Review: Hannibal Season One By Chase Will

Chase revisited HANNIBAL season one. Does the cult TV show hold up after a decade?

Hungry for something bloody and rare? Feeling nostalgic for the early 2010s? Brian Fuller’s hit show Hannibal, which originally aired on NBC of all places, will satisfy your viewing appetite.

The first season of Hannibal is as effective now as it was during its premiere in April 2013, well over a decade ago. The intricate story, artsy presentation, and expert use of both practical and digital effects, still hold up well over a decade later.

The show is based on characters from Thomas Harris’s 1981 novel, Red Dragon. Our protagonist is FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), an extreme empath who’s able to mentally reconstruct violent crimes and catch the men and women behind them when no one else is up to the task. After being recruited by FBI Behavioral Science head Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), Graham helps catch a serial killer targeting young women, an investigation which leads to him discharging his firearm and putting an end to the murderer. However, Crawford puts Graham under the mental health care of Dr. Hannibal Lector, a charming therapist with a dark secret…and even darker intentions.

One of my favorite things about Hannibal is how the show plays with subtext. The characters engage in a lot of veiled dialogue, rarely saying what they really mean and leaving interpretation up to the audience. In a world filled to the brim with on-the-nose dialogue, this is very much appreciated from a viewer’s perspective.

The titular character, Dr. Lector, is a masterful manipulator of Graham and the FBI at large, playing characters against each other with the most innocent comments. Why? Because he wants to see how they’ll react. As one character puts it toward the end of the season, Lector simply lines his toy soldiers up and watches them go for sheer entertainment.

But Lector has more than just a casual interest in Graham. Being that Graham is able to get inside the heads of serial killers, Lector thinks he’s found someone who truly understands him. Like many of us, Lector wants to be seen for who he is, which humanizes the character to a degree even as we watch him commit atrocious acts. He sees a friend in Graham, even as he puts him in harms way and consistently manipulates him.

Which leads us to the overarching subtext of the show: romance. Throughout the cat-and-mouse game between Lector and Graham, the characters become closer and develop subtextual feelings for each other. I wouldn’t go as far as to call this sexual chemistry, though some viewers have drawn that conclusion and there’s plenty of inuendo in season one. The characters simply understand each other on an intimate level and are, in their own various ways, obsessed with one another.

Unfortunately, Hannibal was cancelled after three seasons due primarily to rights issues and the inability to use the character Clarice Starling in the planned fourth season, which would have adapted Harris’s novel The Silence of the Lambs. The showrunners also attributed cancelation to season three’s low viewership and online piracy.

I won’t spoil the ending of season one, in case you haven’t yet experienced the majesty of the hit show. All I’ll say is that you’ll enjoy every savory morsel of this story.

Bon Appetit!

Chase Will is from Coshocton, OH, where some of the kindest people in the world live. He loves horror movies, punk and metal music, theater, and competing in amateur powerlifting. He’s written for several horror websites, including Dread Central, HorrorNews dot net, Scare Tissue, and CryptTeaze.