The story and tone of Dish plays with, amongst other things, generic conventions and the preconceived notions that audiences have about them; the assumption that the protagonist is a good person, the idea that an absurd plan that couldn’t possibly work might actually work etc.
The initial idea is pretty basic; a young woman finds herself in a nightmare scenario where her dinner date has revealed himself to be a paid cannibal hitman. The story is set all in one location, that of an unassuming restaurant bathroom, where the cannibal hitman basically explains his entire plan of kidnapping this woman and then subsequently eating her. Our main lead is shown to not be a particularly nice person as it happens and there are hints that the reason for the cannibal’s employment is due to the nasty things she’s done in the past to different people. The entire time our protagonist is basically rolling her eyes and laughing at his scheme, citing how absurd his plot is. We’re left feeling like she just HAS to be right – his ludicrous plot couldn’t actually work, right? Wrong.
He totally gets away with it.
And that’s the main point of A Dish Best Served Cold – it just straight up ends with a sudden and jarring realisation that everything was pulled off without a hitch.
hitmancannibal 