HANNIBAL: SEASON TWO [2014]

"The most beautiful quality of a true friendship
is to understand and be understood with absolute clarity."

Bryan Fuller's grotesquely beautiful psychological horror series Hannibal returns for a second helping of disturbed mind-games, exquisitely prepared stomach-turning feasts and bloody nails digging dip into the troubled psyche of it's characters and viewers alike.  Inspired by novelist Thomas Harris' characters from Red Dragon & Hannibal, the series builds into a discomforting world of it's own and seems to transform into a creature far apart from the films most folks are quick to compare it to.  

The season starts off, directly where the previous year left off at, with the heavily damaged crime scene profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) incarcerated in a mental hospital, framed for the atrociously violent crimes that his brilliantly manipulative flesh-eating psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) set him up for.  Not a single soul believes Graham (who questions himself) is innocent, even his boss Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) who blames his own agenda for pushing Will too far into the minds of the deranged killers they chase.  Here we're invested in a clever reflection of what is come, as we see Graham & Lecter speak to each other through bars, politely playing each other ever so carefully with love, hate and everything in between.   The tale digs deep in to a some darkly rich storytelling about human weaknesses, coming to terms with oneself, unhealthy obsession and where the thin line between friends and enemies is drawn.  

With a lesser talented cast, some of the more absurd moments wouldn't really work but with Fuller's imagination it places it in a nightmarish world we know doesn't exist but it feels right somewhere deep within our minds.  Unlike last year, we aren't so focused on individual cases and instead the writing is more interested in digging into the psychological aspects of the characters and how they slowly twist and turn into what Dr. Lecter wants them to be.  It's a difficult but successful task to make us believe Hannibal is as intelligent as he is but what is even more impressive is we never feel the other characters are dim-witted to not even suspect him in the slightest.

   

The show is wise to rarely ever show Hannibal's murders committed on-screen, so we do feel something for him but when we do catch the odd glimpse here and there, we're absolutely terrified and shocked at the violence erupting from the normally calm-mannered man we've grown attached to.  That's not to say there isn't any violence because the blood comes in the gallons, so much that even as a horror-hound myself, I find myself very uneasy in several moments.  It's like they break your mind down with psychological horror then absolutely traumatize you with graphic violence and to say the least, it works so very, very well.  This is especially proven in the heart-breaking bloodbath of a season finale that will leave you aghast and most likely very upset long after the credits have rolled.

The cinematic photography, on-the-nose editing, moody yet vibrant color palette and effectively frightening soundscapes from composer Brian Reitzell, makes Hannibal a rarity among the legions of more accessible shows it bumps shoulders with.  It's the cable TV show snuck onto basic cable that critics and fans alike have constantly called the best series on network television that no one's watching.  Seeing as season one and two combined play like a first chapter, it seems to be just the appetizer to what can only be an intriguing main course.  

4  man-eating pigs out of 5