By ANDY GILCHRIST
Arts Editor
Since the highly anticipated and satisfying conclusion of Breaking Bad last fall, critics and audiences have waited to see what television show would step up to become the next must-watch drama. AMC has begun the push for Mad Men as it heads into its own two-part final season, HBO has made strong cases for both True Detective and Game of Thrones, while always under-the-radar FX has Justified, Sons of Anarchy, and The Americans performing strongly.
But over on low-rated NBC every Friday night, there’s a show making a bit of noise that needs to be in the conversation. The gory psychological thriller Hannibal has quietly cut through the sea of police procedurals to become one of the best on television and has been building a case as one of the best shows, period. Featuring some of the best acting, writing, directing, and production design the small screen has ever seen, Hannibal is a show that demands to be watched.
Following the events the first season, FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) has been arrested for murder and sits in prison awaiting trial. His boss, Jack Crawford (Lawrence Fishburne), and psychiatrist, Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas), both think he committed the murders, but still fight to get him out of prison. With no one believing his innocence, Will must bide his time behind bars and under scrutiny until the real killer can be caught.
And that killer is Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). The gentleman cannibal himself, Dr. Lecter has managed to pin his crimes on Will, yet cannot shake his sick fascination with the profiler. As bodies continue to pile up despite Will’s incarceration, it seems inevitable that Hannibal will be caught. Indeed, an opening flash forward reveals that Hannibal’s days are numbered. But how much damage will he cause before going down?
The first season of Hannibal truly came out of nowhere, despite boasting high caliber talent both in front of and behind the camera and in its source material. The show was developed by Bryan Fuller, creator of the cult shows Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, and Pushing Daisies. Here, Fuller continues his strong track record of creating strong characters in crazy situations, with Will, Hannibal, and the ensemble proving to be the most interesting and memorable yet. Though basing a show on some of the most critically acclaimed crime novels ever published might seem daunting to most writers, Fuller’s scripts are always on par with Thomas Harris’s books in terms of exposition, dialogue, and action.
But writing alone cannot make a show great; it needs to be properly interpreted by directors, cinematographers, production designers, etc. And the team behind Hannibal is always up for the task, pushing Fuller’s sick vision even further. The show is disturbingly violent, more so than even some cable dramas. But nothing is gratuitous; no blood is shed without reason and no opportunity to showcase the bizarre beauty of the horror is wasted. The show’s crime scenes are disgustingly awful, from victims having the skin on their backs torn and hung to look like angel wings, to having their skin crystalized and being sewn together in a silo as a twisted mural. But each scene is gorgeously shot and there is a perverse magnificence to the images of broken and defaced bodies.
But what pushes Hannibal from being a great show to being one of the best on television is its two lead performances. A small movement to get both men Emmy nominations last year never made enough noise, but that doesn’t diminish the astonishing work they did.
Hugh Dancy is amazing as Will Graham, who is quickly becoming one of the most tortured characters in recent memory. In the first season, Dancy gave an unnervingly accurate portrayal of a man on the edge, a profiler who could recreate crime scenes in his head and not just understand, but sympathize with killers. This year, Graham is imprisoned at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and with little to do physically, Dancy’s portrayal has shifted from a man trying to escape his mind to a man who needs and will use it to prove his innocence.
His performance as the troubled Graham is much different from other socially awkward genius characters, such as Sheldon Cooper or the multiple versions of Sherlock Holmes, in that he doesn’t play Graham as a know-it-all who cannot function properly in society. Instead, he is a man who feels cursed by his gift, a man who helps solve crimes because it is the only thing he knows, rather than wants, to do. As his depiction of Graham shifts and the character becomes stronger, emotionally and mentally, Dancy’s work is somehow getting even better.
Mads Mikkelsen, meanwhile, is incredible as Hannibal Lecter. The character was of course previously played with chilling effect by Anthony Hopkins in three films, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs, despite only being on screen for 16 minutes of the two-hour film. The thought of giving a new portrayal of one of the most beloved villains on cinema history seemed impossible before the series debuted, the image of Hopkins’s Lecter peering menacingly through his cell at Jodie Foster’s Clarice seared into the minds of millions of fans.
And yet, Mikkelsen has done just that. Playing Lecter as a man who has othered himself from the rest of society, acting like he is above everyone else and is just walking around in their world, he depicts him as a beyond cold and calculating pure psychopath. He is in total control of every situation, standing calmly in the background until the perfect moment to strike. He rarely raises his voice or becomes physically violent and because of that, he is much scarier than the knife-wielding madmen the FBI hunts.
The final aspect of Hannibal that makes it great is that it is a prequel to the novels. While the episodes aired so far on the show have captivated audiences like never before, the best stories in the Hannibal Lecter saga have yet to be told. Fuller has gone on record saying that the show intends to adapt the three main Lecter novels (Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal) as the show’s fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons, should it still be on the air. Furthermore, Fuller has hinted that the show will end after its seventh season if all goes according to plan, with the final season consisting of an original storyline set after the final book.
This raises several questions, mainly dealing with Will Graham, who only appears in Red Dragon. Will Hugh Dancy leave the show after that book has been adapted, or will Fuller rewrite the Lecter canon so that Graham stays around through the conclusion of the saga? But if Graham is the protagonist of the years depicting The Silence of Lambs, what of Clarice Starling, who is assumed to have been brought onto the show at this point? Her iconic role as one the great female protagonists in modern fiction would be greatly diminished, possibly ruining a great storyline. First though, the show needs to get to these future seasons, and if Bryan Fuller is still in charge by that point, then there is no reason why it won’t be brilliant.
At a time when cable networks dominate the television landscape, it’s easy to forget that the broadcast networks are not only still around, but occasionally put out a great show, not just dumb sitcoms or police procedurals. NBC’s Hannibal is one of those shows, proving to be just as good, if not better, than the critically acclaimed series cable keeps churning out. With the groundwork having already been laid for future seasons and the series getting better from year to year, hopefully Hannibal is a series that will be on the air for years to come.
