Hannibal (Season 1) – “Potage”

Hannibal (Season 1) – “Potage”

Hannibal continues to be one of the most interesting new shows on television with this week’s episode, “Potage”, which deals heavily with Abigail after she awakes from her coma. The opening dream sequence was well done, giving us a creepy vibe right from the get-go.

Graham and Lecter are assigned to analyze Abigail’s current mental state. Crawford seems convinced that Abigail may have been involved in her father’s killings and he may just be right. Though nothing major is revealed in this episode, it will be interesting to see how far they go with Abigail.

Freddie is back in this week’s episode and she continues to be more of an annoyance than anything else. Constantly getting in the way of our main characters without offering much more to the audience than being a nuisance. The thing that I keep asking myself is how she keeps getting passed these police lines so easily. The show takes a page from FOX’ The Following by really stepping up the suspension of disbelief required.

“Potage” had a couple of coincidences that I found just a bit too perfect. I don’t like too go into heavy detail, but Freddie constantly getting into places where you know she wouldn’t normally be able to get into is getting a little aggravating. Especially when the rest of the show takes a much more realistic approach to its characters. Graham and Lecter are able to work things out with their brilliant minds, but while they attempt to make Freddie into some “do anything for the story” type of journalists, she just comes off as unbelievable. I hope they start to give her more to do than just poke around crime scenes.

David Slade returned to direct “Potage” and the guy just has such a great eye for the macabre. The strange deer images in Graham’s dreams always creep me out and some other scenes are just chilling, especially for a network television show.

It actually amazes me that Hannibal is on network television at all. It is such a cut about the rest of the dramas on the channels that it makes everything else in its domain look like garbage. The show takes the maturity of a cable series and works it miraculously into network television constraints. I hope that NBC realizes just how big of a step up Hannibal is, even with its flaws.

Once the show is officially renewed for a second season I will be able to take a major sigh of relief. PLEASE DON’T CANCEL HANNIBAL!!