered that one body is missing the lower part of its leg, which baffles the Agents but not the viewer. In a brilliantly directed sequence scored to Beethoven’s Scherzo from Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Hannibal cuts up and cooks the man’s leg, preparing a dish of osso bucco (which, being one of my favorite dishes in the world, made me hungrier for human meat than I should probably admit to anyone). As Hannibal sits down to dinner, he looks like nothing less than a monster in its lair.
It’s nice to see the cannibalism back in Hannibal – man, that’s a weird sentence – because its the best way the show has of showing the disparity between its two leads. Hannibal is cultured, erudite, and well-dressed; he’s not a frothing lunatic eating raw meat off the bone. “Sakizuki” stumbles a time or two in its dialogue; characters like Jack and Dr. Katz are completely oblivious to Hannibal’s true nature, and choose to convey that to the viewer by turning to each other and saying what amounts to “Will is definitely guilty, but Hannibal is a stand-up guy.”
But that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise outstanding episode. Right now, the only problem with Hannibal‘s second season is that NBC in all its idiocy scheduled it on Friday nights.
A Few Thoughts
– Obviously Hannibal has a food stylist. Here’s a fascinating interview with her
– Next week is Will’s trial. With Beverly du Maurier in his corner, let’s see how it shakes out
– “I look at my friend and I see a killer” – Jack Crawford, to Hannibal Lecter about Will Graham. This is the kind of dialogue I was talking about, too obvious by half
Follow us on Facebook
About Author
