Warning: SPOILERS for Clarice season 1, episode 2, "Ghosts of Highway 20".
Clarice episode 2 delivered a major retcon to Special Agent Clarice Starling's history: She is no longer an only child as established in The Silence of the Lambs. In CBS's spinoff, which is also a sequel to the Oscar-winning film, Rebecca Breeds takes over the role of Clarice Starling from Jodie Foster. Clarice's significant alteration of Starling's backstory may mean the show could further alter what's known about her from The Silence of the Lambs.
Clarice is set in 1993, one year after Starling killed Buffalo Bill, in The Silence of the Lambs. In Clarice, Starling is haunted by her experience with the serial killer; she suffers from PTSD that she isn't fully facing despite being mandated to seek therapy by the FBI. Further, killing Buffalo Bill made Clarice a celebrity, and the Bureau resents that the media dubbed Starling "the Face of the FBI" and the Behavioral Science Unit. Looking to benefit from Starling's "reputation for hunting monsters", Attorney General Ruth Martin (Jayne Atkinson) assigned Clarice to the Violent Criminals Apprehension Program (ViCAP) and charged her with hunting more serial killers, which only places Starling in more danger physically and psychologically. While Agent Starling's story is moving forward, Clarice is now also retconning The Silence of the Lambs as well as delivering tons of fan service.
Clarice episode 2, "The Ghosts of Highway 20", dropped a bombshell that Starling had a younger brother and sister, who the episodes didn't provide names for. "The Ghosts of Highway 20's" flashbacks mainly focused on Clarice's brother and the day the Starling family found out their father was shot. Clarice had to cope with her memories as she confronted Novak (Tim Guinee), the leader of a group of militant secessionists called the Statesmen, and a young boy trapped by the group who reminded Starling of her little brother. But for fans of The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice's heretofore unheard of brother and sister is a bombshell because Clarice Starling was an only child in the film and in Thomas Harris' novel.
In The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice (Jodie Foster) told Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) her worst memory, which was the death of her father. Clarice idolized her dad, who was a town marshal in West Virginia, and he died from a gunshot wound during a robbery. The tragedy left Clarice orphaned - "My mother died when I was very young," she told Hannibal - and the 10-year-old Starling was sent to live with her aunt in Montana before she spent the rest of her childhood in a Lutheran orphanage.
Clarice changed her established backstory: Now, Starling not only had a younger brother but her mother was also alive when her father was shot. In one of Clarice's flashbacks, Starling remembers her mother in the kitchen washing her father's blood off his shirt, and she told Clarice to look after her brother and sister. Not only is this a major shift in Clarice's history, but it also opens up all-new questions: What happened to the rest of Clarice's family? Why was she sent to Montana if her mother was alive? Was Clarice sent to Montana alone or did her siblings go with her? And how will Clarice no longer being an only child alter her character moving forward?
On one hand, it's understandable why Clarice changed Starling's backstory; the series is planning to tell a long-form tale and the producers feel there are better opportunities to delve into Clarice's character if she wasn't an only child. But this is still a massive retcon for fans of The Silence of the Lambs and Clarice Starling's character, and Clarice retconning the film is a bit hard to swallow. It also begs the question of whether Clarice is set in its own continuity like NBC's Hannibal was and whether it will ever lead up to the 2001 movie Hannibal, where Starling is meant to meet Hannibal Lecter again in less than a decade. Clarice also planted the seeds for Starling's brother to appear in the series as an adult, and the question is whether he will be a friend or if he will be revealed to be one of the serial killers Agent Starling has to hunt.