Clarice Review: CBS s Haunting Silence of the Lambs Spin-Off Does Clarice Starling Proud
The new series is interested in its hero as a person, not a pop culture legacy Kelly Connolly
Rebecca Breeds,
Clarice Brooke Palmer/CBS
Clarice Starling needs no introduction. She s the kind of groundbreaking character whose TV series can be sold with one name.
Clarice. Like Cher. The new CBS procedural, set a year after the events of
The Silence of the Lambs, presumes that Clarice Starling is now famous in her world, too: She s the woman who took down Buffalo Bill and tangoed with Hannibal Lecter, though you won t hear Hannibal mentioned by name in the series. There s a legal explanation for his absence from this story (the rights to author Thomas Harris characters are confusingly divided), but it s a gift for the show: It keeps the focus on Clarice. She s the only celebrity this show needs. Her FBI therapist refers to Hannibal obliquely as her last therapist ; he was fascina