Warning: SPOILERS for Clarice season 1 finale, "Family Is Freedom".
Clarice season 1 ended with Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) facing and exacting justice from the true perpetrators of the complex conspiracy, Nils Hagen (Peter McRobbie), and his son, Tyson Conway (Douglas Smith). In true Silence of the Lambs fashion, Clarice's sordid mystery involved a harrowing web of lies, abuse, and murder, driven by the ghastly needs of Hagen, a monster as twisted as Buffalo Bill and the other homicidal maniacs in the Hannibal universe. By solving the River Murders case, Starling also uncovered tragic memories and truths about her family she had repressed since childhood.
Clarice quit the FBI in episode 12, "Father Time", and she was targeted at home by Tyson Conway, who was ordered by his father to abduct Starling. Meanwhile, the FBI's Violent Crimes Apprehension Program (ViCAP) pieced together Hagen's company, Alastor Pharmaceuticals', involvement in the River Murders case. They soon realized that Clarice herself was in danger and, upon searching the apartment they share, Ardelia Mapp (Devyn A. Tyler) found the remains of the prized necklace Clarice's father gave her and realized it was a clue that she was taken. Tomas Esquivel (Lucca De Oliveira) used illegal strongarm tactics to locate an animal rendering plant owned by Alastor and the ViCAP mobilized to rescue Starling. Meanwhile, Clarice learned the gruesome details of why Hagen's serial abduction and murders of pregnant women trafficked into the United States, and she was subjected to Hagen's ritualistic torture of his son, who was ordered to murder Starling to prove his loyalty. Instead, Clarice used her wits to pit father and son against each other so that Conway ended up killing Hagen and then taking his own life as ViCAP rescued the women Hagen held as prisoners.
The River Murders/Alastor Chemicals case was an intricate scheme spanning all throughout Clarice season 1 that had many parts. Simultaneously, Clarice's investigation took a personal toll on her as she was repeatedly traumatized by her experiences, which included being abducted and held prisoner twice. Starling felt she "gave up on herself" towards the end but Clarice ultimately uncovered the truth about the River Murders and about herself and emerged triumphant in season 1's resonant and satisfying finale.
The River Murders that Clarice was recruited to investigate alongside ViCAP were the deaths of three women designed to look like the work of a serial killer. Starling saw through this charade (although ViCAP initially didn't believe her) and she deduced that the dead women were all pregnant and suffered side effects from a migraine drug called Reprisol, which was manufactured by Alastor Pharmaceuticals. The victims were whistleblowers were all subjected to Alastor's clinical trials but Hagen, through his fixer and attorney, Joe Hudlin (Raoul Bhaneja), hired a contract killer to eliminate the women and make it appear like a new Buffalo Bill-like serial killer committed the murders.
Meanwhile, the women who died in the River Murders were part of even greater crimes perpetrated by Nils Hagen for decades. The deranged Hagen used his son, Tyson, to find and abduct numerous women, who were medical students of Eastern European descent trafficked into the United States. Hagen impregnated the women in his quest to have another child but he had a genetic defect that was passed onto each fetus. The Reprisol drug was an unsuccessful attempt by Hagen to try to have a pregnancy free of lethal complications, but Hagen wanted to put it on the market anyway, proving Hagen is as despicable as the villains in Hannibal, like Mason Verger (Gary Oldman).
Gruesomely, when each woman would inevitably miscarry or deliver a stillborn baby, Hagen had the fetuses jarred and placed on display as his "children" while he placed their mothers in a rendering machine to leave no traces of their corpses. Hudlin's role in orchestrating the River Murders ended up with Hagen killing him because Hudlin's mishandling brought the FBI to Alastor Chemicals' door.
Clarice was kidnapped by Tyson, who shared a mutual romantic interest in her, as a test. Hagen intended for Tyson to murder Clarice to prove his loyalty to his father. Tyson refused to murder Clarice and, instead, offered Starling to his father to impregnate. Caught in the middle of this depraved family squabble, unarmed, and unable to call ViCAP, Starling used her cunning to pit Conway against Hagen. She revealed to Tyson that her mother was one of the women Nils impregnated and, when Conway was the only child who was born normally, his mother escaped Hagen with her baby. Inevitably, Nils found her and took Tyson after Hagen had his mother murdered.
Appealing to Tyson's disgust and shame over what he has done on his father's orders, Clarice pointed out that Tyson and Hagen were the same and he aided and abetted Nils' abductions, serial rapes, and serial murders. This drove Tyson to shoot Hagen dead before he turned the gun on himself. Tyson and Clarice were attracted to each other because they both built their self-images from a distorted view of their respective fathers, only to realize terrible truths about the men they spend their lives idolizing. Tyson finally decided to kill himself when Clarice admitted she didn't "see" him before but, "I see you now" - i.e. Tyson is no different from Hagen and Clarice could never have affection for someone who committed the kinds of sins that Tyson Conway has.
It was a startling turn of events that Clarice not only stood by as Tyson committed a murder-suicide instead of arresting the father and son but instigated Conway killing Hagen and himself. However, Starling was no longer an FBI agent at that point so she didn't have federal authority. Moreso, Clarice was outraged and furious at Hagen and Conway. For the same reasons that Starling shot and killed Buffalo Bill instead of arresting him, Clarice made sure a more primal form of justice was exacted on Hagen and Conway, and that Tyson got vengeance on his father before punishing himself. Later, Starling proudly told her boss Paul Krendler (Michael Cudlitz), who was shot and hospitalized during the operation to rescue Clarice, "We got him... That's the short version." To Starling, due process was much less important than ensuring that monsters like Hagen and Conway were gone for good.
Clarice used Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs novel (instead of the film) as a springboard to greatly expand what fans know about her backstory. In her therapy sessions with Dr. Renee Li (Grace Lynn Kung), Starling unlocked secret memories about her father, the West Virginia town marshal she idolized and patterned her career in law enforcement after. Clarice had buried the truth that her "hero" father, who was shot by criminals, was actually working for those same local gangsters. The details are fleeting and weren't spelled out but her father's actions were known by Clarice's mother, who knew he would be killed if he continued the path he was on.
The real reason behind Clarice's father's death, and her own realization that he was "a coward" who "betrayed us" recontextualizes why Clarice was sent away by her mother at age 10. Clarice believed it was because "money was tight" (yet her older and younger siblings stayed in West Virginia), but it may have been to protect Clarice from the truth about her father, who she was extremely close to. In fact, it may also have been because her father used young Clarice as a courier and the bad guys knew her face, so sending her away kept her out of their reach.
Ultimately, Starling now has to reconstruct her self-image beyond following in her father's footsteps. Clarice always saw her father as a saint and blamed her mother for sending her away, which is why Starling didn't see or speak to her mother since she was 10. Clarice season 1 was a major retcon of Starling's life story and it intriguingly ended with Clarice finally returning home to West Virginia to see her mom, which could be a new beginning for them and the entire Starling clan.
A powerful theme running through Clarice's season 1 finale is accountability, which is embodied by two Clarice main characters, Tomas Esquivel and Attorney General Ruth Martin (Jayne Atkinson). Esquivel abused his FBI authority when he physically assaulted his former Special Forces ally who was in business with Alastor. Esquivel, who has always had Clarice's back and is attracted to her, did what he had to do in order to find the animal factory Starling was being held in and he reported himself to the Special Agent in Charge to face accountability. Meanwhile, Ruth Martin realized she was also culpable since she and others in Congres had accepted PAC campaign money from Nils Hagen and Alastor, and Martin vowed to investigate everyone involved in this conspiracy - including herself.
In addition, Ardelia Mapp's career is in doubt because she exposed the systemic racism in the Department of Justice, although Mapp could have a future in ViCAP. One character who has found a measure of peace is Catherine Martin (Marnee Carpenter). Buffalo Bill's only surviving victim is finally moving past her trauma after she confronted Buffalo Bill's mother. It was also when Clarice visited Catherine and they spoke about their mothers that Starling realized it was time for her to forgive and visit her own mother.
Clarice season 1 ended with Agent Starling being reinstated in the FBI, and she happily accepted two weeks' vacation to finally heal after she continually rejected taking time off during the River Murders investigation, which was to her detriment. Clarice even bought herself a new car to replace the beater she had driven since The Silence of the Lambs. The question is whether Clarice will have a season 2. Clarice will not return to CBS in Fall 2021 as it was the lowest-rated show on the network. However, a financial dispute between CBS Studios/Paramount and MGM, which co-produces Clarice, has curtailed the series' move to the Paramount+ streaming service. Sadly, Clarice's journey may have ended with the season 1 finale but fans hope there can be a breakthrough that will prevent Clarice from being silenced so the show can return for season 2 on Paramount+ or another streaming service.
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June 26, 2021 at 12:30AM
