Note:for the Hannibal: Season 2 premiere follow.

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First off, if you somehow managed to see the Hannibal: Season 2 premiere without the opening being spoiled for you, congratulations! NBC sure worked hard to make sure you were spoiled though, including the Jack/ Hannibal fight in multiple promos and then releasing nearly the whole thing earlier this week. I get it - it’s an incredible, attention-getting scene that some would argue isn’t a huge spoiler since it is at least the very first scene of the episode/season. But I saw the premiere back in January, the day before the first trailer for Season 2 debuted and was simply shocked by what was occurring and I can’t help wishing everyone else could have gone in that pure.So that being said… how about that freaking opening!? Initially, I thought it must be a dream sequence. But then you get that “twelve weeks earlier” title and the full impact hits. What an audacious, awesome ticking clock Bryan Fuller has put on Season 2. We now know that each week brings us closer to this confrontation between Jack and Hannibal and it adds another huge layer of tension.Oh, and let me also stress how intense the fight itself was. We’d already established last season that this version of Hannibal is quite the brawler and to see him and Jack truly go at it was intense, with neither man holding back - it's safe to say Jack held his own in a way Will probably wouldn't have been able to in a physical altercation with Hannibal. And yes, damn, that’s some injury Jack receives. I do think he’ll survive -- Fuller is changing some things from the books, but I can’t see him removing Jack from all the events that follow that he’s a part of -- but he certainly is not in good shape and who knows how it will all pan out…? (Just don’t give it away in commercials, NBC!) I also love that Hannibal proved you can bring a knife to a gunfight and do okay for yourself.While that opening set the bar high, there was plenty of other excellent scenes to follow. The dynamic is totally different now, with Will locked up and most everyone legitimately convinced of his guilt and it’s fascinating to see. The portrayal of Alana was great. She’s not at all hostile with Will, genuinely feeling terrible about what happened and wants to help him. She and Jack have an interesting rapport here, as he accepts her turning in a report in which she brings up that she did, in fact, warn him not to put Will in the field. She's really trying to help her friend; she's just incorrect about what's truly occurred.Will though is, all things considered, in a good place, which is funny to say about a guy who has been imprisoned on multiple murders he didn't commit. Yet he's obviously so much more clear-headed than he was in Season 1, as he finally sees Hannibal for what he truly is and can now try to formulate a plan in a way he just wasn't able to last season. Hugh Dancy is doing terrific work showing Will calmly analyze his situation and try to deal with it the best he can.

Hugh Dancy Talks Hannibal: Season 2

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We also saw Dr. Du Maurier again in the premiere, with Gillian Anderson managing to still appear, despite her new role on NBC’s Crisis. The conversation between her and Hannibal got very pointed at one point as Hannibal brought up that she’d be lying both for him and for herself while speaking to the FBI - and making me hope we get a true flashback to what went down in the past where it seems Hannibal killed a former patient of hers who was attacking her. By the end though, Hannibal was making more overt threats about what he’s capable of, which certainly is not good for Du Maurier…The idea of Hannibal literally taking Will’s place as a consultant in the field is interesting thematically but seems like a stretch, given Hannibal’s lack of background in this regard. Still, it's such a fun/twisted route to go, it's worth suspending your disbelief a bit more to accept.It was gratifying to see Will get his big epiphany flashback via remembering Hannibal forcing poor Abigail’s ear down his throat. I’m still not quite sure how Hannibal made sure Will wouldn’t choke to death on it, but it was still good to see that specific event given more context, given it was an amazingly effective creepy moment but raised plenty of questions about how it all went down.On the “Holy crap, how does this show get away with this?”/gore front, we met a new killer here - one who is turning people into “models” by attempting to harden and preserve their corpses. The scene where his discarded bodies were found in the water included the wonderfully gross bit of the poor (now scarred for life) guy who found them accidentally tearing off part of the face of one of the victims. And then we got that ending, as the newest victim actually ended up waking up in the center of the “color palette” Will told Beverly about. Per usual, this is horror creativity at its finest.