Hannibal’s second season starts with a ferocious fight between our title character and FBI head Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) and never lets up for the next 13 episodes.

There’s much more of a focus and drive to this season, unlike the more slow burn abstract nature of Season 1. The visuals remain some of the most stunning images of current TV and the violence and gore certainly pushes as far as a network TV show will allow. The cast seem more settled into the roles, and the supporting cast are allowed time to stretch their wings and inject some welcome humour (albeit of the gallows kind…) into proceedings.

Mads Mikkelsen has found his own interpretation of the iconic Dr Lecter, and his version is much more virile (and better dressed!) than the previous Lecter performances. Plus he seems to be someone who you could believe would be able to elude arrest and convince as a working psychiatrist under the noses of the authorities for so long. Although some of his profound analysis tends to fall into ‘cod metaphor’ dialogue that is a bit repetitive.

Hugh Dancy continues to portray the damaged Will Graham, and it’s to the credit of the performance and the writing that they are able to sell the concept of him being framed for Hannibal’s murders for a number of episodes.

The new characters also breathe some fresh air into the show. Katherine Isabelle is good as the doomed Margot Verger, and Jeremy Davies makes the most out of a small role.  But it’s Michael Pitt as the vile Mason Verger who makes the biggest impact. His character, a paedophile who drinks children’s tears, trains psychotic pigs and sleeps with his sister, stays (just…) on the right side of absurd panto villiain.

Pitt may be channelling the twitchiness of Heath Ledger’s Joker a lot of the time, but he gives the second half of the season a nice jolt of energy to contrast the more low key brooding tone of rest of the cast. A lot of the dark humour comes from seeing a murdering cannibal look utterly shocked by the behaviour of Mason Verger’s insanity.

It’s also especially fun for those who know what eventually happens to Verger from the book (and film) Hannibal. The audience is almost itching to see the denouement.

Hannibal is a quality show, with great performances and stunning visuals, although it may be slightly too abstract to fans of more straight police procedural thrillers. It’s certainly far more surreal than the likes of Criminal Minds/CSI, with a very sombre mood and some viewers could find it all too slow or too unrealistic.

Extras: The box set comes with audio commentaries on several episodes, a fun gag reel and a few interesting, but slight featurettes about the making of the show.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 22 October 2014.