John Lucking reviews the third episode of Hannibal...
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If serving two masters is difficult, serving several must be nearly impossible. While a perfect episode of Hannibal would satisfy the creative team, the network, critics and audience, “Potage” illustrates just how delicate a balancing act this can be as it expands the show’s horizons. The chief concern regarding Fuller’s creative endeavour was the direction in which it would go: routine killer-of-the-week, or a combination of serialisation and procedural storytelling. The third episode is the first to break from the mold and ignore a case-of-the-week scenario in service of what we now know to be the season’s primary focus. The first episode gave it’s violence the gravity it deserved, the second dealt with the lasting effects, and in the third we follow this line of thematic inquiry with the question of whether or not violence is hereditary.
We begin with a flashback of Abigail Hobbs hunting with her father (the first episode’s murderer) and, having made a kill, taking a deer back to their cabin to begin work on the body. It’s not until preparation of the body that her father’s motives are revealed as he tells her that, “eating her is honouring her - otherwise it’s just murder.” Much like the direction of this scene, murderers within the world of Hannibal are not concerned with the kill - this is merely routine. Their raison d'etre is in honouring their victims, in feeling connected with the life they’ve claimed or perhaps just acting out of a twisted love. The idea of murder for financial gain or as the result of a drunken accident is anathema to the world established so far, and all of our killers share a poetic bent in relation to their victims. It’s this notion that Hobbs was aiming to pass on to Abigail; the seed of an idea rather than the ability to physically take a life. While Hobbs may initially seem to be borrowing Lecter’s motives wholesale, the notion of consuming your victims to honour them is one that runs somewhat counter to the Lecter we know from Silence of The Lambs and the film adaptation of Hannibal. In these peripheral depictions his victims are often chosen for their lack of civility or general inconvenience towards Lecter’s activities, which puts Hobbs in a similar mold, but doesn’t quite mean they’d be sharing a drink and exchanging methods.
The hunting flashback is eventually shown to be Abigail Hobb’s as she wakes from her coma, a development the episode chooses to deal with immediately as Alana Bloom gives Abigail a recap regarding her parents’ deaths. Agent Crawford is intent on interrogating Abigail as he believes her to have been an accomplice to her father’s murders, although his immediacy and persistence feels rather unearned. His suspicion seems to be based solely on Will’s declaration that the Minnesota Shrike may have had a partner, but his reason for betting everything on Abigail being that accomplice seems without merit. After some manoeuvring Will Graham is eventually elected to interview Abigail with Lecter present, serving as a caretaker for Will. During this interview they discuss Hobbs as both a killer and a father, and of murder as a means of self defense. Lecter remains mostly silent throughout, but it’s clear that this conversation intrigues and excites him, as does Will in general.
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Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as Dr. Lecter is improving week on week, something achieved by making the performance entirely his own. Brian Cox’s detached intellectualism and Anthony Hopkins’ twisted pantomime are interesting realisations of Lecter, but both are heavily influenced by their medium. Hopkins famously won an Oscar for a total of 17 minutes screentime, and when taken in the context of a film that runs 118 minutes it’s clear that leaving an impact within a small time frame was his priority. To replicate this sprint of a performance in the marathon that is a television show would be both a disservice to the actor and a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium as a whole. Mads’ Lecter is a unique take on the character, one entirely more in keeping with extended screentime and the show’s internal logic. During Will’s lecture on the copycat killer we’re treated to repeated close-up shots of Lecter’s stony face as Will shares his theories regarding the killer, and we watch as it goes from neutral to an almost invisible smile and finally something that barely qualifies as a smirk. The success of his performance comes in just how rewarding this feels - turning a moment this small into an outpouring of emotion after three episodes of icy restraint. Fuller has said in regards to Mikkelsen that he cast him specifically for this quality, for the ability to make a gift out of anything. It is not the most obvious of performances, but it is perhaps the show’s strongest, challenged only Hugh Dancy’s portrayal of Will Graham. This does leave Kacey Rohl as Abigail Hobbs somewhat lagging behind, and it doesn’t help that her lines are sometimes a little much. Her excitement in the face of a chance to recreate the death of her mother is played a touch too obvious as either an illustration of something darker in her or as simply dramatic misdirection.
After Abigail is allowed to return home her previously-unseen nearly-identical friend makes an appearance and they are accosted while out walking by one of the brothers of the Minnesota Shrike’s victims. He believes Abigail to be an accomplice in his sister’s murder, and was sent there courtesy of Freddie Lounds, whose reason for doing so, outside of a good story, doesn’t really exist. Lounds plays devil’s advocate this episode, and given the source material there doesn’t seem to be much room for change or exploring different dimensions of her character. This is a character better suited to film with a short but sweet arc that ends in just desserts, but I also trust Fuller and company to better utilise her down the line, outside of being something that drives and derails the plot as necessary.
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The body of Abigail’s identical friend is found impaled onto the antler’s of a stag, chosen by Lecter perhaps due to the girl’s rudeness towards her mother, but primarily as a means of maintaining a dialogue with Will. The lecture clearly inspired him and Will’s insistence that the copycat would never kill this way again means Lecter is now engaged in a playful dialogue with Will through his victims, one which he can adjust accordingly given his proximity to Will’s process. Abigail is later again cornered by the brother and in his insistence that he did not kill her friend pins her to the wall, leading Abigail to defend herself with a knife, killing him in the process. Her look of horror removes any question of whether she was an accomplice to her father, but if she wasn’t a killer before then she is now. Lecter finds her and decides to manipulate the situation, telling her that nobody will believe it was self defense and offering to help her dispose of the body, something she reluctantly accepts. The final scene between Lecter and Abigail comes full circle for the episode; while Abigail was never a monster she lived with one, and so recognises Lecter for what he is, even going so far as to accuse him of being the person who warned her father. Her intuitiveness is somewhat of a leap, but not entirely without basis given her father’s similarities with Lecter. Both parties agree to keep the others secret before going their separate ways, with Lecter very nearly surprised at her intuition. If violence is hereditary then it needn’t be genetic, and so perhaps there is room for a kindred spirit -maybe even a protégé- in Will Graham.
The direction of the episode is again outstanding, with special note going to director James Foley and cinematographer Karim Hussain. The level of ambition for network television is apparent in every shot, with the show managing to stand alongside larger budget cable television shows and not in their shadow. The growing pains are visible in this episode as it shifts focus from a procedural to something more, but it’s hard to fault it too much for stepping outside of the proven model. The real test will come in whether or not Hannibal is able to balance the self-contained stories alongside it’s grander narratives, satisfying critics and viewers alike.
John Lucking
We begin with a flashback of Abigail Hobbs hunting with her father (the first episode’s murderer) and, having made a kill, taking a deer back to their cabin to begin work on the body. It’s not until preparation of the body that her father’s motives are revealed as he tells her that, “eating her is honouring her - otherwise it’s just murder.” Much like the direction of this scene, murderers within the world of Hannibal are not concerned with the kill - this is merely routine. Their raison d'etre is in honouring their victims, in feeling connected with the life they’ve claimed or perhaps just acting out of a twisted love. The idea of murder for financial gain or as the result of a drunken accident is anathema to the world established so far, and all of our killers share a poetic bent in relation to their victims. It’s this notion that Hobbs was aiming to pass on to Abigail; the seed of an idea rather than the ability to physically take a life. While Hobbs may initially seem to be borrowing Lecter’s motives wholesale, the notion of consuming your victims to honour them is one that runs somewhat counter to the Lecter we know from Silence of The Lambs and the film adaptation of Hannibal. In these peripheral depictions his victims are often chosen for their lack of civility or general inconvenience towards Lecter’s activities, which puts Hobbs in a similar mold, but doesn’t quite mean they’d be sharing a drink and exchanging methods.
The hunting flashback is eventually shown to be Abigail Hobb’s as she wakes from her coma, a development the episode chooses to deal with immediately as Alana Bloom gives Abigail a recap regarding her parents’ deaths. Agent Crawford is intent on interrogating Abigail as he believes her to have been an accomplice to her father’s murders, although his immediacy and persistence feels rather unearned. His suspicion seems to be based solely on Will’s declaration that the Minnesota Shrike may have had a partner, but his reason for betting everything on Abigail being that accomplice seems without merit. After some manoeuvring Will Graham is eventually elected to interview Abigail with Lecter present, serving as a caretaker for Will. During this interview they discuss Hobbs as both a killer and a father, and of murder as a means of self defense. Lecter remains mostly silent throughout, but it’s clear that this conversation intrigues and excites him, as does Will in general.
After Abigail is allowed to return home her previously-unseen nearly-identical friend makes an appearance and they are accosted while out walking by one of the brothers of the Minnesota Shrike’s victims. He believes Abigail to be an accomplice in his sister’s murder, and was sent there courtesy of Freddie Lounds, whose reason for doing so, outside of a good story, doesn’t really exist. Lounds plays devil’s advocate this episode, and given the source material there doesn’t seem to be much room for change or exploring different dimensions of her character. This is a character better suited to film with a short but sweet arc that ends in just desserts, but I also trust Fuller and company to better utilise her down the line, outside of being something that drives and derails the plot as necessary.
The direction of the episode is again outstanding, with special note going to director James Foley and cinematographer Karim Hussain. The level of ambition for network television is apparent in every shot, with the show managing to stand alongside larger budget cable television shows and not in their shadow. The growing pains are visible in this episode as it shifts focus from a procedural to something more, but it’s hard to fault it too much for stepping outside of the proven model. The real test will come in whether or not Hannibal is able to balance the self-contained stories alongside it’s grander narratives, satisfying critics and viewers alike.
John Lucking