Hannibal S03E04 "Apertivo" Review

And so begins the swan song of one of the best written TV shows in TV history. Unfortunately the geniuses over at NBC (thanks to the unsophisticated dullards) have decided to cancel "Hannibal" due to low ratings. One can only hope that this show is rescued by Netflix (I know Amazon & Hulu exist, but I prefer Netflix) but saving a show is extremely rare, if that were the case "Awake" would be in its 3rd Season right now and "Cult" would be a MAJOR hit. Before I get on a tangent, let's begin the review.

This episode takes us back in time to reveal how everyone survived the gruesome finale of last season and other events. A brief recap, with this throat gushing blood and barricaded in Hannibal's pantry, Jack sat dying bleeding out with a cellphone in hand frantically dialing his dying wife. Dr. Alana Bloom, having entered into Hannibal's home with a gun in an attempt to shoot him only to find that Hannibal has preempted her and after having chased her upstairs had the still living Abigail Hobbs (whom he'd later kill) push her out of window, essentially leaving her for dead. After having been brainwashed in Hannibal's "care", Miriam Lass was convinced that Dr. Chilton was her captor, frantic, she pulled Jack's gun and fired a bullet into Dr. Chilton's face. And Mason Verger...well...

...this happened.

So oddly enough, despite the carnage of the finale, Abigail Hobbs is the only fatality, which is pretty much what I expected, although I was 100% certain Alana would be counted among the dead, but I digress. So Dr. Chilton is one of the main focuses of this episode and he meets with everyone in an attempt to catch Hannibal, and while Chilton's motives are indeed selfish, he's actually the only person there interested in catching and ONLY catching Hannibal. Of course, Dr. Chilton wants to make a quick buck off of Hannibal's name but I can't blame the guy, after all he is blind in one eye and missing the upper part of his jaw, can he at least see a little bit of cash outta the deal? Obviously, every character turns Dr. Chilton down leaving him to his own devices, whatever those might be.

Despite his professional scrupules being in question, you can't deny that Dr. Chilton isn't holding all the cards right now. I'm not saying he's in control but he seems to be the only character who's seeing everything clearly, ESPECIALLY Hannibal & Will's relationship. "The optimist thinks we live in the best possible world, the pessimist fears this is true." and this basically sums up everything that's going on with Will Graham. Jack confronted him directly and said it point blank period, "Because he was my friend and because I wanted to run away with him.". So did we get a glimpse into Will's best possible world of he & Hannibal killing Jack? Is Will seriously that delusional that he ignores the evil in Hannibal and only sees the good...and in all serious what's good about Hannibal (his cooking ability aside?) What does Will see in this man? Whatever it is he sees a enough to start constructing a memory palace starting with Hannibal's house.

Hey, Will, remember when Hannibal left us bleeding profusely on this very floor? Yeah man, good times.

Speaking of memory palace, Alana Bloom appears to be a memory as I have NO clue who this character is. Alana has done a MAJOR 180 and has become a very dark character almost akin to Dr. Chilton but unfortunately worse, because she's legitimately trying to Hannibal and she's working with Mason Verger of all people. This does not bode well for anyone. Also brief tangent, Cordell is played by Glenn Fleshler who also played a serial killer named Neil a.k.a The Boxman in the final season (which also happened to be the 3rd) of "The Following" and they couldn't have picked a better Cordell. That being said, now that Abigail planted the idea in Mason's head to have Hannibal killed, all their time and resources will be set towards finding him. Will's already in Italy looking for his buddy and everyone's giving chase so how this will work out for Alana is beyond me but I don't see her surviving this.

Lifetime Presents: The Story Of Mason Verger, one paraplegic's struggle to get revenge on the man who made him feed his own face to dogs and the female psychiatrists who helped him.

Lastly, Jack was able to survive only to watch his wife die, I'm not gonna spend much time on this only because Bella's death was a necessary loss and one that I'm discounting but it only motivates Jack to keep track of the friends he does have, specifically Will. Despite Jack leading a somewhat isolated work life, I don't entirely understand why wasn't more people at the funeral. I'm going out on a limb and going to assume that Jack stayed while everyone left, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. All in all, this is another set up episode, the series in moving at a (forgive me) snail's pace but as we all know it's the slow burn that becomes an inferno and it's only going to get hotter from here. Until then, I'll see you guys again at the dinner table.