NBC’s ‘Hannibal’ season 2, episode 12 review: Mason Verger is full of himself

“Hannibal” certainly found a way to take things to a new disturbing level Friday night, and it revolved around a character who we were starting to assume was going be meeting his end sooner rather than later: Mason Verger.

But did Mason actually die? That’s the funny thing, since it sure looked like he was going to for a while. Hannibal did drug him into a frenzy, and then ordered him to eat various parts of himself. This had to be one of the strangest things that we’ve seen on the show yet, and we have seen some very disturbing things.

In the end, “death” for Mason was more of Mason becoming the faceless wonder that many in the Hannibal canon know. This is yet another stellar example of the production spinning something familiar, and creating an entirely new image and trope around it. This is certainly interesting, and it made for pretty brilliant TV.

While we could literally sit here and talk Mason for this whole hour, and also whether or not Margot is going to take advantage of the opportunity to do away with him, we still have the Will / Hannibal cat-and-mouse game. Will tried to manipulate Hannibal into getting him to confess who he really is to Jack, claiming that he owed his “friend” the truth. Will that happen? Maybe. Next week is the finale, and we’ve already seen one fight that is going to be breaking out.

In the end, this was certainly an engaging episode … but also a horrifying one that has us terrified of pigs for a very long time. “Hannibal” just keeps on delivering. Grade: A-.

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Photo: ABC