Ron Does Stuff

Once again, I am posting this later than I originally planned. But then again this show has been over for years so really what is late?

We had the Angel Maker in the previous episode as well as Will telling Jack that he possibly can’t do this anymore. Also for a second while I was typing that I thought I was writing about Will and Jack from Will & Grace. I’m old, okay. My mind wanders.

This episode starts with an entirely new character, Doctor Gideon, which the production uses to explore the stuff the book says he did to a nurse while being held in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The poor actress who had the nurse role. She didn’t even get to speak!

We also get introduced to Raul Esparza’s version of Chilton, which shares that same slimy demeanor as Anthony Heald, if a little more handsome. Sorry not sorry! But he’s a great example of carrying on the same essence of the character without just copying what the other actor did.

Another character that we’re getting is Miriam Lass, an ur-Clarice that Jack assigns on the Chesapeake Killer task force, since they still don’t know that Hannibal is the Chesapeake Killer. Unfortunately, she doesn’t quite end up like Clarice.

Here’s another thing I like from this episode — the discussion between Will, Alana, and Chilton before the Gideon interview. The three of them are so good in it, especially Raul Eparaza’s slightly more toned down sliminess. It’s still very much there but not in the heaps it was in the Anthony Heald interpretation.

Another person that gets to shine here is Laurence Fishburne, who goes to Hannibal to talk about the coming death of his wife as well as the disappearance of Miriam Lass. Again, I know this shouldn’t matter but I can’t help thinking how much of Laurence Fishburne’s own marital situation and the coming divorce between him and Gina Torres bled into this.

This episode really is just an opportunity for the actors to really shine because Lara Jean Chorostecki’s Freddie Lounds really brings that Lounds from the book with her but gives the character a little zest of her own. It’s a good thing she doesn’t end up glued to a wheelchair in this episode, at least as far as I remember.

This episode also works great as an alternate universe Red Dragon, and I like the ongoing torture of Jack Crawford using Miriam Lass. It really makes you dread the sound of the phone because you just know it’s going to be another reminder of Jack’s failure. Also I miss Blackberrys.

During the final scene between Hannibal and Miriam, I do wonder when he made the decision to kill her. Was it when he told her that he had journals back in the day? Or was it when she found the Wound Man drawing?