“I believe you.”
Last weeks season two opener was a strong episode, bringing us up to date, with Will Graham now behind bars and Hannibal Lecter taking his place where he’s assisting the FBI on their latest murder case. This episode saw everyone deliberately keeping a safe distance from our hero as the fact he’s a murder suspect is driven home, however, I felt this was overdone this week and find it strange no one thought to pay attention to their safety last week. Will finally brings up Chilton’s recording of all the sessions they have together but it appears no action will be taken, and with the trial coming up shortly, we may find Chilton’s recordings are used in the legal proceedings … or not.
I was afraid we’d have Will Graham stuck behind bars for the entire season, however, going by the latest trailer, which sees the trial begin next week, Will may be released due to lack of evidence and the hunt back on for the actual murderer, who we all know is Hannibal Lecter, and would account for the battle between Lecter and Jack Crawford we know is coming in the latter episodes of Hannibal.
We pick up right where we left off, with the new killer’s latest victim waking up in a farm silo and he the center of a human mural. The victim is naked, coated in resin and stitched to the bodies surrounding him. The reason for his survival is due to his high tolerance of opiates, as he’s a recovering heroin addict so the overdose which killed the other victims only kept him temporarily sedated. I would have thought the killer should’ve realised the dude wasn’t dead by checking his pulse or noticing him breathing, but…
After the victim comes to, he tears his stitched flesh from the surrounding bodies, which was pretty gruesome and realistic, not to mention eye-wateringly painful to look at. He escapes from the silo but his timing sucked as the killer arrived in time to see him eventually make it into a cornfield, and after a quick chase, the poor guy jumps to his death in a river thanks to hitting an extruding rock on the way down.
The recovered body is studied by Lecter, who manages to figure out where the body originated from by smelling the corpse. We know from previous films that Lecter has a gift and an analytical mind, only equalled by Will Graham (and Sherlock Homes), where they can put themselves in the mind of the killer or victim. To me it looked as though Lecter was a little annoyed that Will Graham proved to be better than he when it came to figuring out the killer’s motivations and that Will noticed very quickly that the killer was part of the mural. It was also noticed that the stitching on the killer was identical to that of the last of his victims, which is something that actually points to Lecter, but, only if they’re looking in the right direction.
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During a conversation between Jack, Lecter and Beverly Katz, Lecter knowingly gets Beverly into trouble by revealing she visited Will, and got him to assist in their latest case. Later, when Jack tells Beverly he can’t openly allow this sort of thing because he’s under investigation, but then tells her they didn’t have the conversation, so she should do whatever she thinks is the right thing, it showed that Jack does have his doubts about Will’s guilt. It will only take a bit of doubt about Lecter, for Jack to believe Will is innocent, which must happen in order for us to see the planned fight they both have. This fight was always shown between Lecter and Graham, unless two such fights are planned, with Will coming to Jack’s rescue.
After Lecter’s shrink, Doc Du Maurier, bravely told him she could no longer treat him as a patient, with her backing up every time Lecter moved closer, we knew it was only a matter of time before Lecter added her to his menu, but, the way she left her perfume for him in her vacated apartment was quite amusing, showing she understood the serial-cannibal better than he suspected. Watching him arrive at Du Maurier’s home in his tailor-made, transparent murder-suit (only Lecter would go to such lengths as to have his “kill” suit tailored!), then sniff the perfume and give a knowing yet chilling smile, was actually very effective.
Will Du Maurier be making another appearance, and if so, I wonder if Lecter will get a chance to taste part of her? She certainly left Will Graham rattled after whispering to him, “I believe you.” Did she know Chilton was recording the conversations? Perhaps Lecter told her during one of their sessions. Now that Lecter has murdered the mural killer, does he intend on taking over his killing technique, as a way to disguise his own murders? If he does go down that path, this could be his undoing, because Will already has a feel for the killer now. I also think Will has proven he’s better than Lecter when it comes to using his intuition, however, Lecter is certainly no slouch either.
TV Review by Ed Blackadder, Lead Entertainment Writer