Hannibal - Premiere Recap: I Never Feel Guilty Eating Anything

Episode 1 of Season 2 of Hannibal, “Kaiseki,” began Will Graham’s (Hugh Dancy) quest to clear his good name and peg Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) as the ripper we’ve always known him to be. The key is in the eating, people, perhaps more specifically the eating of people, the perfect means of disposing of evidence. Most of the Season 2 Premiere focused on witnessing each character coping with fact that their beloved buddy, Will, sat idly behind bars as an accused, and very likely guilty, psychopath. While both Beverly (Hetienne Park) and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) attempted to make some sort of rhyme or reason out of the sad and sadistic circumstances, the episode opened with a twelve-week jump into the future, where it became very clear that Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) will inevitably learn the truth. Here is the Recap and Review of Season 2 Episode 1 of Hannibal, “Kaiseki”! It was the Season 2 Premiere!

To begin the recap, it’s important to point out that most of the premiere focused on playing catch-up, both to old diners and new foodies alike. Meaning, Season 1 was very smart and offered up some seriously delicious drama that required just enough visiting to refresh our memories and clue new viewers in to what they’d missed. It seemed some time had passed since Will’s incarceration, and it was important to learn of how each of his former friends, Hannibal included, handled the entire ordeal.

Episode 1 actually opened with a flash-forward. The scene had to be witnessed to be fully appreciated, but it centered on Jack Crawford and Hannibal Lecter in an epic brawl. What an action-packed way to kick of Season 2! Surprisingly, the fight scenes on Hannibal are always significantly great for a show that is more so focused on intelligent crime-drama and jaw-dropping, grotesque murder scenarios. The scene ended with Crawford nearly strangling Lecter to death with his necktie before receiving a shard of glass jammed into his throat. I’m assuming the season will pan out over this twelve-week period, and this will serve as one of the concluding scenes.

Will Graham’s mind has had its flames snuffed out. No longer is he plagued with literal insanity due to his inflammatory brain infection. Thus, Will has begun the mental hunt to uncover the memories lost during his time slips in order to peg Hannibal as the killer. Season 2 Will is already sharp and acutely aware of what has been done to him. Even the frustrating lack of support for his theory, which to him (and to us) is already the reality, hasn’t seemed to even slightly convince him that he is, perhaps, a psychopathic murderer at heart. Dr. Frederick Chilton (Raul Esparza) isn’t granted the time of day from Will, who’d rather sit in a dunk-tank sized cage all day long imagining himself fly fishing than be forced to converse with the snarky credit fiend. That is, indeed, where Will finds his peace, in imagining himself fishing, surrounded by nothing but quiet nature. Of course, thoughts and people tend to infiltrate this sense of internal peace, as we watched occur throughout the Season 2 Premiere, but his mind is growing stronger. One thing has seemed to change, however, and that is that his own internal voice, the analytical mind that used to miraculously crack cases left and right, has been replaced with that of Hannibal Lecter’s. Also, that anthropomorphic demon deer is back to help(?) lead the way through the maze of Will's mind.

Jack Crawford has recognized his part in Will’s collapse and he’s exhibiting guilt in a form true to character. So far, he’s not so much a sobbing wreck as he is beating himself up over the loss. Alana, for one, is not about to offer up much sympathy at all. Remember, it was Dr. Bloom who consistently reminded the team, especially Crawford, that feeding into Will’s psychosis to solve crimes would inevitably push him over the edge. Alana doesn’t believe that Will is entirely innocent, but rather, she thinks that the Will Graham who committed the crimes was born as a result of the brain inflammation that crippled his life as Season 1 progressed. That Will, according to Alana's theory, is dead.

This week we were introduced to Cynthia Nixon’s Kade Purnell, the investigator at the Office of the Inspector General responsible for handling the report against Crawford, a report filed by Alana. Purnell is strict and fair but doesn’t necessarily want to open up this can of worms. If Alana files this report officially, Crawford’s reputation will be shredded and Alana will be held responsible for drumming up drama all to protect Will’s name. Then again, a report against Crawford will work wonders if Will chooses to plead based on insanity.

Hannibal is so interesting in that he remains fixated on Will Graham, the man he still considers to be, as it seems to me, his best friend. He’s sort of unable to comprehend why Will is so through with him, even considering the fact that he, obviously, knows the whole truth as well. Perhaps even more interesting to consider is Hannibal’s relationship with his therapist, Dr. Maurier (Gillian Anderson), whom, if you recall, was once rescued by Hannibal from another killer’s attack. We don’t exactly know just how much she knows regarding Hannibal’s status as the ripper, but it seems to be growing all too clear that she simply knows all. She knows what he’s capable of, for sure, and she seems to know that Will is innocent, though everything works in shades of gray. For example, she’s concerned with Hannibal’s unwavering obsession with Will and especially his desire to go visit his old friend, a trip that would, according to Bedelia, jeopardize both of their lives, not to mention their cases, by feeding into unhealthy infatuations. When Hannibal asked her to “cooperate” with the police, signing over the required wavers that would allow her to break their confidentiality, she became increasingly aware of Hannibal’s much deeper involvement in these cases. He wants her to lie for him, and knowing their relationship, she just might do it. Of course, we can assume that Hannibal has never actually discussed the true nature of his work out loud, so there might not be anything to say.

Hannibal did eventually visit Will at the hospital, an interaction that mainly served as an entertaining display of contrasting views the two currently possess. Will is desperate to drudge up old memories in order to further incriminate Hannibal. Hannibal, meanwhile, was visiting a friend. I don’t think of Hannibal as a gloater. That would be too uncouth for the man who literally eats those who are rude, disrespectful, crass, etc. I think, for the most part, he simply wanted to visit Will. Later, it was Alana who paid Will another visit, a session that was recorded from afar by Frederick. Though she neglected to buy into his theory, she did offer to help Will with hypnotherapy in one of the best visual scenes of Episode 1. An entranced Will viewed Alana as what seemed like a sexualized inkblot in the form of herself. Mostly, this served to begin to jog his memory, creating a new fixation on the image of Abigail’s severed ear.

NBC "Hannibal"

While Will continued to grapple with his own mind, the team needed a new Will Graham to crack their wild cases in his stead. This week, a whole bunch of strangely mutated bodies were poked free from the depths of a river. Without Will Graham, it was Hannibal who stepped in. Of course, knowing his fascination with Will, we knew immediately that getting to play the role of Will Graham was probably some sort of a twisted fantasy for Lecter. The team analyzed the disfigured, horrifying corpses and the processes they’d suffered through. After analysis, it seemed these victims were injected with lethal doses of heroin and put through several tests in the effort to find the perfect means of creating human models. Think of how something like a fish is preserved post-death as a trophy. These “failures” were ditched as discards in this river, leaving us to wonder just what happened to those victims that perhaps weren’t so lucky. Later, we witnessed the killer stalking his next target. The young man was discovered on a train due to his perfect skin. Afterwards, he was abducted outside of his home, dragged back to this murderer’s lab, and put through this process of perfect preservation. What did it all mean?

Funny enough, Hannibal might have been the one to note that these victims were being made into human models, but Beverly was forced to go to Will for real help. Beverly, for what it’s worth, seems to be disappointed and upset with both Will and herself. She’s also the one responsible for going over the evidence with a fine-tooth comb in order to have Will convicted, a task she isn’t proud of. Will took a look at DMV database photos of all of the deceased for about all of thirty seconds before realizing that the killer is compiling a perfect color palette of skin tones.

Will, having endured an intense session of hypnosis with Alana, eventually had his first important memory jogged back into his consciousness. While eating dinner, the image of Abigail’s ear re-entered his mind. If you remember, Will was the one to vomit up the girl’s body part, but how did he ingest a human ear without retaining any memory of eating it? A previously unseen flashback revealed Hannibal’s process of forcing the ear down Will’s throat via a tube while Graham gagged through his unconscious state. Basically, this tipped Will off to just how careful and precise Hannibal has been in his quest to frame him. As Will later pointed out to Crawford, who remained unwilling to truly listen, there is a fox in their henhouse, and there is no way they will ever find the evidence required to convict Hannibal on, say, a fiber of one of his suits. Will must remember.

Before closing the recap, it’s important to make note of some more important scenes. Alana is caring for Will’s dogs, and she seems to take true pleasure in it. Will’s rescued strays are his family, remember. Meanwhile, she shared a scene with Crawford later at Will’s home. For what it’s worth, Jack doesn’t blame Alana for reporting his mistakes. Everybody involved does want the best for Will, whose life has been inarguably destroyed by this chaos. Hannibal, meanwhile, sat in his silent office facing an empty chair. Without Will Graham in his life, who does he have?

Episode 1, the Season 2 Premiere, closed with the young man we’d previously watch get abducted awaking in a massive water tower, surrounded by dead, perfectly posed and preserved corpses. Clearly, this man didn’t overdose on heroin as was expected. The show closed this week with this living victim attempting to scream for his life as the camera panned out to reveal an intricately placed color palette of human beings.

What did you think of the Hannibal Season 2 Premiere, Episode 1, "Kaiseki"? Do you think we're in for another stellar season? Is cracking the cannibalism the key to pegging Hannibal?