The first thing about Hannibal’s Season 2 trailer that is striking is the giant-ass quote posted in bold letters as the preview begins playing. It notes that Hannibal is one of last year’s “best shows.” Which begs the question, where have the audiences been? Hannibal is great, and not in that way that pushes viewers to explain why a show is a guilty pleasure. Carefully crafted and skillfully shot, the show is thrilling and horrifying, and the new look at Season 2 looks as if it will inspire many of those same adjectives, and hopefully a few more eyeballs.
The next portion of the trailer is visceral in a way that is very similar to the opening credits for Showtime’s now-ended series, Dexter. We see Doctor Hannibal Lector (Mads Mikkelsen) in a cornfield with what looks to be a cadaver before the preview cuts to shots of recently roasted meat, a tidy glass of water, and a mouth taking a slow, careful bite. For some reason, former FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) is at the table with Lector, a nod to the cat and mouse game that will surely play out during Season 2.
When Hannibal last left us, Graham was caught by the police and thought to be the dastardly suspect behind a recent string of murders in the area. The audience knows that Lector is actually the man behind the murders, and in the new season, Graham will be trying desperately to clear his name. In the meantime, he’ll spend some time in jail, and Lector will take over as the FBI’s psychological profiler, which means the FBI should be thrown off the trail quite a bit.
This isn’t the first look fans have been given of Season 2. Back in January, NBC released the very first trailer for Season 2, which featured similar imagery, including startling and graphic footage—not the sort of footage that populates most of network television’s programming. In the new trailer, we get different footage of crime scenes and an epic fight scene between Lector and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne).
I have no idea how Season 2 will play out, but luckily, I won’t have much longer to wait to find out. Hannibal returns to NBC’s schedule on Friday, February 28 at 10 p.m. ET. The new season will follow the same schedule as last season, airing 13 episodes during the spring season. If you haven’t given it a shot, hopefully this trailer has been a less-than-subtle nudge toward watching an episode.
