Review: Hannibal ‘Sakizuki’

With Will Graham still in his cage and Hannibal running around like nothing’s happening, this week’s episode of Hannibal, ‘Sakizuki’ brings us 42 minutes of mind games. Not just between Graham and his ex-psychiatrist, but pretty much everyone on the show is playing some sort of game with each other, whether they be benevolent, malevolent, obvious or well-hidden. Once again, Hannibal proves to me how intricate the writers can be with their design of the show.

We begin where the last episode left off. There is a killer collecting people based off the color of their skin. Graham is helping with the investigation via communication with Katz. Hannibal is helping from the field. And though Crawford doesn’t necessarily approve of the way Graham is being dragged into the investigation, he encourages his people do the best job they can while actively not telling him a thing.

Hannibal and Will’s confrontation loses some of its bite as Graham tries a new tactic. He is now playing dumb, trying to convince Hannibal that his mind is in shambles and that he can’t tell the real world from his delusions. Whether Hannibal is buying it or not remains to be seen, but the war between the minds is not going to be over anytime soon.

And then there is Hannibal’s own psychiatrist, Bedelia. She resigns from her position helping Hannibal, trying to get out of the mess before she ends up dead. She also tells Crawford and Graham that she’s leaving, giving them yet another reason to suspect that all is not right with Hannibal. She even goes so far as to tell Graham directly that she believes his innocence.

The best thing to me about this week’s episode was the subtle interplay of words. The dialogue conveyed so much more than any of the actual actions did. Graham is, of course, stuck in a cage, so there needs to be stricter attention paid to the dialogue-oriented scenes. The writers are proving that they can handle this requirement with skill.

Each person is being forced to dance around, with Hannibal trying to poison the well of information even as Graham seeks to gain allies and generate some proof of his innocence. Crawford is slowly filling up with doubt, each little bit putting him more and more into Graham’s corner. And the rest of the characters are like pieces on a chess board with both Will and Hannibal vying for control over them.

Next week, things get even closer to coming to a head. Crawford is voicing serious doubt and Graham is going to court. Check out a preview of ‘Hassun’ at this site.

Photo Credits -           

Sakizuki courtesy of seriable.com