For the last several years I’ve had the show Hannibal on my radar. For whatever reason, I never really heard of or watched this show during its three season run on NBC, and that makes me a little sad. Sad in the way that I was bummed I never experienced it live, and really bummed that it only lasted three seasons. Even though I’ve only just finished the first season’s thirteen episodes, they’ve been really amazing!
The show focuses on FBI agent, Jack Crawford, who enlists the help of FBI professor, Will Graham, who is unique in that he suffers from pure empathy (whatever the heck that means). He’s recruited as a criminal profiler because he can get into the heads of serial killers the FBI is hunting. All season, the graphic scenes the team comes across messes with Will’s psyche. Because a colleague, Alana Bloom, knows this, she insists that Will see a psychiatrist during his time with the FBI. In enters Dr. Hannibal Lecter. immediately fascinated by Will, Lecter makes it his goal to see how Will reacts to all sorts of situations.
Oh yeah, Lecter is also a cannibal…and a serial killer. If this was a spoiler to you, well then, you’ve been living under a rock. I’m sure of it. Hannibal commits a large number of “copycat” murders during several investigations, which Will understands are copycats, just not who’s committing them. Over time, Will seems to break with the immense pressures and circumstances of the cases. He’s hallucinating and losing time, but this is being caused by an advanced case of encephalitis. Hannibal smells this malady in Will early, but ignores it so he can see how Will responds to everything.
And man, does Will really go through it. He ends up killing the serial killer introduced in the first case, and that seems to stick with him throughout the course of the first season. It also doesn’t help that he’s formed an almost fatherly bond to the daughter, Abigail Hobbs. She’s about as sick as her father was, but Hannibal and Will have agreed to protect her. All of that comes to a head when one man claiming to be the Chesapeake Ripper gets shot down by Will, who then collapses due to his encephalitis. Hannibal can detect that some ends are starting to unravel, so he plants human remains in fishing lures that Will makes himself. This means that the FBI finds Will to be the copycat serial killer.
He’s illness is finally discovered and treated, but the series ends with Hannibal visiting Will in prison. I know that all seemed like a lot, but there’s a bunch of stuff I left out! Despite the fact that this is a relatively low episode show, they managed to pack in a lot without it being overwhelming. I will say that some scenes felt a bit disjointed, and I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or not. I’ll be interested to see how the next two seasons progress in that regard. They also don’t try and overwhelm the show with characters, which I appreciate. It means I really got to focus on the relationship that builds between Hannibal and Will.
This show is very compelling and interesting, and seems fairly accurate for how the operations of the FBI would run. With that being said, this show is extremely graphic, and I sort of can’t believe it ever aired on network television! I relatively squeamish, but also somewhat desensitized when it comes to violence in media, but some scenes skeezed me out a little bit. This is not for the faint of heart. But if you can get past that, I highly recommend giving it a watch on Amazon Prime!