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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

gently caress, I don't really have time to do this but.... it's Hannibal. I'll make the time. :stwoon:

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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

Thanks for the viewing reminder. I’ve never seen any of the series and know basically nothing about it, but I’m hooked after the first episode. It seems so quaint for them to cut around and Austin-Powers our the nipples on the horrifically mutilated bodies that the prop people render with such care. So much so that I’m already kind of wondering if that will have anything to do with the psychosexual poo poo the show’s obviously going way into.

Without giving away spoilers, there is an episode in the future where NBC were absolutely adamant that a particular scene could not air, and the show assumed it was because of the use of a corpse. Finally they found out that the problem was that you could see the crack of the corpse's rear end, so they said,"What if we obscure the asscrack with a pool of blood but the corpse is otherwise still fully in view?" and NBC were like,"Well okay THAT is totally fine!"

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Escobarbarian posted:

- “USE THE LADIES’ ROOM!!!” lmao I forgot all about that

Bryan Fuller: Okay, I'll be the showrunner but on one condition... I get to film in the Overlook Hotel bathroom. Take it or leave it :colbert:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I'd seen 1000 shows like Hannibal before Hannibal came along, of varying degrees of quality, and the thing that makes this one standout even beyond being a Bryan Fuller show (and therefore, you know, loving gorgeous) is fittingly enough the titular character. The protagonist who "SEES WHAT THE KILLER SEES!" was exciting and fresh to me when I first saw it in Millennium waaaay back in the 90s (the trope probably predates it, that's the earliest I recall) but it had been overused to the point of absurdity by the time Hannibal came along. The first half of the first episode is shot well, the production design is top notch, the careful dodging of NBC's censors is remarkable etc... but it's still got all the trappings of a "The FBI/Cops get a troubled genius to help them solve crimes" style of crime procedural, albeit a very stylish one. Hugh Dancy is fine in the lead and his interactions with Crawford and the forensic team is fun, most prominently in the first episode through Hettienne Park and her obliviously cheerful first meeting with Will.

But the moment Mads Mikkelsen shows up it just becomes a completely different show, and all the better for it. He throws everything on its ear, helped in part by the almost inescapable pop culture awareness of exactly who and what Dr. Lecter is, but mostly through his fantastic performance. His bemused, barely veiled contempt is a joy to watch. He's so smooth, so unconcerned and condescending towards the capabilities of anybody to capture him or outsmart him, often right to their face while they think he's been charming and open with them. He makes Jack sit in his waiting room before deigning to see him, he enjoys poking at Will and his fascination and understanding of Will's ability in no way involves him being concerned Will might be able to turn it on him. He pays lipservice to Will being able to adopt Hannibal's own POV but you know he's utterly confident that this won't happen, or that he'll easily be able to obfuscate or misdirect a man whose talent is to see what other people are thinking and feeling. Hell, he straight up brings him a meal of the lungs he cooked from the fake Shrike kill and takes great pleasure in watching him eat it, even as Will is assuring him that he doesn't find him interesting ("You will" is a statement, not a prediction). He takes Garrett Jacob Hobbs' entire mindset and flips it just for fun, the intellectual curiosity of prodding Will along the right track to see what he'll do next. He does the same to Hobbs himself, giving him that phone warning purely for his own amusement, to wind up these little toys and see what happens. He's a monster through and through right from the start, but he's a seductive and alluring one: more Lucifer Morningstar than horned demon. Even saving Abigail's life and then "falling asleep" holding her hand is a constructed scene designed purely to play with Will's sense of empathy and draw them in closer, all so he can see what his fascinating little toy does next. The best writing of Lecter in my opinion was always when he was bored and decided to amuse himself, and that's what comes through in the writing and especially the performance by Mikkelsen in this episode.

As the show continues, the relationships become more interwoven and the other characters become more interesting, but it's all because the center is held in place by Mikkelsen the actor/Hannibal the character. It raises Hugh Dancy's Will Graham up to greater heights and makes him a compelling (heartbreakingly so) character in his own right. But in episode 1, the show is clearly well named, this IS The Hannibal Show.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Jun 4, 2019

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Mameluke posted:

I never made that connection before. That's another point for my reading of the show as the blackest comedy ever, imo

"Your homework is to come back and tell me how YOU personally would have murdered this poor woman!" always gives me an uncomfortable laugh.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Watching the second episode reminds me of just how incredible the music (along with every single other aspect of the production) is. I don't know what the specific term/genre is for what I think is the piano music that plays over the shots of the "garden" but I absolutely love it.

It's kinda forgivable since it is the second episode, but this does kick off what would become a recurring motif of there being a sudden explosion of bizarrely artistic serial killers all cropping up and killing in an incredibly short timeframe so there could be a new killer of the week each episode, which I put down to the show not quite being able to escape it's Network TV surroundings. The half of the episode that's about the fallout from Garrett Jacob Hobbs, the suspicion that has fallen on his daughter (like her father always referred to in full rather than just her first name) etc is the most interesting part. The other half with The Gardener is good but it feels all too quick coming so hard on the heels of the Minnesota Shrike.

I do love Will's hallucinations, an often overused trope in this kind of crime procedural with an eccentric genius type of show, because I've always liked to think of them as both the result of (later season spoilers) his encephalitis but also because his brain is desperately trying to figure out/warn him about all the little poo poo that doesn't quite add up and creating these images to throw it all together as best it can. The reason he can't make the logical leap in seeing who is behind the unanswered questions in the Hobbs case is of course due to the guilty party being the one who is "helping" him: Hannibal is expertly working away effortlessly making himself Will (and Jack's!) best friend and removing any (conscious) suspicions that Will might have about him. Not just for his own protection, but because he's having so much fun remaking Will in his own image. By the end of the episode his comments about God seem very self-referential, and it definitely feels at this point like he's decided it would be fun (or at least not boring) for him to take an empathetic figure like Will Graham and turn him into a killer... just because he can.

Also holy gently caress his office is beautiful, and the way he so smoothly strips Freddie of her self-confidence is really quite remarkable, especially considering how relaxed she is during Jack's big display of power (which I'm pretty sure was a pretty big violation of numerous rules/laws).

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

massive spider posted:

I read through the books recently and its interesting how many of Hannibals best lines in the show are displaced lines from the books narration/other characters lifted and given to him.

Recently I went back and watched the way a lot of specific scenes from the books were adapted for the screen by different directors, which is really fascinating (spoilers for season 3 of Hannibal and potentially :nws: for Network approved shadow-butt). You have some amazing directors/cinematography/music of course, but the different actors also really bring different energies to the characters/dialogue.

As for Brett Ratner.... well he sure can... uhh... well his characters sure managed to stay in the frame....

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Jun 7, 2019

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Arist posted:

Watching 103 and Hannibal is such a cheeky motherfucker, god. He's like this weirdo alien tiger lingering in the backdrop of every scene, waiting for an excuse to pounce.

The sheer pleasure on his face when he walks into Will's lecture on the copycat is absolutely amazing.

Edit: More thoughts on episode 3:

- The return to a focus on the Hobbs case was welcome, a third killer of the week showing up would have been a bit much. It also continues the more interesting parts of episode 2 and sets it aside from most crime procedurals in that there is actually fallout/aftermath from the shooting of the bad guy even after everybody has confirmed/agreed that Will did nothing wrong.
- Kacey Rohl isn't as good an actor as Mads Mikkelsen but that is like saying water is wet. Her performance is fine but while the writing offers suggestions of greater depth, it mostly only provides her with opportunities to look scared or miserable. Suitable emotions for somebody in her position, of course, but it is already clear that she's going to be a bigger character than her brief appearance in the first couple of episodes suggested so it would be nice to get to see her get a bit more variation in. That said, I absolutely love that they never definitively answer in this episode whether she was an accomplice (willing or otherwise) to her father. None of the other characters know either, though Hannibal would probably feel certain in his opinion on the matter, and that creates a distance between them even if they don't it too, a distance that Abigail clearly feels and reacts to.
- This must be the most pathetically ineffective police cordon I have ever seen. People are just coming onto the property left/right/center without the cops being able to spot them. Hannibal even gets a corpse out without being seen!
- Jack makes no bones about being an rear end in a top hat, it's part of his job, but it bugs me that he seems almost offended by Will being unbalanced by his exposure to the crime scenes when Will himself raised that as a definite possibility on their first meeting and begged him not to go. It's kind of the point that Jack uses people to achieve his aims, but he doesn't have to be so self-righteous/indignant about it!
- Hannibal continues to have just the best loving time. He clearly can't believe his luck at being not only right in the middle of this gloriously hosed up trainwreck, but being INVITED with open arms. The only thing that rings a little false is him taking out Bloom, it feels like he would be too exposed to do that (considering the ineffectiveness of the police cordon) and while he's supremely self-confident his decision to all but admit/brag about being a serial killer to Abigail seems like the kind of short-sighted thinking that could easily blow up in his face.

All in all it's a better episode than the second, it would have been nice if Hannibal could have escaped the trappings of the crime procedural but that was never going to be the case being a Network Drama. It's still a goddamn miracle we got the show we got, but I'd much rather have episodes like 3 than 2, which is an uncomfortable marriage of the larger story they're trying to tell and the crime-of-the-week standard.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Jun 11, 2019

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Episode 4 thoughts:

- They make a game effort to thematically tie in the killer of the week with the Abigail stuff (re: replacing your family with a new one) but it feels like a square peg in a round hole, and it is a phenomenal waste of somebody as talented as Molly Shannon. It feels like half of that plot is missing, with the dynamic between the "lost boys" never really being explained or elaborated on.
- Hannibal wildly oversteps his bounds, which they call out in the episode, but it feels sloppy and the end result with Bloom being "forced" to tacitly endorse his actions by agreeing to join them for dinner is a misstep. Hannibal's supreme self-confidence feels the least earned it ever has here.
- I love the misdirect of making it look like Hannibal broke into Will's house with malicious intent, only to later reveal that Will asked him to do it and was fully aware he was there (though probably not that he rifled through his drawers)
- As Arist noted, the scare-chord/momentary flashback is surprisingly unsubtle and a rather broad joke that could have easily been made without making use of either.
- Kacey Rohl/Abigail is way better here than episode 3, the further she gets away from her father and the further she strays into/is pulled into Hannibal's world, the more interesting she becomes. The dichotomy of whether she is prey or predator is better realized, she seems fully aware of the danger she is in/that Hannibal poses, but torn between just trying to keep on his right side and being fascinated by him. This is what they were also trying to showcase via Molly Shannon's clumsy attempts with the little boys, but with Hannibal/Abigail it is executed far better, and not just because Hannibal is better at it than the evil mother was.
- Those are the tastiest loving eggs I think I have ever seen in my life.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jun 15, 2019

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I'm catching up, just watched Episodes 5 - 7 and thought I'd concentrate on one of the things I really appreciated about this adaptation. Silence of the Lambs was a phenomenon, and I think clearly stands head and shoulders over all the other film adaptations of the Lecter books, the only adaptation that has ever eclipsed it to my mind is this tv series, which had the benefit of long-form storytelling as opposed to the movie's limited timeframe. But Silence being such a huge hit and the subsequent sequels (and of course, Manhunter, which preceded it) meant that there was a ton of material/storybeats/character moments that viewers were already aware of, negating somewhat the ability for any adaptation to surprise or making it feel like they were "stuck" with things having to go a certain way.

Partly due to the rights to Clarice Starling and the Silence of the Lambs novel being wrapped up in legal hell, the TV show was given a challenge: How do you build to what everybody KNOWS is coming? Lecter in an institute being approached by young FBI trainee Clarice Starling for help on a case? What the show did with this was a sheer delight, as it took all the expectations viewers had and turned them on their head. Miriam Lass is clearly a proto-Clarice, but she serves a function that was held in the books by Will Graham: she is the one who makes the intuitive leap that connects Hannibal to the Chesapeake Ripper, the one Hannibal then attacks. In the books, Will gets the upper hand and Hannibal is taken into custody. Here, Miriam is captured and silenced, which immediately throws into question everything the viewer might have assumed they knew going in: maybe Hannibal ISN'T going to be caught? The adaptation of that moment has come and gone in a flashback set before the events of the TV series, we're in seemingly new material now. Throw in Doctor Gideon, played by Eddie Izzard basically aping Anthony Hopkins in a very knowing way (it's an actor successfully failing to be as good as Hopkin's portrayal of Lecter) and his amused contempt for "nemesis" Dr. Chilton and suddenly the questions start arising as to how far off-book the show is going to go. Will Hannibal be captured? Will he and Graham have their cell visits to discuss new cases or does that go by the wayside/change into Will's therapy sessions? With Will's condition deteriorating and Hannibal's talk of psychic driving with Chilton, it even raises questions about one of the more controversial aspects of the books/film sequels: Is Hannibal going to empty out Will's mind and make him a puppet to replace his dead sister, as he does to Starling?

For a show that is adapting material so well known in so many film adaptations, it keeps things fresh in a really delightful way. There's so much more to say about episodes 5 - 7, not least of which is the beautiful irony of Hannibal accompanying the FBI on the manhunt for the Chesapeake Ripper (i.e, himself) and using the same surgical skills he uses for his kills to save the life of somebody mistaken for a new Ripper victim. But then there is Hannibal's distaste for Franklin trying to shoehorn into his life while Hannibal is doing the same with Will (his little pout when Will doesn't show up for his appointment is :kiss:); or the sudden appearance of Gillian Anderson being, as usual, stunningly beautiful; or the revelation of how Hannibal picks his victims/plans his meals. The show is finding its footing, and it has deftly managed to maintain the network's desire for a "crime of the week" while avoiding making each episode an island unto itself, wrapping everything so clearly into the main narrative. Plus the food... oh God the food. And the music!

Steve Yun posted:

I love this episode so so much. The food is on point. The music is on point. There are some amazing character study moments.

Please keep up these write-ups on the music and food, it is seriously utterly fascinating.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Chilton really is incredible and the episode where his life falls apart is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

So I really like episode 8 for a lot of reasons but also what the gently caress episode 8? There are two graceful, elegant, educated, sophisticated serial killers not only operating in secret in Baltimore, but they're both happen to know the exact same dude which is how they meet? I have to assume Tobias is there to demonstrate Lecter's "uniqueness" in that Tobias is on the surface everything Hannibal is, but he lacks restraint and his superiority complex makes him misjudge the abilities of those around him. Hannibal is also completely secure in his superiority, but he demonstrates this by taking the abilities of law enforcement seriously: he keeps Jack Crawford off-balance, he keeps Will close, he treats Bloom as a complete equal and "values" and encourages her disputing his analysis so they feel like colleagues. Meanwhile Tobias treats the idea of the police coming after him as an opportunity to kill them too and the disappear and recreate a new life somewhere else. He says that without hesitation or any sense that things could go any other way, he simply assumes his success while Hannibal always assures his own.

Hannibal and Tobias fighting feels network mandated, which might just be my bias assuming anything that seems silly on the show was there because the Network wanted it as opposed to Fuller thinking it would be kicking rad for Hannibal and another serial killer to have a kung-fu fight. I do however like that Hannibal is really pushed hard and doesn't just automatically wipe the floor with Tobias, he takes a lot of pain and comes close to death several times, but the moment he has the upper hand you see how he shifts from survival mode to IMMEDIATELY planning: how do I kill this man in self-defense while ALSO making it look like an accident. It's quite something seeing the switch flip as Hannibal goes from desperate struggle for life to calm, smooth setup of the "accident" like he was preparing a meal.

Graham falling apart is really well-handled, especially the fireplace scene and his later admitting to Hannibal that he only kissed Bloom to distract her from the fact that she suspects what HE suspects: that he's going loving crazy. My favorite part of the episode though has to be when Hannibal is sitting in the aftermath of the Tobias fight and sees Will walk through the door, and the sheer relief that crosses his face that his "friend" is still alive. He straight up tells Bedelia that he wants Will to be a friend, and I really like how open he is about his reasons why: he and Will have very little in common, but he appreciates that Will is capable of seeing things from Hannibal's POV, even if Will doesn't understand that it is Hannibal whose POV he is seeing. Hannibal's reasons are selfish, narcissistic and essentially an intellectual exercise: I have decided to make a friend, now I shall go about doing so. But it marks the first time that Will goes from interesting subject/pet to somebody Hannibal supposedly values as a person. He'd earlier told Will that he considered him the mongoose he wanted under his house to catch any snakes that came by, and it is in this function that he "reluctantly" passes on Franklin's suspicions about Tobias, but when Tobias comes after Hannibal his concern for Will is real, even if it is founded on his own narcissism. The show going forward goes really interesting places with this, because Will is falling apart and Hannibal is his friend... but he's also the serial killer who is fascinated in seeing just how far he can take advantage of his "friend" and his malady to further his own ends.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

Spoilers for season 3 but lol did you see the finale? :allears:

Pretend I just wrote a lot of gushing words about the thematic importance and the bridging function of the Red Dragon between Hannibal and Will, so I can excuse my own hypocrisy for absolutely LOVING that particular kicking rad kung-fu fight :sweatdrop:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I'm not signing in to vote, but I hope Hannibal season 2 wins :shobon:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Hannibal's line earlier in the season about Will being the mongoose you keep to kill snakes that come by is exorcised in that episode, I feel. He sends Will off for that function, to remove the threat of Tobias, but after doing it he feels concerned for Will's wellbeing, talks to Bedelia about wanting Will as a friend, and is clearly relieved to see he survived.

This gets taken a step further (and plays into your point about coded gay language) in the next episode where Hannibal takes it further and wants to literally make a ready-made family with Will. He essentially wants them to be a couple (the oft-joked about "murder husbands"), and it is easy to see it through the lens of a homosexual relationship even though there is nothing sexual there on either of their parts, it's a yearning for companionship/understanding on Hannibal's part, though being Hannibal he has to have that purely on his own terms and structured in a way where HE has complete and total control and others are forced into the mold he chooses for them.

Episode 9 goes apeshit with the arty murder displays with the crazy loving corpse-totem (and the criminally underused Lance Henriksen), plus Will's deteriorating condition is really coming to the fore. But it's that underlying desire to make Will not just complicit in his crimes but willingly so, and the decision to turn Abigail into "their" daughter, that really makes the episode standout. For all his manipulation and smooth control though, I love how many whirling pieces are starting to coalesce around other characters that will start pointing inevitably towards Hannibal. The most telling is Bloom ripping Jack a new one for his pretty disgusting treatment of Abigail, and justifying her defense by pointing out that Hannibal backs her story and what possible reason could Hannibal have for lying? If you don't know where the season is going to end up, it would be easy to think you could see EXACTLY where everything was going. I love this show.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Episode 10 is creepy as gently caress, even for a show that revels in being creepy as gently caress at times. By this point there is no denying the show is more interested in drawing parallels between its "killer of the week" and the central characters, so of course Will meets a killer who, like him, is not entirely sure what is real and what isn't. This leads to some hyper-creepy visuals and disturbingly realistic make-up effects which again leave me still wondering even all these years later how the hell this was a Network show.

It's tempting at first to show that Hannibal is showing his true colors by convincing the doctor to hide Will's encephalitis from him, this interest in him is purely out of intellectual fascination as opposed to the (screwed up) friendship he spoke of to Bedelia in the previous episode. But this is an episode all about misdirection: we see Will murder Abigail Hobbs only to discover it was a vivid hallucination brought about during his attempt to reconstruct another murder; Sutcliffe's death is revealed to be another copycat murder; Will sees the clocks he draws one way while we see them another etc. Hannibal's reasons for hiding Will's encephalitis for the time being no doubt have an element intellectual curiosity, but it is also used as a way to draw Will closer to him (and cover his bases with Jack and making him discount physical explanation's for Will's decline, meaning that he'll want Hannibal to keep as close to Will as possible). He pretends an emotional indifference because he knows that is something Sutcliffe will understand/comprehend, and he was already planning to kill him once his function was completed.

But this is another example, like in episode 9, of Hannibal continuing to fly a little too close to the sun. He still clearly believes he is in some way untouchable, but he is having to go to greater and greater lengths to avoid discovery. The episode ends with not all the loose ends tied up, there is a "witness" to Hannibal (seen for the first time in his murder suit) even if she was incapable of distinguishing his face, and Hannibal's line about hoping she remembers nothing "for her own sake" is just dripping with the double-meaning.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Steve Yun posted:

Earlier in the episode, he told Chilton that influencing a patient doesn't work when the patient knows they're being influenced. Hannibal is deftly influencing Will in a way that isn't obvious. The writing is so good!

This I particularly liked, his actions didn't quite make sense in episode 10 but having him here using his (very polite, subtle) dressing down of Chilton's clumsy tactics as a counterpoint to how smoothly and cleverly he has psychically driven Will worked really well. This contrasts really nicely with Chilton himself later being completely unsubtle in trying to make Gideon's state of mind Bloom's mistake rather than his own, and openly lying about things said by Gideon. Hannibal always tells the truth, he just lies by omission or twists things just enough so nobody would ever think he'd been lying if the contradiction came to light, or that Hannibal was understandably mistaken/had his heart in the right place.

What always stands out to me in episode 11 is Will's pleading, sobbing,"DON'T LIE TO ME!" when he shows up at Hannibal's with Gideon at gunpoint. It's heartbreaking the way Hannibal makes him believe he's gone crazy/is hallucinating everything, and of course in the aftermath Hannibal is then able to make Jack feel like he is the guy who is exploiting Will while Hannibal himself is only concerned with Will's wellbeing. Hannibal always gets to have everything his own way, he tells the "truth" while playing different roles to different people and every single one of them believe that if anything is wrong, it is THEIR fault and not Hannibal's. As he noted to Chilton, psychic driving stops working once the patient realized they're being manipulated, but nobody (so far) has figured out that Hannibal is manipulating them. Which is why I also love the appearance every so often of the feathered-stag as a symbol in Will's mind to fill the void of the killer he KNOWS is out there loving with him but who he can't quite see. Hannibal is there obfuscating everything and Will's mind crosses the gap caused by Hannibal's manipulations with a cross between a Shrike and the stag antlers featured so prominently by the copycat AND Garret Jacob Hobbs. It shows that his mind, hosed up as it is, is still making these empathetic leaps even in spite of a mastermind manipulating Will's mind at every step of the way.

Also holy gently caress what happens to Chilton is absolutely loving horrifying, his "gift basket" is super-hosed up.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jun 29, 2019

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Episode 12 is where things start coming to a head and you'd think that this should mark the start of Hannibal's downfall. His decision to kill Georgia Madchen to cover his tracks appears to blow up in his face, as Will picks up on the fact it was a murder and not a suicide/accident which sets him on the path to trying to finally identify the copycat killer by filling in the blanks around him. There's an early sense that things might finally be beginning to unravel for Hannibal, that he's having to go to further and further lengths to preserve the status quo and things are starting to get out of hand. Jack visiting Bedelia in search of info on Will is a good example, as it brings him ever closer to revelations about Hannibal and he wouldn't be able to avoid picking up on how uneasy she is even beyond discussing a patient in her care. Abigail isn't holding it together very well and her decision to work with Freddie is exposing her story to too much sunlight when she isn't in a position to cover it up anywhere near as well as the likes of Hannibal ("She's one of those smart girls who hasn't realized yet that other smart girls grew up before them and know all their tricks").

In the end, it doesn't turn out that way, instead through a combination of planning and luck Hannibal comes through unscathed (like with Miriam Lass) as Will's hidden encephalitis causes him to blink out of retaining any memory of his confrontation with Abigail, and of course she has already told Hannibal about Will's plans to trap the Chesapeake Killer (Will not knowing he is hunting Hannibal) which means he's able to avoid the bait. I like that the episode doesn't (for long) try to pretend that Will murdered Abigail, leaving him to twist in the wind on that lack of knowledge/memory while showing us the audience that she left him unharmed but freaked out and went back to her home. We are of course left with the cliffhanger of what Hannibal plans to do with Abigail once he is alone with her, with every sign pointing to him murdering her. That she has to stand there in terror trying her best to talk with him as he calmly discusses how he destroyed her life out of pure curiosity and now he's (probably) going to have to murder her is pretty harrowing. She's been a victim all her life without really realizing it, first trapped by her father and now by Hannibal, and even nice Will turned out to be batshit insane and far too close to her father (at times) for comfort. She has had an anguished journey through this season, and I'm off two minds as to whether it is an interesting commentary on females being reduced to victims/objects by the killers/television as a whole, or a somewhat exploitative way of sidelining a character who could easily carry a show in her own right but who is here reduced to a doll/idealized daughter for a couple of guys who take prominence over her (to be fair, the show is called Hannibal, not Abigail) to project their own desire for family/belonging onto. Perhaps that is the whole point? In the end none of the men in this show "honor" Abigail in any way: Hannibal uses her as a prop, Will as another stray to distract him/give him purpose, Jack either tries to exploit or to condemn her etc. None of them (until potentially Hannibal at the end) are trying to kill her like Garret Jacob Hobbs did, but they're still doing her a disservice.

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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Season 1 of Hannibal could only ever end in one way: Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter facing off through the bars of a cell at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It is what everything was building to all this time, all of Hannibal's manipulations, as clever and well-constructed as they were, must eventually come to a head with Will's realization of what is happening. Even those who hadn't read the books or seen the films were surely aware of this by cultural osmosis: Will Graham is the guy who captures Hannibal Lecter and puts him away.

The last few episodes have seen Will's subconscious trying its best to map around the void in his mind where the Copycat Killer can be found. Represented by the Feathered Stag, this episode opens with Will's dream/hallucination of hunting it down and wounding it with a rifle. This marks the departure of the feathered stag and the arrival of the utterly chilling Antlered Man, a demonic looking, obsidian-skinned figure in the shape of a man but the size of a giant, with enormous antlers coming from his head. Most tellingly, this figure bears the features of Hannibal Lecter, something that Will doesn't immediately grasp but which indicates that his subconscious at least has figured out that Hannibal is the central, interlocking figure that explains everything/fills the void. Unfortunately for Will, the tricks that he is finally starting to see through (or at least suspect) are also designed to switch suspicion clearly onto himself, and his conscious mind still considers Hannibal a friend. When he vomits up an ear, he immediately calls Hannibal to test if this is real or another hallucination, and accepts Hannibal's judgment that they have no choice but to involve Jack Crawford. That immediately kicks off an unstoppable process, as the FBI becomes involved and Will is hit with more and more distractions, and his determination to believe in his innocence comes across as either typical deception or pitiable dementia. By the time Will is hit with the information that remains of four different victims of the Copycat Killer were found in his home, it is too late for him to convince anybody of what he is now positive is his complete innocence, and his recreation of Gideon Abel's escape only deepens the perception that he is a killer on the run.

Hannibal, of course, is in amazing form here, putting on an incredible performance. I'm not talking about Mikkelsen (though he's great, of course) but Hannibal the character. From the moment he arrives at Will's house he is acting a part, whether Will is watching or not. He plays the same part later for Bedelia. He is the sorrowful, shocked "parent" devastated that his "daughter" has been killed and is disbelief that his close friend Will is the perpetrator. The performance is largely for his own benefit, if he lives it then it becomes true, and then nobody will have any reason to doubt it or to notice that his emotional shock only pops up at specific times. The only slip-up he makes is when he talks about his regret at not being able to "solve" Will Graham, as opposed to "save" him, as Bedelia corrects. That's an important point too, as later we will discover she is far more aware of Hannibal's true nature than she has let on, but that this awareness does not actually concern Hannibal.. for now.

But things are starting to not add up for others too. When Bloom discovers via an offhand comment that Hannibal had Will draw him a clock, she begins to suspect he may have known about Will's encephalitis before she even thought of it as a possibility, and Jack - who knows Will had a brain scan that came up all clear - goes along with her attempt to test this theory, indicating a willingness to believe in Will's innocence too. Hannibal, of course, was prepared for this, having forged a new clock in Will's hand (we actually see him do this in a previous episode) so he can act as shocked as anybody at the sudden onset of the auto-immune disease. They're placated for the time, but it was never going to be Alana or Jack that caught him, it's Will. When he escapes and seeks refuge in Hannibal's office (who wouldn't want to go there, it's awesome!), Hannibal attempts to lay out a perfectly feasible set of scenarios where Will could have murdered each of the four Copycat Killer victims, and perfectly "reasonable" motivations too. But as Hannibal himself told Chilton, psychic driving only works so long as the subject doesn't know they're being driven, and in a beautiful sequence we see each of Hannibal's explanations simply serve to showcase HIS techniques and HIS murders. Even now though, Will still doesn't quite consciously get it, each of the scenarios includes the appearance of the Antlered Man looming out of the shadows of the background, drawing closer with each description, closer to the surface of Will's mind. When Hannibal takes him to Minnesota for what should be his breaking point, the discovery of the giant blood-stain left by the apparent murder of Abigail Hobbs, it simply finally coalesces every stray thought, every piece of evidence and his hosed up empathetic brain to a point where consciously he finally realizes the truth: Hannibal is the Copycat Killer, the intelligent psychopath who has been hiding in plain sight, confusing Will and keeping him from seeing him while taking advantage of the access he has been given to indulge in murder and set up his puzzle-trap-maze and watch Will run around inside it. This should be it, the triumphant moment when Will struggles with Hannibal, overcomes him and puts him away, setting up a status quo for the next season where Hannibal is imprisoned and Will is reluctantly called into action to make use of him as an asset to bring down the likes of the Red Dragon.

Except Jack Crawford shows up and shoots Will in the shoulder. Echoing Garrett Jacob Hobb's final exhortation for him to "see", Will pleads the same to Jack, who is unaware of the smirking monster standing beside him who he has just rescued. Instead, Will Graham goes to the hospital, has his encephalitis treated, and Hannibal Lecter remains free, respected and most importantly trusted and liked by all who know him, including Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom.

In the end it was Hannibal Lecter who "caught" Will Graham and helped to put him away, and this fantastic, stunning, beautiful, well-acted, horrifying season ends on a beautiful subversion of what everybody "knew" while still ending in the only way it ever could: Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter facing off through the bars of a cell at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

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