Hannibal Season 2 Episode 4 Review: “Takiawase”

I remember during the first season of Hannibal that I would often cite how impressive and inventive their kills were. Having watched plenty of serial killer centric stories on both film and television, I can say with a high amount of certainty that Hannibal’s creativity in murder is top notch. Tonight’s episode made me fear two things I wasn’t afraid of before, but I’ll get into those in a moment.

Hannibal Season 2 Episode 3 Review: “Hassun”

“Takiawase” was another fine addition to Hannibal’s second season. We start the episode off once again in Will’s dream state of fly-fishing, with a bittersweet appearance from Abigail Hobbes. Will obviously still obsesses over her death as he feels so responsible for it. I must admit I miss her character and it was nice to see her again if only for a moment. Dr. Chilton also makes a welcome appearance as he confronts and relates to Hannibal about Will’s mental problems and seizures. Watching these two Dr’s dance around each other in the prison was delightful and I imagine Chilton will be back soon enough.

Back to the more intense side of the episodes. Bees. Human beehive. Thats the best way to describe it without giving explicit detail. The sequence in which we first see the beehive is fairly impressive albeit CGI made, and though I used to find bee’s tolerable I feel I will now look at them funny when they approach me in the future. The great Amanda Plummer makes an eccentric and downright creepy cameo as an acupuncturist helping her patients into death. The second thing I now fear, is acupuncture. Not that I was ever keen on the idea of needles to begin with, but now I’m afraid I might be paralyzed and led to die.

Hannibal seems to be going back and forth again with the overarching story and weekly small fries to catch. While I tend to prefer the main plot line and drama between Hannibal and Graham, “Takiawase” definitely reminded me why I don’t mind the week to week case solves. They tend to not take up a ton of time these days and offer fun little reminder’s that this show does have some sick, morbid, sense of comedy, even amidst the brutal darkness.

As far as the main plot line is concerned, some interesting things moved forward. One of the most notable and heartbreaking was easily Bella’s struggle. I don’t want to take any of the emotional weight out of the episode but I assume most of you have already seen it anyway. When Hannibal revives her from her suicide I was pretty impressed. Not with Hannibal’s action, but with the fact that he felt the need to save her life in general. I won’t say I understand fully what he hoped to accomplish with this, but I am sure next episode will pick up this story.

The biggest shocker came at the very end of the episode with one of my favorite characters potentially biting the dust. I knew it was coming, and nothing will be confirmed until next week of course but things are not looking good for Katz. I hope that she isn’t killed off because she’s one of my personal favorite characters, but I know Hannibal isn’t one to pull punches. Leaving us with that final gunshot to the floor was brilliant and one of my favorite parts of the season so far. Even though Hannibal hasn’t seemed to change much as a show, it’s surely gotten it’s rhythm in full swing. Next week’s episode ought to be a doozy!