What CLARICE Gets Right About Clarice Starling
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Clarice Starling sits opposite a therapist, their session recounting a series of events familiar to fans of
The Silence of the Lambs. It’s been a year since since the FBI trainee now a graduate of the academy discovered and killed serial killer Buffalo Bill. But he lingers still, impressed on her subconscious like a fossil of the death’s-head moths he placed in his victim’s throats. A symbol of metamorphosis for him, preserved in fever-dream flashes for her.
“I thought it was done,” Clarice says in her West Virginia twang. Subtle notes of Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses” play over memories of Bill hunched over his sewing machine, stitching human flesh. The song was a standout moment in the 1991 film, but here it’s a shadow. Because this isn’t Buffalo Bill’s story. Or Hannibal Lecter’s. It’s Clarice’s, and it fits a little uncomfortably.
At the end of 1991’s
Silence of the Lambs, serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter tells investigator Clarice Starling, “The world’s more interesting with you in it.” The new CBS series
Clarice, which brings the character back for a procedural drama, marks the first time his theory has been tested. Set one year after the events depicted in
Lambs,
Clarice is built around the young FBI agent, and the show features only the most oblique references to Lecter. Showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet didn’t have a choice; complicated rights issues prevented Lecter from being involved. But it leaves an enormous challenge for the series: to make Starling interesting enough to make viewers forget about Lecter altogether.
Clarice turns The Silence of the Lambs into a pretty flavorless dish ktvz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ktvz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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