Eat the Rude: A Hannibal Fansite: February 2013

Sky Living has bought the rights to the US serial-killer drama Hannibal, featuring the Hannibal Lecter character from The Silence of the Lambs.

Sky Living bought the series in an exclusive deal with distributor, Gaumont International Television.

Director of Sky Living Antonia Hurford-Jones said. "We are delighted to be adding Hannibal to our lineup of quality US drama on Sky Living.

"We know this is something our customers really love and we are committed to bringing them the best the US has to offer.

"This series is perfect for Sky Living because it will appeal not only our core female audience, but to a shared one too. Plus it will complement our new original commissions which are starting to come through."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/25/sky-living-hannibal-laurence-fishburne?CMP=twt_gu

O.K., this is pure speculation, but here's my reasoning

that Episode 7 ("Entrée") a "Silence of the Lambs" homage:

In November it was announced that Eddie Izzard (wonderful actor, mad charity marathon runner and hopefully the future Mayor of London) is guesting in Hannibal as an inmate at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (the same facility where Hannibal Lecter is eventually incarcerated).

Eddie’s character is claiming to be “the infamous Chesapeake Ripper.” More on this at the very bottom of this article with potential spoilers.

Also in November we get the announcement that Anna Chlumsky be playing Miriam Lass, a young FBI trainee under the tutelage of Laurence Fishburne’s Jack Crawford. Now we know how Jack treats FBI trainees, he gets them to establish relationships with serial killers to see if they can extract information about other active killers, so _maybe_ Miriam Lass will be sent in to interview “the Chesapeake Ripper”.

UPDATE: Anna Chlumsky is listed in IMDB as being in Episode 7 - this is looking better!

Finally we get the announcement that Raul Esparza has been cast as Frederick Chilton, possibly the director of Baltimore State Hospital, bringing all the elements together for a Silence of the Lambs homage (comedy?), based on the assumption that it makes sense that Jack would have tried the strategy he used in Silence of the Lambs more than once.

SPOILERS

We know the Hannibal is in fact the Chesapeake Ripper, therefore Eddie is either a complete loon who isn't a serial killer at all (and maybe the episode is a comedy?) or he is some kind or killer and is just taking credit for other people's work!