Is this something we've seen on the show before, or would you need a a book spoiler to understand it?
That's my biggest problem as well. (I kind of felt the same way about Spartacus).I remember recommending this to one of my homies .... gotta warn him
Edit:
This makes me GLAD that Hannibal was on regular TV. I couldn't handle a "Starz" version of THAT show.
Now that you mention it, that's probably the metaphor they were going for. That ties back into my idea that the worship of the "old gods" almost always kills the worshipper.
Haven't read the book but it seemed like the whole scene of him and then with the Djinn would change nothing if it was cut?
Time for GMB Shadow. 
I just finished reading the novel because I've had it forever, never read it, and didn't want the show to spoil the experience. The funnest part of reading it was figuring out who all the old gods are. Gaiman was really on his shyt as far as history goes and incorporates a ton of different cultures. If the show is as faithful to the book as it seems then there's already a bunch of nikkas in here ruining the fun of finding out people's identities for the non-book readers
Ol' "look at me" nikkas. Same shyt happened in the Game of Thrones and Waking Dead threads