Review: Hannibal ‘Coquilles’ – The Majesty Of Your Becoming

The deeper Hannibal delves into the psyche, the darker the imagery around it becomes, a bar ‘Coquilles’ raises quite a bit. On any other show, the things we see in ‘Coquilles’ would be unforgivably gruesome, viewed as a way to pander for a larger audience. But as I’ve said since the pilot, violence on this show is not like violence on other shows: Hannibal really gets under one’s skin, contemplating on the violence we’re all exposed to on a regular basis.

For all intents and purposes, ‘Coquilles’ is a procedural episode of Hannibal, but one that never wavers in its focus on its main characters. It even brings another into the fold – Jack’s wife Bella, who’s recent cancer diagnosis has had adverse affects on the stability of the Crawford’s marriage. It’s really a masterful script, weaving the horrors of the Angelmaker (and the man underneath the murders) with the psychology of its main characters, marrying the material in ways that felt honest to the characters, without sacrificing any of the investigation’s complexity.

The Angelmaker – like Bella – has inoperable cancer; for him, it’s a tumor in his brain. Once he’s learned his diagnosis, he becomes angry at a God he never ever had much interest in (his estranged wife tells us she left him a month after he found out), and decides to take the power of life and death into his own hand. He’s unstable, alone, and trying to bargain with a power he doesn’t even know exists. But as Hannibal points out, part of God’s allure is his power, his control of life and death how he sees fit – and Elliott (the Angelmaker) is taking this power into his own hands. We also find out a fireman told Elliot he had a guardian angel after being saved from a fire as a child, which suggests he was also searching for the angel to protect him from his impending brain tumor.

The crimes themselves are the most grotesque, mesmerizing images I’ve ever seen on broadcast television (kudos to Oscar winning cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, who directed the episode). And again, the gruesome nature of the crimes are not just for shock factor: everything is there for a purpose. This man was playing God, ‘fishing’ for the ‘demons’ around him (he kills a number of convicts at one point and hangs all of his victims with fishing lure as if he were Jesus the fisherman), and redeeming them as angels to watch over him as he slept. Ultimately, the Angelmaker turns his demented gift of creating art onto himself, retaining the control over his life that Will feels like he’s losing, waking up miles down the road and on his roof in his sleepwalking episodes.

Tonight’s review is going to be a short one (thanks to Friday deadlines), but I do have a number of other thoughts I’ll share in the observations below. Simply put, ‘Coquilles’ is the most visually arresting episode of television I’ve seen in a long time on network television – and firmly establishes Hannibal as must-watch television.

Grade: A

Other thoughts and numerous observations:

– everything involving the Angelmaker draws two important parallels to Will: he has many things in common with the people he pretends to become. Secondly, he’s no longer the ‘god’ of his own life – Jack may tell him he has a choice, but Will knows he doesn’t. He can’t live with himself when he thinks like a killer, and he can’t live with himself when he lets them go free.

– Hannibal’s really starting to get into sniffing people. In the novels, the pages-long sequences of Hannibal utilizing his senses (particularly in Hannibal) are my favorite sequences.

– Hannibal sits at the top of the pyramid, fully manipulating the world around him. No Abigail this episode (but he did exert his influence over her in the webisodes with the mushroom tea), but he pits Will against Jack, pits Jack’s wife against him, and awaits with open arms to bring Jack closer to him. There’s passing mention to Chesapeake Ripper in this episode, which readers of the book will remember is actually Hannibal. He’s controlling everything to keep the attention away from him – and possibly building a new protege at the same time.

– Will: “It’s getting harder and harder for me to look.” Jack: “You know what happens when you don’t look.”

– Hannibal: “Cruelty. The gift humanity gave to itself.”

– This show continues to amaze me. Beautiful design and cinematography, articulate, honest, and so fucking intelligent. NBC, you’ve landed a gem. Please don’t ruin this one.