14
May
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 9 Clarice episode 9, “Silence is Purgatory,” offers a taste of temporary hell by exploring the connections of the show’s past and getting blocked from forward movement. The team is finally looking into the links between the River Murders and Alastor Pharmaceuticals. The company’s drug Reprisol is responsible for multiple cases of babies born with birth defects, and their well-connected attorney Joe Hudland (Raoul Bhaneja) keeps someone on the payroll just to kill anyone who steps forward. “Silence is Purgatory” opens in the midst of the pre-shoe-leather phase of the investigation. The ViCAP…
07
May
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 8 Clarice episode 8, “Add-a-Bead,” mirrors the procedural with the psychological. Clarice (Rebecca Breeds) lets her emotions find a safe landing place as her ViCAP unit investigates the suicide of a medical student who jumped to her death. The opening segments of Clarice episodes are very atmospheric and color the entire installment. The glass ball in the doctor’s office reflects deep memories, and Clarice reflexively responds. Dr. Renee Li (Grace Lynn Kung) is the psychiatrist the agent chose over all the doctors which were ordered by the agency, and it is because she…
09
Apr
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 7 Clarice, episode 7, “Ugly Truth,” is a monster-of-the-week exploration of a cold case procedural. It also moves the overall arc along as true ugliness is found within. “Some monster killed two little kids,” Ardelia Mapp (Devyn Tyler) says. The episode opens with a hideous image, foreshadowed and cinematically darkened by the growing buzz of a swarm of flies. The opening shot is quite masterful. It takes a while for the idea to register that flies are drawn to dead things until just a moment before we see what died. The flies should…
02
Apr
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 6 Clarice, episode 6, “How Does It Feel to Be So Beautiful,” opens in the aftermath of Clarice’s (Rebecca Breeds) nearly-lethal encounter with the recently deceased Marilyn Felker, and it brings her back to square one. The ViCAP agent is put on administrative leave, ordered to return to therapy, and given a last supper by the Attorney General, Ruth Martin (Jayne Atkinson). But it begins with a regressive hypnosis session that opens up a world of moth-eaten fantasia. Agent Shaan Tripathi (Kal Penn) says Organized Crime believes in Dr. Renee Li (Grace Lynn…
12
Mar
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 5 Clarice, episode 5, “Get Right with God,” is the best episode of the season because the show gets right with The Silence of the Lambs. The series has been putting off most of the references, some by design, come contractually forced. Agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) has done her level best to avoid talking about it, even in therapy. Though, to be fair, she avoids even the smallest of chatter there, and often appears to be communicating via a blinked Morse code. Starling has gone as far running rogue and publicly plug…
05
Mar
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 4 Clarice, episode 4, “You Can’t Rule Me,” is a misnomer. Unlike its source material, The Silence of the Lambs, it plays by a lot of rules. Agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds), and the ViCAP unit she works at under Deputy Assistant Attorney General Paul Krendler (Michael Cudlitz) are under investigation for a regulation infraction. A witness died on their watch. The thing which raises the episode, however, is something we didn’t see coming, though it follows the rules. Right after the spiel about what happened previously on Clarice, the head investigating agent,…
26
Feb
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 3 Clarice, episode 3, “Are You Alright?,” almost allows Agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) to overcome the typecasting of her role in the events in the film The Silence of the Lambs. The federal cop practically changes the venue by sheer force of will, as if she could burn the idea of a serial killer from the network series. Sadly, her flame is still attracting too many moths. The episode again begins in the therapist’s office, so we know the scene will be brief. Both the patient and the doctor appear to be…
19
Feb
In 1991 The Silence of the Lambs became a phenomenon; cleaning up at the box office, winning all five major Academy Awards (Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress, and Actor) and turning both of its lead characters into overnight icons. But while antagonist Hannibal Lecter has scarcely been away from our screens, the steely yet vulnerable hero of the film, Clarice Starling, only reappeared in the poorly received 2001 sequel Hannibal. Even Bryan Fuller’s cult classic TV adaptation of Thomas Harris’ source material novels couldn’t use Clarice due to complicated divisions of the rights. But now Clarice is back, headlining a…
19
Feb
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 2 Clarice episode 2, “Ghosts of Highway 20,” takes the series further from The Silence of the Lambs, and deeper into federal cop procedural territory. FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) went rogue at the end of the debut episode, “breaking the chain of command” and telling the press that an apprehended suspect just might not be a serial killer, but part of something larger. Now she is waiting for repercussions. Clarice is already doing penance as the episode opens, counting off pushups to metal music. Pushups are a military punishment for rookie…
12
Feb
Can a series be considered part of the Hannibal Lecter franchise if Hannibal Lecter never appears? Picking up in 1993, shortly after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, CBS’s new drama Clarice follows the continued trials and tribulations of Lecter’s most famous foil, originally brought to iconic, Oscar winning life by Jodie Foster thirty years ago. For long-time fans of Thomas Harris’ creation, Clarice is a contentious proposition. The idea of a TV series about Clarice Starling is neither a creatively bankrupt nor unappealing one, however it comes with a faint veneer of controversy due to a perception…
12
Feb
This Clarice review contains spoilers. Clarice Episode 1 Clarice, episode 1, “The Silence is Over,” is a fairly literate title. It is set shortly after the events in the film The Silence of the Lambs, in the period when most agents should be reflecting on such an emotionally trying case. Especially since the agent, who was only a trainee at the time, was thrown into “Buffalo Bill’s House of Horrors” just like the women she was trying to save. Agent Clarice Starling is not comfortable with the word survivor. She swears she was only doing her job, and Rebecca Breeds…
12
Feb
Special agent Clarice Starling is breathing heavily as she forces herself to turn the next tight corner. Between deep breaths, she knows somewhere in the back of her mind that she’s being watched. And she can assume those invisible, cold male eyes are making a judgement of her five-foot and three-inch frame: She’s in over her head. Yet she pushes past any condescending skepticism, and she perseveres through the proverbial dark. At a glance, this could apply to the climax of The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme’s masterful psychological thriller which finishes with a cat and mouse game of…
06
Feb
This Clarice review is based on the first three episodes and contains no spoilers. CBS’s new federal cop procedural Clarice is a little bit grittier than the majority of crime shows on network TV. It also flips the perspective on the mainly male POV of the genre. Both of these innovations can be attributed to the source material. The series is a sequel to the story told in Jonathan Demme’s psychological horror classic The Silence of the Lambs. It distinguishes itself from the film and the original book in two ways. The first is the crimes which are being investigated.…
16
Jan
If you’ve always wanted a deeper dive into the mind of The Silence of the Lambs‘ Clarice Starling, then CBS has a new show for you. Clarice, which takes place in 1993, aka a year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, will tell the “untold personal story” of Clarice Starling as she returns to the field. In the new CBS show, the very hard work of catching serial murderers and sexual predators will be made even more complicated by the high-stakes political world of D.C. The series comes from Star Trek‘s Alex Kurtzman and Rachel Getting Married‘s…
