Hannibal is an oddity. Everything about it spells disaster. It’s a previously tackled idea that was made into an academy award winning film. The Silence of the Lambs is a masterwork, due mostly to the incredible performance of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

Somehow Hannibal is much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a masterpiece that elevates the television horror genre to a brand new level and is simply the best television show of 2014.

For the uninitiated Hannibal follows Will Graham, a gifted criminal profiler who has the unique ability to sympathize with his suspects. He embodies the crime he’s trying to solve, and doing so deeply affects his psyche. So much so they he visits Dr. Hannibal Lecter in an attempt to keep his grip on sanity.

Will is continually pushed to the absolute limit, and by the end of season one, Hannibal has convinced him that he’s an infamous killer – The Chesapeake Ripper. So season one ends with an inversion of the famous image – it’s not Hannibal behind bars with the horrible face mask, but our beloved hero.

When Hannibal returned to the small screen in 2014 it was a decidedly different and even darker show. The season begins with a horribly violent fight scene between Hannibal and FBI Director Jack Crawford. When we last saw them, they were friends. Yet, here they are in a brilliantly shot battle trying to murder one another.

‘Hannibal’ – Cinematographer | James Hawkinson from Meredith King on Vimeo.

When this scene ends, it leaves an insane tone for the rest of the season. We flashback weeks to Will behind bars, and everyone, including Jack is against him. He’s being treated like a maniac, and in a way he has to act like one to get what he wants.

It’s hard for me not to go into painstaking detail of just why this works so well. So I’ll talk about it in broad strokes. It’s not very often that a show heads into its second season with such a different direction. The show is largely structured the same, but it comes to define its characters in entirely new ways. Not the smartest choice when your show is barely alive in the ratings.

Yet, through making the show about a powerplay between equally intelligent sociopaths, Hannibal forgoes humanity for the sake of brutality. It shows the deeply sinister side to human nature, and better yet it approaches this sinister side like a beautiful art form.

Showrunner Bryan Fuller makes an incredible statement with each episode of the series. Murdering people is an art form, people take pride in what they’re good at, and some people really excell at murdering other people. Fuller takes the eccentricities embodied in someone’s art pursuits and pushes them to the fullest extent. The beginning of season two had the killer who stitched people into a grain silo. He killed people of varying skin tones to complete his masterwork, and there was simply nothing quite like that tracking shot that pulled out of the silo by the end of “Sakizuke.”

It’s the masterful attention to detail in moments like these that make Hannibal an absolute marvel to watch. Visually there is nothing quite like it on television. Breaking Bad was perhaps the closest equivalent but now Hannibal reigns supreme. The art direction and shot composition is unparalleled. Whether it’s the wide angle time lapse shots that are used on most exteriors or the tighter close up nature of the brutal violence, the cinematographer, James Hawkinson’s work is beyond awe-inspiring.

With a rotating cast of directors and the increasing demands from a studio, it’s sometimes difficult for a television show to be a visual feast. Instead, practicality and time efficient shots are often what makes it to the small screen. But, Hannibal is calculated and meticulous.

Memories from Hannibal Season 2 from Christopher Byrne on Vimeo.

This video should show you everything you need to know about what it’s like to watch this beautiful orgy of death and violence. But, one thing should feel a little off. It’s celebratory, and while the video is a lovely reminder of the visual power of Hawkinson’s attention to detail, it does nothing to highlight the score.

Brian Reitzall’s score straddles a beautiful line between ambient horror and terrifying bombastic splendor. No two moments are alike. He’s able to wrap you in the warm embrace of Will’s isolated life through a couple piano keys melodic repeating in front of a minimalist string assortment.

But within the beauty he can create horrid creeping terror unlike any other composer I can think of. Strangely off key notes pound into the score, building a dangling assortment of sounds that wrap around you and create a soundscape that shows you the ugly side of Hannibal’s world. There is something about it that is ineffable, a magic that comes when combined with the insane visuals of the show.

Apart from all that, the characterization is deep and provocative. The relationship between Will and Hannibal is oddly sexual in nature. Their interest in one another can’t be denied. But it’s never really pushed to a provocative place. Instead small elements of interest seem vaguely sexual. There is nothing physical about the attraction but a provocation that can only be reached when you’ve met your match.

There is a certain surrealist element to Hannibal that channels your deepest fears and projects them onto otherworldly visions of creature who are alien and threatening. Often Will descends into a hallucinatory state that pushes him to see the Stag-Man. A horrid creature who’s leathery black skin absorbs all the light around it. Just when things are going well, the stag-man rears his ugly head and reminds us that nothing is what it seems in this show.

In the insane finale of season two “Mizumono,” Will and Hannibal share a moment of sober reflection before Hannibal cuts into his abdomen. They were close, dangerously close, and throughout the game they play in season two each of them were vulnerable, perhaps more so than they’ve ever been to anyone in order to gain the upper hand. When finally confronted with the bleak reality that one of them must die, David Slade lingers on the shot, making it an apology rather than an act of betrayal.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to talk about Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter. It can’t be easy to take on a role that defined another man’s career. But, somehow Mads makes you forget all about that character as he channels something equally sinister but distinctly different. He’s a smart calculated man, he’s not caught yet, so his manipulation is much more overt. Not only that, but he carries an extreme sense of patience. He carefully manipulates everyone around him.

Hugh Dancy never would have come to mind as someone who can handle a troubled role like Will Graham, but he gives Mads a run for his money. As he is equally manipulative, but far more troubled. He’s the opposite side of the coin, so paranoid and delusion that he could be caught for something he didn’t commit so he’s careful, he’s calculated, and he lacks empathy. It makes both of this characters wildly unpredictable and weirdly similar.

Hannibal cups Wills neck. He holds him close as he bleeds out, and he allows his embrace to guide Will into death. Yet, somehow the more sinister side erupts from him and like a jilted lover he slices Abigail’s throat just to see Will as she dies in front of him.

This brutality feels like a volcanic eruption. It mirrors the final act of a horror movie in many ways because it’s the unrelenting force of the killer on the loose that changes everyone’s lives for the worse. By the end of season two everything is torn down, the game of cat and mouse is over and our characters are fully exposed. Yet, when they stand naked in the chaos, there are only more questions than answers.

Somehow though, Hannibal will still come back a different and perhaps better version of itself when it returns in late spring. Now, with everything out on the table it has to take us somewhere new, and familiar. There is still plenty of source material left to draw on, and Bryan Fuller has made it clear he’s going to draw on it all, but he has yet to stop surprising us.

I often struggle to define Hannibal I hear myself saying, it’s Dexter only darker or it’s Breaking Bad if selling meth was equal to the psychological horror of criminal profiling. Admittedly that last one needs some work, but the real way to define Hannibal is the most meticulously crafted piece of horror television we’ve ever seen. It’s easily the best horror show of 2014, and not only that, but it was the best show on television of 2014, it’s a dark masterpiece.