Well that was absolutely sublime. If I had any doubts before, “Takiawase” reinforced Hannibal‘s status as the best drama on TV.

That is twice so far this season that Hannibal has used tired tropes which by all rights should have felt hackneyed and cheap; “Kaiseki”‘s in medias res opening is a cliché which ought to have been discontinued years ago (here’s a persuasive argument against the trope by Todd VanDerWerff), but for some reason, worked perfectly in the context of this show, having the desired effect of making us almost dread watching the events preceding Jack and Hannibal’s brawl.

“Takiawase”, on the other hand, utilised an even more temperamental and delicate trope – the cliffhanger – to wonderful effect. There are few shows that in my opinion have successfully used cliffhangers – Breaking Bad had many memorable cliffhangers (“One Minute“, “Crawl Space“, “To’hajiilee“) but it also had a few misfires (I’m looking at you, “Confessions“), and of course Lost had countless shocking examples (so many that they eventually stopped being actually shocking) – and after this episode of Hannibal I’m glad to say that the series has entered that pantheon.

Following last week’s structural uniqueness, “Takiawase” returns to Hannibal‘s usual format of an overarching plot complemented with a less prominent case-of-the-week murder, in one of the series’ more elegantly thematically connected instalments. The theme of the mercy of death looms over the episode’s subplots, and it’s one that has resonated throughout the entirety of this beautifully morbid show.

Reaching far back into the show’s continuity (her last appearance was in the show’s fourth episode), the return of Bella’s cancer could have felt abrupt, but thankfully the show made mention of it a few episodes ago, and the fantastic on-screen chemistry of Laurence Fishburne and his real-life wife Gina Torres negates any potential lack of emotional impact, resulting in a tragic and devastating manipulation of both Jack and Bella at the hands of Hannibal Lecter. By episode’s end, Hannibal has Jack firmly by his side, thanks to a lucky coin toss (Anton Chigurh, anyone?), in one of the show’s more powerful examples of Hannibal’s amorality. There is nothing explicitly or gaudily evil about what Hannibal does (in this subplot, at least), but the fact that he can so dispassionately cause this woman unimaginable future pain just so he can gain a tactical advantage is one of the most despicable things he has been shown to do.

“Takiawase”‘s case-of-the-week is one of the show’s more imaginative, featuring both a man whose brain has been removed in order for his corpse to be used as a beehive, and a man whose eyes and frontal lobe have been removed (one of the creepiest things I have ever seen, be it on TV or in a film), culminating in the arrest of their assailant, an unhinged acupuncturist. The woman, instead of being portrayed as a psychopathic maniac, is subversively shown to feel a (no doubt twisted and disturbed) compassion for her victims. Her monologue describing her childlike joy at seeing a man – whose eyes she had just removed, along with half of his brain – suffering from crippling arthritis walking without pain is the kind of loopy, absurdist dark comedy that Hannibal does preposterously well; the shots of Jack and the rest of the gang’s reactions were genuinely funny.

Will Graham’s continued battle of wits with Hannibal Lecter was considerably less funny, however. Subjected to intense light therapy by Dr. Chilton (who is fast becoming a wild card in this delicate situation), Will fills in his gaps in memory and learns that Hannibal knowingly exacerbated his encephalitis. Convincing Beverly Katz to investigate Lecter, Graham now knows for certain that he was not implicit in any of the murders he was accused of perpetrating, and when Beverly finds the absence of a kidney in the creator of the mural (which wouldn’t have been noticed in the postmortem? Seriously?) it gives the viewer hope that maybe the tables have turned; maybe Hannibal’s façade of innocence in the eyes of everyone but Will might finally start to slip. Instead, Katz decides to investigate Hannibal’s house, and finds something no doubt incriminating in his basement – unfortunately, as Will said, she was being too obvious, and Hannibal appears behind her, leading to “Takiawase”‘s horrifying cliffhanger.

What happens next will undoubtably be hard to watch; the last time I felt a mixture of equal dread and anticipation was Breaking Bad‘s masterful final season. Before the show aired nobody could have anticipated the heights Hannibal is reaching every week, and as long as the show maintains its nightmarish, claustrophobic atmosphere, it should continue to reach those heights.

Grade: A

Some other thoughts:

Bella slapping Hannibal was just so satisfying. He’s such a slimy, eel-like person, and Mads Mikkelsen portrays him perfectly.

Again, Todd VanDerWerff’s walkthrough with Bryan Fuller is fantastic, but be warned, it contains spoilers from next week’s episode.