This week’s episode of Clarice finds the show at its most Hannibal-esque, and I mean that in both senses of the word. First, you have some of the show’s most boldly aestheticized shots: a roast duck filmed in disorienting, slow-moving close-ups designed to make it look like something out of The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre, the appearance of Clarice Starling’s memories in a glass orb on her therapist’s end table, a slow-motion suicide off a bridge that ends with a scream and an artful blood splatter on the frozen river below. I don’t think Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet’s show is going to be mistaken for Bryan Fuller’s anytime soon, but it’s willing to borrow a few tricks from Hannibal’s bag now and then.One Great StoryThe one story you shouldn’t miss, selected by New York editors
In this episode, Clarice also proves willing to invoke the H-man himself — not by name, since that’s contractually verboten, but at least by reputation. “I am not worried about him,” Clarice tells her therapist when the woman mentions the famous serial killer who had previously taken an interest in the workings of Starling’s mind. When the therapist presses, Clarice insists, “He is not coming after me. For him, hunting me wouldn’t bring relief. It would only articulate his own unspoken self-loathing.” I’m still holding out hope that Clarice gets a season-ending phone call from her old friend — hey, this is Hollywood, miracles happen — but this’ll do for now.
I reviewed last night’s episode of Clarice for Vulture.
Tags: clarice, hannibal, reviews, the silence of the lambs, TV, TV reviews, vulture