Hannibal captures the strange, very adult phenomenon inherent in relationships between you and your coworkers or you and your therapist: Within these fixed confines you become truly important to one another, yet you only ever see each other’s forward-facing parts. Hannibal’s psychosis, Will’s unclassifiable disorder, Dr. DuMaurier’s years-long manipulation by Dr. Lecter — these factors make them unknowable, but stand in for the mysteries we all choose to leave unexplored in the people we work with, because separation is safer than immersion.
This is the one-two punch that makes Hannibal haunting. At the same time its story pokes and prods at our most intimate and complex connections with one another — often through the work of its protagonists, profilers and psychiatrists for whom this is literally their vocation — its grand guignol imagery loosens your moorings and sets you adrift in the realm of pure nightmare. The human element forces you to lower your guard; when the wall is down, the horror is poured into your brain like a black liquid, pooling in the creases of your cerebellum till it’s impossible to get clean again. Once you let this devil in, he’s there to stay.
I’m covering Hannibal for Decider this season! Here’s my review of the season premiere.