Buffalo Bill’s Dog Returns In Silence of the Lambs Sequel Show Clarice
CBS's new drama Clarice, which picks up the story of the Silence of the Lambs' central character, will also feature Precious, Buffalo Bill's dog.
CBS's new drama Clarice, which picks up the story of Silence of the Lambs' central character, will also feature Precious, Buffalo Bill's dog. The new series, set to debut in 2021, features Rebecca Breeds (Pretty Little Liars) as the titular FBI agent. Set in 1993, about a year after the events of Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning smash hit movie based on Richard Harris' book The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice will further explore the young FBI agent's career amid several crises for the agency, caused by real-world events.
The first teaser trailer for Clarice, released in early December, showed snippets of Buffalo Bill, aka Jame Gumb, the movie's central villain, so memorably portrayed by Ted Levine. Despite the character's death in the film, Buffalo Bill is set to play a significant part in Clarice, for the way his case affected Starling. The show also features the character of Catherine Martin, the woman who is saved from the clutches of Buffalo Bill. In Clarice, she will be played by Marnee Carpenter. Martin is a US senator's daughter kidnapped by Bill but uses his dog, Precious, to bargain for her life.
In an interview with EW, executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet reveal Martin will return alongside Precious. At the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Martin is seen clutching Precious as she's escorted out of Bill's dungeon. The EPs say she has adopted the dog, using it as a representation of "warmth, light, and freedom," despite also being a reminder of the most "f---ed up thing" in her life. You can read their full explanation below:
Catherine Martin is a strange, fun-house-mirror version of Clarice. They both shared this hell experience, but have been marked in different ways. Whereas Clarice is running from the fear and the pain, psychologically, Catherine is still in that well. So she is like a truth-teller. One of the ways in which Catherine has dealt with her trauma with Bill is that she has adopted Precious as her own dog – the dog that represented torture, the dog that represented the killer, the dog that represented everything. The dog also represented warmth, and light and freedom. The only warmth she had in this stone room. What does that mean? Are you going to fall in love with the thing that represents the weirdest, most f---ed up thing in your life?
Precious's return is interesting only as far as it reveals the pivotal role Catherine Martin is likely to play in the series. Her character has been thought about and fleshed out. It will be interesting to see how she deals with the trauma of being captured by Buffalo Bill, juxtaposed against Clarice's experience with the serial killer. There is even potential for the series to explore an uneasy friendship between the characters, given their connection.
Given Martin's presence and the specter of Buffalo Bill, a character inspired by several real-life killers, hanging over the show, it seems as if Clarice is going to explore the fall out from the events of The Silence of the Lambs in an overt way. It's a tempting prospect and makes the show a must-see in 2021, so hopefully, it manages to live up to its fascinating premise.
Source: EW