Hannibal “Entrée”

Hannibal steps up the gore in this episode.  Crawford and Graham get a new lead on the “Chesapeake Ripper” when a patient at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane kills a gruesomely kills a nurse.  The injuries inflicted on the victim exactly match The Ripper’s last victim, but Graham notices one difference.  The Ripper tortured his victims before he killed them, usually impaling them with objects, but in this case all of the injuries are post-mortem.  This leads the team to the hospital to interview the new killer, Dr. Abel Gideon, to see if he is actually The Chesapeake Ripper.

Eddie Izzard guest stars as Dr. Gideon, but his role is eerily similar to Anthony Hopkins’ in Silence of the Lambs.  Maybe it’s the setting that gives me this feeling, Dr. Gideon is incarcerated in the same room that Lecter will be held in, or maybe it’s Gideon’s calm confidence.  Either way, I feel like this episode was made more for nostalgia and less for story.  Not to take away from Izzard’s performance, he did great. 

Hannibal also gets some action in this episode.  In a flashback, he is being questioned for the murder of one of his past patients and when the agent turns her back he chokes her out.  We’ve seen Hannibal kill once, I believe, in this series.  I’m not counting the girl mounted on the stag’s head.  One, that was off camera, and two, he was doing it to help Graham.  I’m waiting to see Hannibal murder on his own accord, on his own time.  I want to see how Mads Mikkelson handles that facet of Hannibal’s personality. 

All in all, I still like where this series is going.  I’m even more excited because I read the fourth season is planned as a retelling of Red Dragon which is my favorite of the books by Thomas Harris and I’m interested to see how the show runners portray the story for television.  So hopefully enough people watch Hannibal to keep it going.  Please people, do it for me.  As a favor.  I will owe you.