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It’s a little odd yet fitting that “Aperitivo” is the fourth episode of the season. It’s odd because, in Italian dining, the aperitivo is the drink that precedes the meal; it’s meant to whet the appetite and to break the ice in social situations. It’s a precursor to not just to the main course, but the meal itself.

Despite the fact that “Aperitivo” arrives three hours in to the meal that is Hannibal season three, it performs many of these functions. It (finally) connects the dots between the ending of season two and the events of the previous three episodes, and then it spends much of its time setting the table for the middle act of this season, which will bring us, one presumes, to the status quo of Red Dragon. With some minor deviations, of course.

But for all of the (some might say overdue) explanations and resolutions “Aperitivo” offers, there’s no skating around the fact that it halts the momentum that Hannibal has so far achieved precisely by skipping past all that exposition. This episode is tracing its own steps for much of its running time, and, frankly, after three episodes, I’m more invested in what’s going on across the Atlantic.

Fortunately for us at home, even a somewhat disappointing episode of Hannibal is still better than most anything else on television, and “Aperitivo” is full of the little delights that we have come to expect. The opening scene between Chilton (who has cheated death again!) and Mason Verger is a master class in grotesquery, as they strip off their masks to reform the deformities with which Hannibal Lecter has left them. It’s one of the weirder scenes the show has done—which is saying something—that are full of weird sexual overtones that never quite resolve themselves.

Weird sexual overtones persist into yet another reflection back on that night at Hannibal’s, though now we visit it in another new context, after Bedelia’s bombshell that, maybe, Hannibal is literally in love with Will. The constant flashing back may eventually become tiresome—maybe it already has—but I love that the show affords this sequence its proper weight. For all of these characters, this is the most fucked up night of their lives, bar none, and that impact is fully felt each time we revisit the scene from another perspective.

It’s after these opening scenes that the episode begins to flag, if only a little. We see Will meet with Jack, prior to taking off to Europe to chase after Hannibal. He admits to Jack that he wanted Hannibal to run, and that he, in fact, wanted to go with him—so basically he almost found himself in exactly the same position in which Bedelia now finds herself. “Friendship with Hannibal is blackmail elevated to the level of love,” after all.

We also catch up with Alana, who had her own flirtation with Hannibal in the previous season. Now, with a fancy new cane and an apparently murderous new attitude, she’s providing therapy to Mason Verger and also maybe convincing him to form a supervillain team with Chilton in order to get revenge on Hannibal. I don’t yet know what to make of this development in Alana’s character—she is so changed from the source material, where Alan Bloom is a minor character, and yet her development in the series so far has been so contingent on her relationship to the other characters that it’s hard to gauge how far she’s snapped, or if it’s even believable that she would. The jury is out here.

Finally, we spend some actual quality time with Jack, as he finally decides to give Bella the peaceful death she desires. How much is his reasoning for this linked to his experience at Hannibal’s? It’s purposely vague. But Jack’s decision here is firmly entrenched in the context of the previous episodes this season. In the matter of Bella’s final days, is he observing or participating? (Hannibal sends him condolences because he is a giant prick.)

The episode is slower than I’d like. It spends a lot of time connecting dots that the audience has already done intuitively, but it’s still necessary plot work. It’s understandable why Fuller and company waited until now to do it, too. If “Secondo” was a reflection on cause and effect, on the context for horror, then this hour is a reflection on grief, death, and on the aftermath of said horror. We see how Jack, Alana, and Will dealt with that immediate aftermath, and how they arrive at the point where Will is going at it alone in Lithuania. In the grand scheme of things, this episode is shoe leather, connective tissue between the ultra-arty thematic work that came before and the falling dominoes that are about to come. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but I’m glad to be past it nonetheless.

Stray Observations

• Outside of flashbacks and the note that Hannibal sends Jack, this is a Hannibal-free episode. This may or may not contribute to the perceived lack of momentum.
• Also, how demented is that gorgeous dream sequence in which Will and Hannibal murder Jack at dinner? There is so much to unpack in that image, and I really hope that we revisit it as the season wears on.
• Chilton copyrighted “Hannibal the Cannibal” because of course he did.
• Hannibal may be taking over from Mad Men as the stealth funniest show on television. Lots of black humor in this episode.
• “If my brother offers you chocolate? Politely refuse.”
• “I’ve always enjoyed the word defenestration, and now I get to use it in casual conversation.”
• Hannibal Revival Rumor Watch: Rumors all over the place this week. Hulu maybe wants the show but can’t have it because of Amazon’s contract, which Amazon may or may not make good on? And it might not matter at all because the show’s international backers might demand network involvement? Also, maybe A&E is interested? Look, if there’s more Hannibal to be had, I will watch it literally anywhere Bryan Fuller asks me to.

The secondo is the heaviest course of the Italian meal; it may include different sorts of meats or fish. Here’s the most interesting part: according to Wikipedia (I do a lot of hardcore research for these reviews, you know…) either the primo or the secondo may be considered more important, depending on the locality and the situation. Depending, in other words, on the context. “Secondo” is all about exploring that context. The question of which is more important in a continuing succession of pairs—cause and effect, Will and Hannibal, eater or eaten—is left to the viewer.

Exploring the context of Hannibal Lecter means that we delve into Hannibal Rising, source material with which I am only glancingly familiar, by which I mean I am familiar with the fact that the source material blows and have therefore avoided it. Will visits the Lecter estate in Lithuania, which is a literal Dracula’s castle. The gothic nature of the setting is a perfect match for the visual aesthetic that Fuller has cultivated. Roughly the first half of Will’s time in Lithuania is extremely light on plot but heavy on creepy images and atmosphere, as he stalks Chiyoh, a mysterious woman hanging about the Lecter grounds who is keeping a prisoner.

Meanwhile Hannibal and Bedelia continue their increasingly perverse game of house. They have Professor Sogliato over for dinner, and Hannibal casually murders him at the dinner table. Then he and Bedelia casually observe, trading barbs, as the man dies in a most darkly comic fashion, until Bedelia pulls the knife from his brain and spares him. . “That may have been impulsive” and “technically, you killed him” are both surprising laugh lines. In fact, throughout the episode, these two bicker with an unexpected humor.

But the context is key. Bedelia is horrified by Hannibal’s actions, but only for a moment, until her horror is replaced by her fascination. “You are going to be caught,” she warns him. Later: “You’re drawing them to you, aren’t you?” She’s thoroughly chilling, and, moreover, she’s much more interested in understanding Hannibal than she should be—she’s fascinated by him. Consider context: what’s more important? Understanding the reason for Hannibal? Or understanding what he is and getting the hell out of dodge as quickly as your feet will carry you?

The trap of understanding, of needing to find meaning, is one that Jack and Will and company have fallen into, and one into which Bedelia has more or less dived head first. In a way, Chiyoh is trapped, as well, though her trap is one of her own making. All roads, as always, lead to Hannibal, and soon the episode’s central question—the context it provides, the dichotomy it presents—is between Will and Hannibal. How alike are they? Who is crazy and who is sane? How should we even define the two extremes?

It’s only fitting, then, that the writing and editing as the episode continues begins to interweave Hannibal and Will’s stories, showing us Will’s discovery of Hannibal’s past, as Hannibal shares a version of the same with Bedelia. The big reveal of the episode, insofar as Hannibal trades in big reveals, is that of Mischa, Hannibal’s young sister. But as Will says, “Mischa doesn’t explain Hannibal.” There is no easy explanation, no dot to connect. One or the other thing might be important; maybe cause, maybe effect. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all. “All sorrow can be borne, if you put them in a story.” Maybe the whole thing is trying to foist meaning onto a horror that has none; a man who kills and eats for the power it gives him over his victims. After all, we have Hannibal’s version of the same story: “Nothing happened to me. I happened.” Chiyoh’s version of the story is that her prisoner ate Mischa, which set Hannibal on his path. Bedelia catches on more quickly, as she asks Hannibal bluntly how Mischa tasted.

It’s no accident that Bedelia sinks into that murky bath once again this week. This time as Hannibal shampoos her hair for her—he might as well be drowning her himself. But has Hannibal happened to Bedelia after all? Hasn’t she made, willingly, every decision that led her to this point? Is she not a participant after all?

It seems that Will is. He frees Chiyoh’s prisoner, who summarily attempts to kill Chiyoh, forcing her to kill him instead. Chiyoh, at least, is sorry for what she has to do. Will isn’t. Hannibal was once curious whether Chiyoh would kill. Is Will equally curious? He strings up Chiyoh’s victim in a pose that would make Hannibal proud.

I’ve filled this review with questions because the whole of “Secondo” is questions at its core. Even Jack gets in on the game, talking with the inspector about the nature of faith, understanding, and imagination. And yet Jack still has faith—still imagines—that Will understands Hannibal. That there is something there to be understood. That it isn’t all entropy, sliding slowly into pure chaos.

“Secondo” is by far the best of this opening set of episodes. Visually, it is a fabulously murky episode. Everything in Lithuania is in dark blacks and blues. The very setting threatening to swallow Will and Chiyoh whole. Even the scenes in Hannibal’s stolen apartment are burnt orange, with none of the warmth that implies. The edits between scenes are slow dissolves, cross cuts, and fades in and out. Everything is of a piece; everything is of a design. Even if that design is a broken tea cup or a shattered bottle of wine. Narratively, the episode is the same; a fractured set of fairy tales and ponderings about the stories we tell ourselves and each other in order to bear the horrors we must live. It’s been a slow, purposeful start, but with the closing scenes of “Secondo,” the stage is set—sooner rather than later—for reckoning.

Stray Observations:

One of the episode’s neatest visual flourishes is the recurring, luxurious shots of snails. As Abel Gideon said so succinctly, “The snail doesn’t know it’s being eaten.” Hannibal sees everyone around him as snails, anyway, and maybe they are, for as susceptible to his machinations as they tend to be. Or maybe it’s that the knowledge of it doesn’t change their behavior.

As an experiment, I am going to watch Hannibal Rising and see how it compares. (I expect the answer will be “not favorably,” but my expectations are nil anyway.)

I try not to put too much weight on the previews, as the marketing monkeys responsible at NBC know how to twist and contort any episode beyond recognition. (RIP Parenthood.) But YO NEXT WEEK LOOKS SO GREAT.

Well, as you all have learned by now, NBC has not renewed Hannibal for a fourth season. I’m not going to eulogize the show just yet because I’m pretty confident that some online streaming service or another will resurrect it for at least one more go. It remains to be seen whether that would even be worth it, given the difficulty with getting the rights for Silence of the Lambs and considering that the end of Red Dragon is a fine stopping point for the characters we’ve come to know. As much as I’ll miss Hannibal should this be the last season, you can’t really blame NBC for this one. They’ve given the show more than a chance against pretty much all reason.

After totally neglecting the cliffhanger ending of its second season, this week Hannibal brings us up to speed—at least somewhat—reacquainting us with Will Graham after what’s revealed to be a six month gap since that hellish night at Hannibal Lecter’s house. But first, “Primavera” takes us all the way back to that night, presenting the final moments of season two in the new context of this third season. At the time, it was a tragic crescendo, a cacophony of destruction raining down upon our heroes; now, the scene is framed as a tragic echo. Hannibal recalls the loss of the man who was his one, true friend. “Fate and circumstance have returned us to this moment,” Hannibal says, then and now. The stag lies dead, too. An ocean of blood spilling from it and drowning Will. The teacup shatters, again, only to reconstruct itself as Will awakens in hospital.

Yes, the first several minutes of “Primavera” are composed of scenes we’ve already seen, but the new context they are afforded in following “Antipasto” is invaluable. They’re also no less gorgeous than they were the first time around—with a monochromatic grey that is shot through with deep, red blood, spurting in geysers and flooding the frame around the characters. The teacup, shattering is such a vital, recurring image throughout the previous season, reassembles itself here once more. This suggests something of Will’s mental state and sets up the dream logic that dictates much of the episode to follow.

“Primavera” only slowly reveals its true nature. We should know better. After all, we are, by this point, more than familiar with Will Graham as an unreliable narrator. When a silhouette that might be Alana Bloom’s turns out instead to be that of Abigail Hobbs, it should be an obvious trick. And yet, somehow, it’s not. It helps that Abigail has cheated death on this show before; and the parallel of the relationship between Hannibal and Bedelia to that between Will and Abigail is intriguing enough to justify her giving death the slip one more time.

But as the episode unfolds, much of Will’s reality comes into question. “Primavera” plays out like some sort of lurid fever dream, chiefly concerned with putting Hannibal and Will’s relationship in new relief (in light of what each views as the betrayal of the other) and exploring the past that Hannibal has attempted to abandon, whether it’s his crimes of the distant past (as the historical Il Mostro) or his more recent abuses toward Will and company.

As with “Antipasto,” the very best thing about Hannibal this week is its utter indifference to the conventions of plot and narrative. In bucking what would be expected of the early season here, Hannibal presents an infinitely more exciting narrative instead. The show is doling out its familiar characters and rhythms only very slowly, and, for the most part, these have been abandoned or transformed beyond recognition. We are thrown one familiar bone, as Will investigates a murder committed by Hannibal Lecter, but rather than alongside Jack and Alana, he’s with Detective Pazzi and an imagined Abigail. We are robbed even of the pendulum swing that normally signals Will’s practiced use of his empathic abilities.

And then there is the extended finale sequence, which is a master class in visual storytelling. It begins with Will’s study of the corpse Hannibal has left for him. Is it a gift? A trail of breadcrumbs? A warning? Or, perhaps, as is often the case, it is at once all and none of these. What it becomes for Will is a nightmare revisited, as the stag that was slain is reborn, in gloriously grotesque fashion, before his eyes, and in a church, of all places. The effects work here is excellent, and the way the corpse bends and breaks itself is a horrifying sight for Will and the audience alike.

And so, with Moby Dick newly revealed to his Ahab, Will hunts through the catacombs beneath the church, certain that he has caught a glimpse of Hannibal, and that he is somewhere here, lurking in wait. This is, of course, a gorgeous sequence, but is also delightfully tense, even as it serves the sole purpose of marking time as the surviving cast slowly assembles in Italy to finally bring Hannibal to justice. What excellent camerawork throughout. Hannibal is nowhere, yet he is around each corner. And then he is there, looking for all the world like Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. He and Will have several near misses. In fact, they may be nowhere near each other, as the episode never feels more dreamlike than it does in this sequence, and Hannibal and Will each fade in and out of the murky shadow in tandem. Will’s whispered, “I forgive you,” so reminiscent of Bedelia’s still-stunning “I believe you,” may be whispered to thin air—though it certainly seems as though Hannibal is there to hear him, after all.

“Primavera” presents in may ways the first part of a long mystery narrative. The final manhunt for Hannibal Lecter, and it’s impossible, at this stage, to know what is real and what is not or who is real and who is not. Good and evil, like observation and participation, are obfuscated to the point of meaninglessness. In other words, we are right where Hannibal and Hannibal wants us to be.

Stray Observations:

• The show pretty unambiguously names Hannibal as the real-life serial killer Il Mostro, a tack that the novel and the film Hannibal  (in deleted scenes) hinted at, as well.
• There is continued, overt discussion of religion in this episode. The idea of evil as the Devil-with-a-capital-D or, alternatively, of playing God, has always been on the fringes. Just last week, Abel Gideon called Hannibal the literal Devil.
• What an awful last year of life Abigail Hobbs lived, when you think about it.
• The title isn’t as structurally clever as “Antipasto”, which is disappointing—instead, it references Botticelli’s painting of the same name.

What I love best about the titling scheme Bryan Fuller has chosen for Hannibal—this season, each episode is named after an Italian course; the previous seasons were French and Japanese, respectively—is how it at once constitutes gimmickry and structural importance. Not every episode is perfectly aligned with its title, but many come pretty close. “Antipasto” is such an episode. It’s a peculiar episode. There is not even the remotest doubt that Will, Jack, and Alana survived the bloodshed of season two’s finale (not least, their names are in the credits), and so, assuming that its audience is not necessarily on pincushions waiting to find out what’s happened to them, “Antipasto” is instead thoroughly unconcerned in addressing the cliffhanger at all. This serves to generate considerably more suspense than the cliffhanger itself, such as it was, ever did. We are launched several months into the future, and our first glimpse of Will and company doesn’t come until the preview for next week. The question becomes not if they survived, but how on earth they managed it.

Imagine an alternate premiere, a perfunctory episode of television that picks up right where we left off and doles out, piece by piece, the process that brought our maimed heroes back to life. It’s boring, and moreover, it’s uncharacteristic of Hannibal as a series. What a relief, then, to see in “Antipasto” that Bryan Fuller retains a full understanding of the sort of show he’s making, and how that sort of show works. Very little actually happens in “Antipasto”, and yet every second is engrossing; every shot, every frame, is dense with meaning. This is a show that begs to be savored.

The episode wastes no time throwing us right back into the stylized glory that is Bryan Fuller’s vision of the Hannibal Lecter story. When we meet Hannibal in the season premiere, he is wandering around a party, floating adrift from frame to frame. He is newly unknown, freed not just from the weight of the Chesapeake Ripper, but freed from the reputation of Hannibal Lecter himself. Not that he doesn’t fall quickly into old habits. A new name and a new companion don’t change the fundamental aspects of his character.

So Hannibal and Bedelia are trotting around the continent, stealing identities and living perfectly frivolous lives among the French, then Italian elite. One of their acquaintances happens upon in both countries, and twigs to their scheme. Suddenly Hannibal falls into the cat and mouse rhythm he developed so thoroughly with Will. Meanwhile, Bedelia du Maurier spends the episode becoming increasingly unraveled, despite her deceptively cool exterior. Gillian Anderson plays her as a reckless, curious woman, in way over her head (and she plays her brilliantly, at that. I have never been happier with opening credits than to see Gillian Anderson’s name added to this week’s).

The episode climaxes (or perhaps, the antipasto cleared away, and the main course glimpsed) when, suddenly, Hannibal is bludgeoning his new friend to death, just as Bedelia tries to run away. Is she observing or participating? Hannibal asks this question of her implicitly throughout the episode, and explicitly here, as he calmly murders the poor man, and Bedelia looks down helplessly as he deconstructs her carefully considered rationalization. She has been participating all along; passivity is not an excuse. The game of cat and mouse has been with her all along.

The relationship between Hannibal and Bedelia is fascinating, giving the episode a driving energy that more than serves in the absence of the show’s typical characters and rhythms. Her interest in him darts back and forth from intrigue to wariness. She discusses his murderous, cannibalistic habits frankly, not as scared of them as she should be—and that is what scares her most. There are many shots of blood flowing in “Antipasto”, being washed off the bodies of our intrepid Eurotrippers, or dripping off the corpse of a freshly killed rabbit hanging from a butcher shop. But there is no washing away the blood they’ve spilt. There’s no getting around the fact that Hannibal is, as Abel Gideon says tonight in flashback, truly the devil. He has an uncanny gift for brining out the worst in all around him, and Bedelia is no exception, as much as she’d like to think he is. The phrase “professional curiosity” comes about again; before this was the rationalization Alana used to justify her interest in Will Graham. Yet another parallel is drawn.

The story, then, is excellent, a brilliant first course as we set the stage for, at last, the adaptation of Red Dragon proper. But as always the real main course here is the visual experience. The episode’s pace is deliberately languorous, as Fuller chooses instead to immerse us, slowly, in the new lives that Hannibal and Bedelia have established for themselves. As he does so, he lets us sink slowly back into the cinematography, the visual rules and motifs that govern Hannibal’s cinematic language. “Ethics become aesthetics,” Hannibal and Bedelia conclude in their philosophical exchange. No longer is the show interested, necessarily, in portraying Hannibal’s crimes as murders, as evil. That’s for granted now; now, the interest lies in portraying the nature of evil.

There is of course the recurring visual of blood running, dripping, splashing, but there are a few other choice shots as well. For instance there is a striking contrast between the composed formality not just of Hannibal as a character, but of the settings and the framings that contains him, and the brutality with which he mains and murders. As the camera moves and wavers in the open sequence, it will be interesting to watch if the formal aspects of the show become increasingly unhinged as Hannibal does the same.

There are also some black and white flashbacks with Abel Gideon, that serve to paint Hannibal’s previous life in a different, separate light. But the shot of the episode this week is the sequence of Bedelia, slowly sinking into the black murk of her bath, the depth of which for a moment becomes that of an ocean. What a stunning visual representation of her journey. Fuller describes this season in various interviews as a trashy ‘80s art film, and he’s not wrong; I just think his modesty oversells exactly what he’s managed to achieve. Hannibal is arguably one of the greatest dramas on the air, period, but it is inarguably the best-looking show on television right now.

“Antipasto” is slow and atmospheric, setting the table for the rest of the season, and doing just enough to whet its audience’s collective appetite. In other words it does just what it’s meant to. Bring on the next course.

Stray Observations:

• “Antipasto” is also, for me, a bit of a palate cleanser. I’m thrilled to be writing about this amazing show, and I’m looking forward to being a sight more positive than I got to be about Scandal and American Horror Story. (I hope I haven’t jinxed it.)
• As always, the greatest guilty pleasure of Hannibal is THE FOOD. Every dish looks magnificently appetizing—even the dishes that we know for a fact are people. It is this show’s greatest trick.
• Yo, how insane was season two of Hannibal? That previously on is just a mashup of crazy shit.