I jumped into Hannibal about halfway through the season. While I personally managed to play catch up with the help of video-on-demand services, I will make my best attempt to summarize the events of the season in a way that is easy to digest. The story of 'Hannibal' feels like a mixture of “Law and Order: SVU” and a Stephen King book, and the episodes are not necessarily “episodic” in nature since the plot of one episode bleeds into the plot for the next. The result is a story that can be a bit hard to keep up with at times if you aren't one-hundred percent invested in it, because the show is filled with more names and “Doctor so and so”'s than a medical history book. I will keep the moment-to-moment spoilers to a minimum so as not to ruin the pleasure of watching the show, but I will talk about the season finale: you have been warned.
'Hannibal', as a whole, is more about the events surrounding Dr. Hannibal Lecter than the character itself. Of course, everybody knows Lecter's true nature because he's infamous! However, this show is about what happens before his reputation as, excuse the silly nickname, “Hannibal the Cannibal”. Instead the show focuses on the daily struggles of a few key members of the local detective force, specifically FBI Agent Will Graham. Will is a troubled person and one hell of a detective, and he possesses a special gift of insight that would win the Sherlock Holmes stamp of approval. The problem is simply put that Will Graham is losing his mind, and he cannot for the life of him (literally) figure out why. The other agents and people in the forensics department try their darnedest to help him through these hard times, but Will's true guardian angel happens to be the one and only Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal, at least in this iteration, is a forensic psychiatrist who takes Will as a patient and eventually a friend....or so it seems. The backdrop of the entire show starts when a killing spree erupts and the body count only gets higher as we figure out that there is more than one killer, even though the identity of the killer is the driving force behind the suspense of the first season. Laurence Fishburne fills out the main cast as Jack Crawford, the head agent in charge, who ends up being the audience's one anchor to reality through the show's many dips into terror-fueled fantasy. Laurence Fishburne doesn't exactly win an Oscar for his performance here, but his talent as a time-tested actor brings Jack Crawford to life and makes the show all the better in the process. Jack Crawford in particular is an interesting character, and I was impressed by the show's ability to flip-flop Agent Crawford between hero and antagonist during the season's final episodes; once the larger plot starts unraveling, Jack Crawford becomes something of a force of nature that ends up becoming part of the problem AND part of the solution.
The story plays an epic game of rope-a-dope with the fact that we all know Hannibal Lecter is the true bad guy. As the audience, we get to see about half of what is REALLY going on behind the scenes, even though it would have us believe that Agent Will Graham might actually be the murderer behind the killing sprees, and the one who spawned possibly several copycat murderers in the process. In the show's quiet times, Hannibal picks Will's brain about what is going on in his life, and how he feels about the murders, but again we all know Hannibal is the devil in the details. The most entertaining and rewarding element of the show so far is the dynamic between Agent Will Graham and Doctor Lecter, because Lecter is Will's psychiatrist. The show does a good job of tugging your heart strings and forcing you to think, since by all definitions and educational standards, Hannibal is a psychiatrist and he provides valuable insight into the barbarity of human nature. Most of the show's murders end up with Will paying a visit to Lecter to discuss what's happened, and you could almost cut the tension with a knife! Every episode will leave you holding your breath, waiting for a reveal of some sort. Despite the fact that the suspense is always cranked up to 11 in this show, the pacing and mood is always more towards the "Hello Clarice" side of things and a little less of the "Buffalo Bill" side of things. I hope that the pace of the show picks up in the second season, since the story is interesting but the way they tell it occasionally is not.
One pivotal moment in the show included a simple test given to Will by the good Dr., where his task was simply to draw a clock face on a piece of paper. When he draws a picture of a clock, his clock face appears normal to Will, but in reality is distorted and poorly drawn. This is a plot device that is used as a foreboding warning of something more ominous at play in the background, and left me wondering how they plan on developing Will's character in the future. Plot points like this might seem like a contradiction and pointless method of story telling since the focus on Hannibal is lost, and between the actual plot of the show and Hannibal's reputation, this might be jarring to some since you might find yourself waiting the whole episode for Hannibal to go all “Anthony Hopkins Mode” and start eating people. Luckily the three dimensional characters and high production values drive the show along very well. Mads Mikkelsen turns in a surprisingly A++ performance as the Doctor, turning him into an effective anti-villain instead of a mustache twirling villain like you might know him. One scene in particular from the season finale that hit an emotional note with me was one where Hannibal was visiting a fellow psychiatrist, Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier. After a particularly downhearted turn of events, Hannibal sheds a few tears claiming that the a recent murder and Will's potential mental illness have left him somewhat heartbroken (at least that's how I took it). At a point like this, I found myself questioning Hannibal's true motives, since by now you're also wondering what the heck his true motives really are.
Without spoiling too much, I'll just say that the season finale was riveting. After so much has happened, I can't wait to see how Mads Mikkelson will fill the shoes of those before him who have played the character before him. The season finale wraps up with a series of events that might leave you somewhat disappointed, but you have to remind yourself that this is only the beginning. Strong performances, high production values, and legitimately gross murders give 'Hannibal' a strong first season. The season finale didn't quite wrap up how I wanted it to, since the climax of the episode amounted to nothing significant beyond personal realization of who Hannibal might really be. Nonetheless, 'Hannibal' has a promising future.
RATING: 9.0 out of 10
Pros:
+ Will Graham slipping out of reality
+ Grizzly murders
+ Strong performances all around
+ Anti-hero/anti-villain Mads Mikkelsen
+ High production values, moody & tense atmosphere
Cons:
- Occasional dips into convoluted story-telling
- Slight lack of importance in climax
Favorite moment from this season: Mads Mikkelsen kicks a bad guy's butt in an epic brawl, episode 8