Hannibal: Dolce
July 9, 2015 8:14 PM - Season 3, Episode 6 - Subscribe

Tonight on Hannibal: Hannibal and Will are like, "hey what up long time no see" and Chiyo's like "WHOA not so fast" and Mason yells at his cook who honestly is trying his BEST but WHATEVER. Meanwhile Bedelia is all WOOOOOOOO
posted by Greg Nog (341 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble

 
HANNIBAL NO HE IS YOUR BOYFRAN

DO NOT EAT HIS HEAD STOP THAT AT ONCE

im having emotions
posted by poffin boffin at 8:14 PM on July 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


greg this post is all i dreamed and more
posted by poffin boffin at 8:15 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Holy fucking motherfucking fuck, that broke my brain.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:15 PM on July 9, 2015


KA-LADY-SCOPE!
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:16 PM on July 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


Holy. Crispy. Crap.

This was the best/craziest episode thus far this season. Jesus.

Bedelia was OFF THE HOOK. Goddamn. High as shit and she's running circles round ya'll.

That sex scene. What in the ever-kaleidoscope-hell.
posted by Windigo at 8:16 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I need a minute
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:17 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


The only thing I am confused about is one second Will's getting his head cut open and Jack's all Nooooooooo and suddenly Will's stoned and happy, danglin' from the inside of a pig-car.

Wha? Did I miss something?
posted by Windigo at 8:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


and a drink, and a cigarette, and a hug

...and a cold shower
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bedelia let Dirty Cop know where to find them, so Mason's goons got hold of Hannibal and Will before Hannibal could eat Will's brain.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:19 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


He's under the table.

This season's He's in the pantry.
posted by Windigo at 8:19 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Shit, can Jack still be alive?
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:19 PM on July 9, 2015


I thought at first that the whole head slicey scene was a hallucination of Will's and that Mason must have had them since Chiyoh shot him but then in the previews which I don't even care if we're allowed to talk about here I DO WHAT I WANT THOR I definitely saw that Will has the head wound so IDK IDK IDK

CURSE YOU FULLER CURSE YOUR TRICKSY WAYS
posted by poffin boffin at 8:19 PM on July 9, 2015


Oh man, the roasting pan / strapped to the chair visual gag got me. I was like, WILL NO! and then JACK NO! and then HOLY SHIT FOR REAL WILL NO! and then Mason showed up and I was like, "eh they're escaping from that schmuck in no time flat." I'm looking forward to the antics.
posted by codacorolla at 8:20 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO KISS
posted by poffin boffin at 8:20 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


FelliniBlank, that makes sense. I was so revved up I wasn't following along. I was to busy going NO STAHP STAHP BRAINS STAY IN THE INSIDE oh wait wut piggies hello will oh hello hannibal did I black out for a scene there?
posted by Windigo at 8:21 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that the way Bedelia's patient ended up swallowing his own tongue is that he watched an early print of this episode.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:21 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


IF I SAW YOU EVERY DAY

FOREVER

I WOULD REMEMBER THIS TIME

[rips off Will's jacket and digitally penetrates him]
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:22 PM on July 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


FelliniBlank, that makes sense. I was so revved up I wasn't following along. I was to busy going NO STAHP STAHP BRAINS STAY IN THE INSIDE oh wait wut piggies hello will oh hello hannibal did I black out for a scene there?


Oh same here that was like an hour-long acid trip and my head is still sort of woozy from it! I'm half-convinced I imagined some of it.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:22 PM on July 9, 2015


she ripped his tongue out though, the swallower was miggs in sotl
posted by poffin boffin at 8:23 PM on July 9, 2015


Shit, can Jack still be alive?

And here I was wondering "hey where did Chiyoh go anyhow?" Bet she saves him.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:23 PM on July 9, 2015


Ugh Hannibal so gently feeding Will his own pre-dinner marinade wtf this is NOT HEALTHY ROMANCE GUYS

How badass was Bedelia's "You're not eating me today" scene, though?
posted by Windigo at 8:23 PM on July 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


even in moments of EXTREME DRAMATIC EMOTION my pedantry is unstoppable
posted by poffin boffin at 8:24 PM on July 9, 2015


she ripped his tongue out though, the swallower was miggs in sotl

Nevermind, I was just making an unfunny joke about the effect this episode would have on its audience.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:26 PM on July 9, 2015


I half-pegged Will for the target of the brain eating scene, except it had to somehow get pulled because Red Dragon.

Whoever pegged Alana as Margot's baby factory nailed it.

I bet Bedelia has not in fact been a junkie all along but did the druggie thing so she can clain "He druggd me!" to the Italian authorities. And yes, "You won't make a meal of me today" is one of the most totally badass lines in the history of motion pictures.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:27 PM on July 9, 2015


Hannibal BLEW on Will's MARINADE soup to cool it down before giving it to him.

I can't even with this show.
posted by Windigo at 8:27 PM on July 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


Well of course -- you wouldn't want the beloved person whose head you are about to saw open so you can eat his brain to burn his tongue!
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:28 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I bet Bedelia has not in fact been a junkie all along but did the druggie thing so she can clain "He druggd me!" to the Italian authorities.

No need to bet, Will said explicitly that to her in their and Jack's scene together
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:29 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Let me just say how much I was digging Chi Yoh's hunter getup this episode. The silenced sniper rifle is a GREAT winter look.
posted by codacorolla at 8:30 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


First, I wrote If Will Graham Were Your Boyfriend today

Second


I AM NOT OKAY

WHAT THE WHAT

I JUST


SEX FARM
posted by The Whelk at 8:32 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ah yes showbiz_liz, so he did. I have gotten out of the habit of taking anything this series shows me at face value though.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:33 PM on July 9, 2015


WAY TO REMIX ELEMENTS INTO SOMETHING NEW BUT

EVERYONE IS CLARICE

AAAAAAAAA
posted by The Whelk at 8:33 PM on July 9, 2015


Poor Whelk, you have my deepest sympathies.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:33 PM on July 9, 2015


Oh god, and Bedelia's whole [batting eyelashes] "I have never thought of myself as needing rescue . . . until now" [simper] Blanche Dubois depending on the kaaaaaahhhhndness of strangers act. Nobody but Gillian Anderson could pull that shit off.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:33 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


"If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time."

*swooning intensifies*


In a way though, NBC was right- there is no way this is sustainable past three seasons.

It is an opera, and the third act is all death arias.


Also, table-side service is so pretentious
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:35 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


today we are all clarice
posted by poffin boffin at 8:36 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I spent the entire episode going BEDELIA WHAT THE HELL that the LESBIAN SEX KALEDESCOPE like barely registers

Oh GOD MASON

They fiGURED out how to do everything in the books in EVEN MORE UPSETTING WAYS
posted by The Whelk at 8:36 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


a madman has thrown jizz on us all
posted by poffin boffin at 8:37 PM on July 9, 2015 [21 favorites]


Actually everyone IS Clarice. At the rate Fuller is going he's not going to have any licensed material left for a fourth season. The series is laying out the events and themes of the novels he does have the rights to at an amazing clip. The Clarice themes are being spread evenly among the main characters. I will bet a ten spot right now that someone jacks open the door of storage unit to find a car with a dead guy in it before the end of the season.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:37 PM on July 9, 2015


I loved the scenes of Mason eating the gourmet delicacies and spitting it all out like a baby. He has such poor taste!
posted by codacorolla at 8:37 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


As Cleolinda says I hope Will never lets this go in future Red Dragon episodes

"you know how you caught me Will? we're alike-" "You CUT INTO MY SKULL" "All cultures have a shared tradition of -" " SKULL CUTTER SAYS WHAT."
posted by The Whelk at 8:38 PM on July 9, 2015 [11 favorites]


I will bet a ten spot right now that someone jacks open the door of storage unit to find a car with a dead guy in it before the end of the season.

Wait didn't that already happen?
posted by poffin boffin at 8:38 PM on July 9, 2015


I hate to throw a relatively serious comment in here, but: I really truly enjoyed the scene where Will first sat down with Hannibal in the museum - not because of the dialogue, but because of the way it was shot. They're sitting there, each with Battle Damage on one side of their face, and they're mirrored with each other. The cuts and lacerations were turned each towards the other, so we're presented with these two men who look whole from one side and look beat to shit from the other, and they're each positioned to show their brokenness towards the other. And then, once the dialogue starts, the director threw the 180 degree rule out the window and cut to whatever side and angle that he (or she) felt appropriate, and that was fantastic. The 180 degree rule exists so that audiences don't get that uneasy feeling of watching a conversation and not knowing which character is where, and so why not get rid of it - let's emphasize in this moment how much they are each the other. I would love to re-watch and see which side of each of their faces (damaged or whole) is turned to the camera during any given moment of dialogue.

Just superb setup on a delicate scene.

aaaaaaaaaand then the show was like, "Oh hi viewers did you like that thing we did with the two-are-one concept? was that interesting to you? well we're going to throw a homosexual love scene and a kaleidoscope into a blender and see what comes out the other end, okay bye."
posted by komara at 8:38 PM on July 9, 2015 [18 favorites]


ALSO CHINYOH WANTS HIM CAGED NOT KILLED LIKE SHE WAS CAAAAGED AHHHHH
posted by The Whelk at 8:38 PM on July 9, 2015


Art history students, take note of the paintings bends Will and Hanmibal in that beautiful meeting scene.

I think they're important.
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 PM on July 9, 2015


I just don't get why mainstream audiences aren't lining up to watch a show in which there are tender family moments like Mason expressing his sadness over not being able to have an incest-baby with Margot after forcibly hysterectomizing her.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:40 PM on July 9, 2015 [29 favorites]


Just superb setup on a delicate scene.

Also, notice the portraits behind them. Single shots of a man looking longingly to his right, and a woman looking longingly to her left.
posted by codacorolla at 8:40 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


and spitting it all out like a baby

...into a singing bowl! No obscenity is too horrific for this series. I love it.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:40 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Also! Mason is buying his taste, he has experts hand holding him through this imitation of Hannibal's Aesthetic, it's another mirror.
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 PM on July 9, 2015


I just don't get why mainstream audiences aren't lining up to watch a show in which there are tender family moments like Mason expressing his sadness over not being able to have an incest-baby with Margot after forcibly hysterectomizing her.

It's about family!
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I really truly enjoyed the scene where Will first sat down with Hannibal in the museum - not because of the dialogue, but because of the way it was shot.

I missed most of that scene because I was screaming KISS KISS KIIIIISSSSS
posted by poffin boffin at 8:42 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Also, Alana tying Margot's dress at the waist was surprisingly hot.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:42 PM on July 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


Mason is buying his taste

Except that because he is a cretin he doesn't actually like any of it.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:42 PM on July 9, 2015


Alana and Margot looking like a cell undergoing mitosis
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Why aren't all TV shows shot with actual craft, instead of laid out in the most boring workman like way possible? WHY!?
posted by codacorolla at 8:44 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


like a cell undergoing mitosis

DING DING DING I THINK YOU JUST WON AN INTERNET
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:44 PM on July 9, 2015


Based on past episodes and the next episode, does everyone just have fancy elegant BDSM gear sitting around just in case?
posted by Windigo at 8:45 PM on July 9, 2015


I missed most of that scene because I was screaming KISS KISS KIIIIISSSSS

They're so beyond mere kissing now that the only way a physical act will match their mutal blurring into each other is if they hug and both take turns ripping out each other's throats.
posted by The Whelk at 8:45 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also: They figured out a way to do a lesbian love scene that doesn't come off as totally hot to het guys in the audience.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:46 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Apparently Standards and Practices sent them a very nice note about it
posted by The Whelk at 8:47 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Imagine Hannibal awkwardly crawling under the table and crouching in wait like some sort of fancy goblin.
posted by Windigo at 8:47 PM on July 9, 2015 [22 favorites]


does everyone just have fancy elegant BDSM gear sitting around

*Frantically orders better BDSM gear from the internet to be in style*
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:48 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Based on past episodes and the next episode, does everyone just have fancy elegant BDSM gear sitting around just in case?


Wait...you don't?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:49 PM on July 9, 2015


Imagine Hannibal awkwardly crawling under the table and crouching in wait like some sort of fancy goblin.


Gee, I wonder what he did down there to keep himself busy while waiting for Jack to come into the room.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:49 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


Hmmm, does this body harness make me look fat?
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:49 PM on July 9, 2015


they hug and both take turns ripping out each other's throats.

that is kissing
posted by poffin boffin at 8:50 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I just ....

Next week on sex farm
posted by The Whelk at 8:50 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Mason showed up and I was like, "eh they're escaping from that schmuck in no time flat."

Yeah, I'll bet he doesn't even have the correct USB drivers for his device.
posted by MrBadExample at 8:50 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Wait...you don't?

I was holding off until we could afford a Murder Farm to stock up.

We're still in the Murder Apartment stage of our lives, and storage space leaves a bit to be desired.
posted by Windigo at 8:53 PM on July 9, 2015




i want a murder farm

actually a murder hacienda
posted by poffin boffin at 8:57 PM on July 9, 2015


I want a murder Tiny House.
posted by Windigo at 9:00 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


One of the portraits behind them was Portrait of a man with a medal of Cosimo the Elder I believe, and the other was a blonde woman's profile, Simonetta Vespucci I think. Am stoned on Ambien now so my memory may be incorrect. Hannibal was drawing Bedelia and Will into his portrait and over his shoulder he has a young dark-haired man and a lovely blonde woman looking at all the proceedings.
posted by PussKillian at 9:01 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


In these days of wars and rumors of wars - haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight? Of course you have. So has every man since time began. Always the same dream. Sometimes he calls it Utopia - Sometimes the Fountain of Youth - Sometimes merely "that little murder farm."
posted by MrBadExample at 9:09 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


All this season Hannibal has identified with the Medicis , all murders and poisonings and crazy sex and wealth and power and patronizing great art and culture, so much that that Pazzi spills out against the Mecici family crest found all over Florence -- so, of course someone holding their emblem is on his side (and is an unknown young man, just like when Hannibal visited the primavera and became a man ....
posted by The Whelk at 9:11 PM on July 9, 2015


is it ezio auditore

is that what you are telling me whelk

IS IT
posted by poffin boffin at 9:12 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]




Is the entire cast going to have mobility issues at some point? So far we have Mason's..........masonry, Alana's post-defenstration, Hannibal's hook-in-the-leg, Will's I-was-thrown-off-a-train-I'm-really-goddamn-sore groaning, and Jack's Achilles tendon.
posted by detachd at 9:58 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Late to the party again this week with little say beyond: ASSFJIELEKEMENTKSK HOLY SHIT.
posted by sparkletone at 10:06 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


fuller saying Cordell is presenting Mason with courses like a bride taste testing a bridal feast IM DYING
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wake up and there are memails like agdkdgkdjhsg and I come to the thread and it's like ajshshhhdkfkdkhagg

is nobody's brain working properly
posted by tel3path at 10:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


We're all freebasing our alibis.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:19 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


We're all Lydia fell
posted by The Whelk at 10:31 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Our beautiful show is doing horrible things to us just like we want it to
posted by The Whelk at 10:37 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I just want to tell you all that I normally read the Fanfare thread on Thursday then watch the episode in Friday because I love all ya'lls comments so much that it makes watching the episode even more fun for me.

Tonight, however, I broke that rule because, well, your comments were all so wonderful and terrifying and evocative.

But nobody mentioned the Peking Hannibal. Peking Hannibal looked so much like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover which my now exhusband rented for our 3rd date because I told him I like "movies about cooking." Now I'm chugging white wine in the kitchen and THANKS FANFARE!
posted by blessedlyndie at 10:39 PM on July 9, 2015 [11 favorites]


In the general flailing let's not overlook the fact that Mason's new plan is not to feed Hannibal to pigs, but to EAT HIM HIMSELF
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:39 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


i WON'T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO SEE THIS FOR 2 DAYS
posted by tel3path at 10:41 PM on July 9, 2015


Cause he's the pig!

Also Fuller saying Margolana are going to get into 'Bound' territory so I guess instead of stealing money they're going to STEAL SPERM and I just

All of the there they are going. I honestly thought the bone saw was going to be a hallucination until the wound popped up in the next promo


Asdfghjkl
posted by The Whelk at 10:47 PM on July 9, 2015


Jesus Flippity Dippity Christ. What the fuck was that.
posted by figurant at 10:48 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I thought that sex scene was masterfully Lynchian, for the dissolves, but evolved to a higher level.

I think this is one of those shows that say, ten years from now you'll rewatch with someone who hasn't seen it and when you get to season 3, at the end of every episode you'll retort their excitement with, "I know, right?"

And the music this season is just the best!
posted by Catblack at 10:52 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I now really want to hear Greg Nog's Wilgrim say " he's under the table"
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


I mean, yeah, everything else about the ep which I'm sure tel3path will answer for me as they always do but...

The Peking Hannibal. Why is no one talking about the Peking Hannibal?!?!
posted by blessedlyndie at 10:57 PM on July 9, 2015


I bet the Peking Hannibal had excellent craquelure.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:58 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, it's a reference, but I also think it's Mason's typical go big, blunt vulgar tastes. Hannibal eats people, so he'll eat Hannibal, but not in a carefully prepared single organ way, he wants to a huge ostentatious snout to tail dining that he won't even really be able to experience or appreciate.

Mason Verger is totally Flavortown.
posted by The Whelk at 11:00 PM on July 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Cordell suggest something like Hammibal's meals with Gideon but Mason seems more into a big splashy buffet, not a slow boil over multiple courses.

cause he's Mason Verger and his default setting into to smash a car into his problems.
posted by The Whelk at 11:03 PM on July 9, 2015


So wait, if Mason is the Thief and Hannibal is the roasted Lover, then is Will or Bedelia Helen Mirren?
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:03 PM on July 9, 2015


Whywhywhy can't tel3path see this episode for 2 days?!!?? I'm losing my mind here!!
posted by blessedlyndie at 11:06 PM on July 9, 2015


TRANSSHUBSTANSHIASHUN

Alana has like the worst taste in lovers.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:17 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Eh, margot's fine, all things considered, plus she'll probably tip Mason into that eel tank and they'll ride off into the sunset,, on horseback, all rich and stuff
posted by The Whelk at 11:20 PM on July 9, 2015


I also really liked the scene in front of the Botticelli.

Beyond that this was a mess. I barely cared about anything else.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:23 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Whywhywhy can't tel3path see this episode for 2 days

THE WAGES OF SIN
posted by poffin boffin at 11:38 PM on July 9, 2015


I thought the elevator scene was wonderful in how it built tension, and the covert way Jack and Chiyo were checking each other out. Nice bit of elevator tension there.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:39 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mason's masseuse / cook / servant is going to get it, isn't he? He's being built up as real smug.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:41 PM on July 9, 2015


Also everything with Bedelia was just wtf master class, how deep is her game indeed -- she had a crazy drug mind-bending alibi ready and waiting , also like literally the only time we've seen her unguarded. also just "I'm going to pretend I'm on needle drugs to deal with my murderous captive lot in life but really it's so when they catch him I can claim I was too strung out on psychedelics he gave me to really be at fault!"

I mean I love that cause it's SO THOMAS HARRIS-Y while also using and fixing all the crazy drugging Clarice stuff.

Plus asking Chinyoh 'who the hell are you' was pretty damn funny.
posted by The Whelk at 11:43 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


For a moment there, it looked like the two might become allies - as they both suffered through Hannibal. But, no - that was not to be. Would've been interesting had the story taken that turn, though.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:45 PM on July 9, 2015


Mason's guy is cosplaying as Hannibal.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:45 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Can we keep Chiyoh through the Red Dragon stuff? Like, once an episode she could pop into frame and commit a quick bit of violence and then back to the shadows with her.
posted by rewil at 11:49 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Which is interesting since how much this show is about copies and mirrors and knock off versions of Hannibal out there while he's the only Genuine Article who has all the magical vampire powers and all the seductive skill and money and etc.
posted by The Whelk at 11:49 PM on July 9, 2015


I'm hoping that moray eel comes into play - somehow. Put frickin laser beams on its frickin head.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:58 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


They do keep cutting to it and reminding us it exists and is in the floor and someone could roll or fall into it
posted by The Whelk at 12:00 AM on July 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mason can barely even bring himself to eat pretend people and yet he somehow thinks he will be able to out-gross/out-evil Hannibal.

Kinda conflicted about the Margot/Alana scene. I like that it wasn't male-gazey, and I love that the writers have managed to retcon some of book-Margot's story into the show via Alana. But as a lesbian who was very excited to see a lesbian sex scene on my favorite show, I felt a little let down. On a "complex eroticism" scale of 1-10, it was like a 2, whereas every interaction that Hannibal and Will have ever had has been an 8+.

...although I do understand that we're talking about a completely different pairing of characters, and that Margot and Alana each have other motivations at play, whereas Hannibal and Will are motivated only by the purity and wholesomeness of their desire to murder and eat each other
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 12:33 AM on July 10, 2015 [11 favorites]


Everybody must get stoned! Like seriously, everyone was kinda stoned here. If you take it in pieces it's ridiculous, sure, but put altogether it's another world, man, and it all makes so much sense because I'm currently channeling Thomas Harris and I'm sure he's in paroxysms of delight right now.

I'm going to have to watch this dead straight tomorrow, I swear. I laughed, I squealed, I made my son come in from another room to see if I was okay.
posted by h00py at 4:25 AM on July 10, 2015


The scene where Jack and Will are interrogating Bedelia about whether or not she's Lydia Fell vaguely reminded me of something.
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 4:58 AM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]




I wasn't able to watch last night so I watched first thing this morning and now I don't understand how I'm supposed to make breakfast or go to work or do any sort of grownup thing except screech incoherently at my cats.
posted by Stacey at 5:28 AM on July 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


I still feel like that. I have put my children to bed and I have washed the dishes and still I'm kind of screeching incoherently inside. I'm glad to have an excuse for once.
posted by h00py at 5:41 AM on July 10, 2015


I see a lot of people online complaining about the abrupt transition between the last two scenes as if it's not going to be explained via flashback immediately in the next episode, which I'd bet good money on.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:17 AM on July 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Man though, the events of this ep make me wish they'd taken a different path with Pazzi. Say - he proves to Mason who Dr. Fell is, but gets cold feet; Mason buys the rest of the cops; Pazzi races to apprehend Hannibal before that can happen; window scene.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:21 AM on July 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


So not canon though. Pazzi was always going to sell him, as soon as he knew.
posted by h00py at 6:27 AM on July 10, 2015


Yeah, but canon also says a lot of things that don't happen on the show or happen in twisty ways.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:29 AM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


I WANT A DRINK. I regret eating anything during Hannibal. All you can do is drink red wine and then taste copper when you bite through your tongue.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:31 AM on July 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


I see a lot of people online complaining about the abrupt transition between the last two scenes as if it's not going to be explained via flashback immediately in the next episode, which I'd bet good money on.

Very probably, and even if it's not, I get weary of this whole "I must have everything explained to me rather than being left oblique or implicit" perspective like "how DARE they not definitively show what happened to Tony Soprano!!!???1!!" because even a little mystery in life is intolerable. The abruptness was part of the whole trippy freaky blurry disorienting vibe of the episode, like how Bedelia couldn't see Jack and Will clearly. Whereas Will's experience is, "Dude, one second my special pal is sawing my skull, and the next I'm hanging in a meatlocker truck like a blood-soaked bat."
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:33 AM on July 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


You go whoa at this episode and then it gets explained (to some degree) in the episodes following. Surely people are aware of this by now.
posted by h00py at 7:46 AM on July 10, 2015


In the same way it took me ages to realise Jack Sparrow was drunk, so I find myself absolutely realising that Bedelia has been stoned off her tree for her entire time with Hannibal. I don't think she's just starting it now. I think she's been doing this since her experience, you know the one.
posted by h00py at 7:51 AM on July 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone in this series if whacked off their mind on some form of drug or another. Just the characters, mind you. I'm sure everyone behind the camera is completely sober and loving every minute of it.
posted by h00py at 8:13 AM on July 10, 2015


Everyone is drunk on art!

And human blood.

But mostly art
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 AM on July 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Look, this show is very relatable , who among us hasn't been stoned off their nut in a 15th century Florentine palace?
posted by The Whelk at 9:04 AM on July 10, 2015 [8 favorites]


If only in their dreams? I know I have. I've been having dreams, Hannibal. Do you know what this means? Of course, dear Linda. You are becoming worthy of a luau.
posted by h00py at 9:17 AM on July 10, 2015


I spent my week in Florence drunk on gelato, but frankly, some of the Florentine gelato IS art.

Also maybe there was human blood in it, I don't remember. It was the little gelato place in the Piazza del Pesce, right by the Hotel Hermitage. If anyone is the area and wants to stop in and check the gelato for human blood, please do and report back. I promise it's really good.
posted by Stacey at 9:20 AM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Loved Will trying to out-breathy Bedelia with his "I don't believe you" line. To her credit she kept up the charade but I'm sure internally she was rolling her eyes so. hard.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:21 AM on July 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


In the same way it took me ages to realise Jack Sparrow was drunk, so I find myself absolutely realising that Bedelia has been stoned off her tree for her entire time with Hannibal. I don't think she's just starting it now. I think she's been doing this since her experience, you know the one.

H00py, yes!, we discussed that possibility last year, remember? She always had that preternaturally calm subdued thing that seemed on the brink of slurring -- if it wasn't self-meds, it was trauma. I still hope when we "learn more about her patient" in Episode 10, we get to see what her demeanor was like before The Incident.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:33 AM on July 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


That was simply not acceptable behavior on Hannibal's part. Bad Hannibal, no brains for you.

I finally figured out where I recognized Cordell from: True Detective Season One. It must be a hoot for the actor to go from TD to Hannibal.
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on July 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I WANT A DRINK. I regret eating anything during Hannibal. All you can do is drink red wine and then taste copper when you bite through your tongue.

Right in the middle of the peking hannibal scene I was eating incredibly juicy grilled chicken with crispy bits all around the edges where it seared really gorgeously and I just threw back my head and cackled madly
posted by poffin boffin at 10:45 AM on July 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Me during the entire dinner table scene with Hannibal and Will:

Please don't eat Will's brains.
Please don't eat Will's brains.
Please don't eat Will's brains.

[Jack Enters]

Please don't eat Jack's brains.
Please don't eat Jack's brains.
Please don't eat Jack's...
Please don't eat Will's...
PLEASE DON'T EAT WILL'S BRAINS OMG HE IS GOING TO EAT WILL'S BRAINS.

[Sigh of Relief]
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:45 AM on July 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


still haven't seen it...

I do hope they won't break up over this.

Where else is Hannibal going to find someone who likes having their brains et.
posted by tel3path at 10:50 AM on July 10, 2015


i mean anything goes as long as everyone's consenting, innit
posted by tel3path at 10:52 AM on July 10, 2015


In between TD and Hannibal he also played a crazy murderer* on that horrible Kevin Bacon show "The Following" (which I could not stop watching because it was so crazy bad).

Glenn Fleshler also played Remus on Boardwalk Empire, so it's sad that Cordell appeared after Michael Pitt exited. Quite a credits list this guy's got.

I watched The Following for like 10 or 12 episodes, at which point I became so cumulatively disgusted with myself that I couldn't continue. I love crazy-bad shows, but that one was beyond even Criminal Minds in terms of gratuitously glamorizing and trivializing gross violence.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:19 PM on July 10, 2015


I just read some meta (of course, from the kind of fans who ragequit the show at least 20 times per season) about how the show is, like, just all Hannigram now, and not everybody ships Hannigram.

Gawd I picked up a Vogue just now and it was, like, wall to wall skinny models in makeup with way expensive and silly looking clothes. Not everybody has money for that stuff you know.

Then I turned on the tv and I channel flicked to the Food network and it was, like, nothing but food shows one after the other. Not everybody eats food you know. What about all us breatharians out here.
posted by tel3path at 2:34 PM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Co-written by Don 'Chucky' Mancini, no less
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:48 PM on July 10, 2015


Well i guess Hannibal is quite like an obnoxious murderous doll, with a corresponding level of personality development
posted by tel3path at 3:30 PM on July 10, 2015


and not everybody ships Hannigram.

Blasphemy !! All hail Hannigram !!!
posted by Pendragon at 3:49 PM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Considering the entire thrust of the story and characters from ...season one onward is propelled by a one sided then mutual circling obsession between two guys who can't decide if they want to kill each other or like crawl into each other's skin and that may be the same thing-- like if you don't like that your urge not gonna have a good time cause ...that's the show.
posted by The Whelk at 4:38 PM on July 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


Co-written by Don 'Chucky' Mancini, no less

I'm 1000% certain he is why Hannibal was hiding under the damn table.
posted by sparkletone at 4:56 PM on July 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


It is true that Will is the character I have the least interest in at the moment. He and Chiyo are both more interesting now that they've split up.
posted by PussKillian at 5:04 PM on July 10, 2015


Holy shit, what did I just watch? That was amazing.

The cuts and lacerations were turned each towards the other, so we're presented with these two men who look whole from one side and look beat to shit from the other, and they're each positioned to show their brokenness towards the other. And then, once the dialogue starts, the director threw the 180 degree rule out the window and cut to whatever side and angle that he (or she) felt appropriate, and that was fantastic.

YES! I loved how that scene was handled. In fact, I was a bit annoyed when the mirroring/doubling motif was returned to in a much more blatant way later. That one scene got the job done. Anything else was just slathering it on.

Also: They figured out a way to do a lesbian love scene that doesn't come off as totally hot to het guys in the audience.

Uh... yeah! Absolutely right. Totally not hot at all. Not hot. No sireee...

Speaking of which, Gillian Anderson can give a breathy whisper like nobody's business.
posted by brundlefly at 12:35 AM on July 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


If you love someone, gut them and walk free. If they come back to you, they get soup and a brain-eating. If they don't come back, wait till later on in season three...
posted by sparkletone at 9:38 AM on July 11, 2015


Speaking of which, Gillian Anderson can give a breathy whisper like nobody's business.

Gillian Anderson once bumped into me at a crowded event and said "Oh, excuse me" in pretty much that voice. The single most erotic moment of my life.
posted by sobarel at 9:46 AM on July 11, 2015 [18 favorites]


Normally I watch straight through and wait to post in the thread. But Hannibal being under the table pushed pretty much all my horror buttons at once, so I had to take a break from watching.

That's good horror.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:11 AM on July 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Keeping me watching through the cutting, simultaneously not wanting to see what comes next and needing to see what comes next?

And it being worse than what I could have expected?

That's great horror.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:18 AM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah if you know the books/movies the horror gets doubled the instant you see Will tied to that chair -- I basically screamed NO! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM at that
posted by The Whelk at 10:29 AM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hannibal under the table didn't quite get me. I wasn't taken out of the moment like I was with my brain going straight to Michigan J Frog when the heart tableaux unfolded and took a stroll. But jump scare aside, there was something too comedic about the idea of Hannibal waiting there like that to avoid a repeat of his previous confrontation with Jack. No being a flashy cannibal this time!

But oh god, yeah. The actual scene after that was just this mounting pile of horrified, "THEY CAN'T ACTUALLY GO THERE RIGHT? SOMETHING'S GONNA INTERRUPT RIGHT? COME ON SHOW, YOU CAN'T GO FULL KRENDLER, ESPECIALLY NOT ON HIM," until I was hands over the mouth in shock as the blood started to artfully fly. Good times!

I'm sure Mason's doctors will patch Will right up just fine.
posted by sparkletone at 12:03 PM on July 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


Will really needs another brain infection because that would just be, IDK, a great idea in general.
posted by tel3path at 1:34 PM on July 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


This is so beautiful, Greg. I have no words.
posted by sparkletone at 6:22 PM on July 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Looks like Amazon wanted the show but wouldn't wait for it, which annoys me even more than NBC cancelling it in the first place. I'm okay if it continues as a feature or, preferably, as a series of TV movies. Or even Amazon exclusives.
posted by crossoverman at 7:06 PM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't know if Will Graham was always such a goober or if Wilgram has seriously warped my perspective on him.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:07 PM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just read some meta (of course, from the kind of fans who ragequit the show at least 20 times per season) about how the show is, like, just all Hannigram now, and not everybody ships Hannigram.

I dunno, I think there's a argument -- a less rage-y, spittle-flecked argument -- that the show changed in a whole bunch of ways in Season 2. The dream-logic took over almost completely, for one thing. And it's worth recalling that Will wasn't really obsessed with the idea of being with/being like Hannibal until a little ways into Season 2, really not until the halfway point where Fuller (by his own admission) retooled the whole season. (And a good thing, too; the trial plot, despite a few fantastic dialogue exchanges, was probably the show's weakest moment.)

The show switched gears into a kind of surrealism at that point, giving us stuff like people crawling out of horses and an increasingly elliptical sense of narrative. Mason Verger just isn't something the show could have gotten away with in its first season, nor could it have done anything like the first three episodes of the current season. But this has been a trade: the sense of narrative has gotten a lot fuzzier, the dialogue really doesn't work if you're not immersed in the moment, and the characters' emotional arcs are more driven by than driving the show's mood. I can see coming in with Season 1 and feeling like you don't have the show you thought you were watching, maybe even the show you liked.

Season 1.5 was the sort of show Will Graham might have made, where Lecter creeps in at the edges and then causes everything to go wrong, one where death has consequences and even the sanity and sense of self of a creep like Abel Gideon is worth something, Everything afterwards is the sort of show Hannibal Lecter might make, where monstrosity is beauty and characters who aren't tempted by the aesthetic freedom of grotesque violence are quickly dispensed with or reduced to ineffectual, often comic foils.

tl; dr: The show's center of gravity has shifted noticeably in the last season and a half, and it should be no surprise that this has pushed away some of the initial audience.
posted by kewb at 3:47 AM on July 12, 2015 [12 favorites]


Okay, there's a trailer for the back half of the season. It's spoilery, if you have never read Red Dragon or seen either film version.
posted by crossoverman at 3:56 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, before Red Dragon, Will's mental problem - the one that caused him to check into a mental hospital for eight months - was that he still had Lecter's thoughts going around in his head. I think the show is giving us that experience, for better or for worse - even the firefly episode, which featured mostly Will, took place literally in Hannibal's headspace. Which is where Will is right now. Correspondingly, Bedelia is stoned and arguably has been all along and we are shown that too.

it's making an excellent case for Hannibal's actually being insane, maybe not enough that his criminal defense isn't bullshit, but clearly enough that the old-fashioned nomenclature "moral insanity" seems to fit. Lecter is truly a mess of a human being and we are now seeing that.

I remember being annoyed with the Dexter book because it was too much like the actual interior monologue of an actual psychopath - a babbling fool with an unmerited sense of contemptuous superiority over everyone else, disconnectedness with everything that reasonable humanity believes in, and no sense of narrative logic or linearity. I liked early show!Dexter precisely because he was above the realistic, frankly repellent and unsympathetic book character. The show Hannibal hasn't descended to the same level of gibbering as book!Dexter - the other characters still have enough influence to stop it caving in completely.

But then the book!Hannibal was fatuous and obnoxious and this show has kind of fixed that while bit by bit putting show!Hannibal in his place. like, even his suits are dumb and all he eats is snails.
posted by tel3path at 4:40 AM on July 12, 2015


i mean our biggest clue that this is a fix fic for book!Hannibal getting too big for his boots is Jack - a character who was dead by then in the book - sneaking up on him and unleashing several minutes of cartoon violence. It's wiping the smirk off his face, much more surely than putting him in jail will do.
posted by tel3path at 4:42 AM on July 12, 2015


Though I wonder what kind of persuasive argument could ever be spectacular enough to get Will to check himself into a mental hospital, or ever go near any mental health professional of any kind ever again, ever, like ever.
posted by tel3path at 4:43 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Though I wonder what kind of persuasive argument could ever be spectacular enough to get Will to check himself into a mental hospital, or ever go near any mental health professional of any kind ever again, ever, like ever.

Maybe something like an encounter group; after all, a lot what Hannibal did to Will was possible because the sessions were private and because all the other people around Will were mental health professionals. An environment where the patients create the dynamic more than the therapist or just a plain old support group would be quite different. Will even has a model for that in his interactions with Peter from last season.
posted by kewb at 6:41 AM on July 12, 2015


I'm picturing how Will's stories would go down in a support group setting. Unless there's something out there called My Psychopathic Ex Tried To Eat My Brain, Literally.
posted by tel3path at 7:01 AM on July 12, 2015


No But You Don't Understand, He Literally Tried To Do This, A Bone Saw Was Involved, I Still Have The Scar, See?
posted by tel3path at 7:02 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Unless there's something out there called My Psychopathic Ex Tried To Eat My Brain, Literally.

In this show's universe? Yes, of course there is.
posted by kewb at 7:03 AM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


And The Support Group For Pseudologia Fantastica Does Not Meet Here
posted by tel3path at 7:03 AM on July 12, 2015


For me part of Book!Will's conflict was that Hannibal was absolutely confident of his superiority over other people, and when Will entered Hannibal's headspace he became absolutely confident of his superiority over other people. But Will was also aware that this was a mistaken illusion which should be resisted. But Will also knew that his resistance was an intellectual thing while his capacity to become Hannibal was emotional and instinctive, and that if he gave into those sensations too much his resistance would become ineffective.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:23 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


FINALLY WATCHING

Will is being wrong about Hannibal again. Hannibal is actually quite rattled. He's not agitated, but he is rattled. Bothered.

How attractive it must be to be around someone who (you think) has no capacity to feel anxiety. How desirable to inhabit that person's mind and be free of all your fear. If you could be more like him, you could have that (so you think).
posted by tel3path at 7:37 AM on July 12, 2015


So Cordell is a pseudo-Hanni? These guys get everywhere
posted by tel3path at 7:39 AM on July 12, 2015


Also the whole thing about Jack going "we should work within the law" [beat] "but of course they're all completely untrustworthy because of the bounty"

Also, this stuff about marrow in beet sauce? and "I prefer the ginger" oh, puns
posted by tel3path at 7:41 AM on July 12, 2015


Ah! We now know what Will's plan was.

The POIGNANT HANNIGRAM LOVE THEME. Like it seriously brought tears to my eyes.

Urgent question: Is Bedelia's wrap dress black? Or dark green?
posted by tel3path at 8:01 AM on July 12, 2015


...much as I have nothing against Katharine Isabelle, Caroline Dhavernas is the better actress by quite a lot.
posted by tel3path at 8:06 AM on July 12, 2015


Chiyoh, honestly. There you go again, shooting Will because you're opposed to violence. What are we going to do with you.
posted by tel3path at 8:12 AM on July 12, 2015


Wow, the fiendish simplicity of hiding under the table.

I'd like to be a criminal mastermind like that.
posted by tel3path at 8:20 AM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bedelia would be funnier if she'd say "I admit I'm not a natural blonde" when the police shows her a picture of Lydia Fell
posted by tel3path at 8:24 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay, as for the transition between Sogliato's apartment and Mason's place - I think it needs no explanation. We know the police had all already been bought by Mason, that Bedelia told them where to find Hannibal and Will, and then we saw blood falling up, clouds (air travel) and frozen trees (on the way to Mason's). I think that's all perfectly clear.

Why people are unable to connect these dots, I can't imagine. It is all there.
posted by tel3path at 8:31 AM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Fortunately Hanni seemed to really want to take his time terrorizing Jack, so it looks like he only got partway through the skin and didn't hit bone.

Clearly nobody has bothered to dress that big wound on Will's forehead, so his biggest risk right now would appear to be skin infection.
posted by tel3path at 8:33 AM on July 12, 2015


Well, that and getting et, but there's essentially no change there.
posted by tel3path at 8:34 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also they address the fact that it would (and does) take about 30 minutes to catch Hannibal once people are incentivized.
posted by tel3path at 8:35 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's not a lack of dot connecting, it's that it feels abrupt. I don't mind that but it does. The scene before the transition is so goddam effective and engrossing that suddenly being yanked out of it and coming to at the sex farm is ... Quite a lot to have thrown at you. The sword of damocles fell off screen and it takes a second to catch up (and some people just love them some shoe leather I guess).
posted by sparkletone at 8:35 AM on July 12, 2015


I JUST don't know why Hannibal's affections are so sought after. He really isn't a very good boyfriend at all.

"Boyfriend tried to remove the top of my head and feed me my own brain. Can we move past this? I've always been resistant to therapy before, but does anyone know a good couples counselor? Special snowflake complication: US citizen in Florence, insurance status uncertain." What would people be saying about this on the green?
posted by tel3path at 8:42 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


OH GOOD GOD THE NATURE MADE COMMERCIAL

BROCCOLISCOPE
posted by tel3path at 8:49 AM on July 12, 2015


Man if people where only attracted to people who where good for them AskMe would cease to exist. As for

ecting, it's that it feels abrupt. I don't mind that but it does. The scene before the transition is so goddam effective and engrossing that suddenly being yanked out of it and coming to at the sex farm is ... Quite a lot to have thrown at you. The sword of damocles fell off screen and it takes a second to catch up (and some people just love them some shoe leather I guess).

It is abrupt, I think with good reason cause we're so inside this drugged/panic/dream state that time does t flow as it should, really the ultimate Hannibal headspace (I love that little sneer he pulls when making his brains pun, he's so ANGRY and so ANGRY AT WILL FOR MAKING HIM ANGRY. He all but grumbles "you made me do this!" such a bad boyfriend, sigh.)

But that butter melting transition into the floating smoke dinner dream realm, aaaaah so great.

And yeah I got what Chinyoh was going to do but I missed her motivation, thus the caged man she has when she's introduced -- death to too good for him, etc, etc.

And just, I love how Will is projecting himself on Bedelia in that scene "How could you go with him! How could you even think that! " and she's just not having any of it -- I knew Bedelia was the smartest person on the show but I never thought "dose yourself on the regular so when he gets caught you can claim you where in a drug trance the whole time" that's just such a good twist in the Clarice plot.
posted by The Whelk at 9:15 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


So far Will has been gutted, thrown from a train, shot in the shoulder AGAIN and been subjected to an attempted brain-eating.

Seriously, IS Will the Wound Man?
posted by tel3path at 9:29 AM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


I like Will's "you RAN OFF WITH MY HUSBAND you WANTON HUSSY now don't PRETEND you DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS MARRIED"
posted by tel3path at 9:30 AM on July 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


Speaking of Will having Gone To The Dark Side and become Dark Will, I hope we're all clear on that now that we've seen the knife.
posted by tel3path at 9:32 AM on July 12, 2015


But that butter melting transition into the floating smoke dinner dream realm, aaaaah so great.

I loved that -- doesn't the smoke their heads are made of look a little like flower crowns at times?
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:36 AM on July 12, 2015


Anybody notice that Mason's a spitter?
posted by tel3path at 9:53 AM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


In the saliva sense or the long-stakes-of-wood sense? I suspect he's both, but which is more relevant?
posted by Grangousier at 10:40 AM on July 12, 2015


As for Jack saying "I'm not even mad at you"... well, it is kind of hard to fault Bedelia, given that the only person able and willing to protect her from Hannibal at the end of S2 was Hannibal.

Admittedly, she assumed the identity of a woman he killed, tolerated his killing those "hardly any" people he mentioned, and watched him off Dimmond and Sogliato with nothing more than an eyeroll.

But if you're going to go with Hannibal, what else is there to do. How is watching it happen up close all that different from watching it happen from a distance? Would reporting it to the cops have helped? No, because Pazzi was the cops and he wouldn't have been up to the job even without the bounty. She helped to make Hannibal traceable if anyone was interested in bothering, which they were. She kept him marking time until it was over. She encouraged his obsession with Will to hasten the process of it being over.

I can't regard her as noble, but I also can't particularly fault her for doing what she could to protect herself.

If you want to play Which Character Is Most Worst - Will WAS about to stab Hannibal, which is technically GBH and/or murder depending on how it turned out. Yet most people would probably regard that as morally better than what Bedelia's doing. And they explained why going to the cops was a non-starter.

So, whatta ya gonna do.

I can't regard her as nob
posted by tel3path at 10:52 AM on July 12, 2015


Can't regard her as nob? I meant noble. Where did the rest of my comment go.
posted by tel3path at 10:58 AM on July 12, 2015


Anyway.

More whining from that particular faction of the fandom about the kaladyscope scene happening right after the line "we're beginning to blur" which, of course, MUST mean that the Marlana scene had to have been a standin for the Hannigram scene we're REALLY meant to picture (because that makes sense) and the whole WHY MUST EVERYTHING BE ABOUT HANNIGRAM.

1. The show is called Hannibal
2. That's not what it was about anyway

Alana is beginning to blur with Margot as she finds more common ground with her. All we know about Alana's family life is that she had brothers, but we can make inferences from the way she related to Hannibal and from how Margot and the rest of the family relates to Mason.

For one thing, way back in Oeuf, it's observed that the reason CJ has so much sway over the Lost Boys is because at least one of these boys had a brother who was separated from him by age or interests. We also know that Mason is the family's Golden Child, one who can do no wrong no matter what; and that Margot is the Scapegoat that Mason is free to torment with absolute impunity. If Margot complains, she'll only get more punishment - not only from Mason, but from everyone.

I've come around to actually believing what CD said about Alana wanting to look out for Will this season. And I think the reason she is drawn to Margot isn't simply because Margot is there. I think Alana probably had an older brother - separated from her by age - whom she idealized but who in reality was like Mason, or more pointedly, like Hannibal. I think she had another brother who was the family's Problem Child or Scapegoat. I also believe Alana was the youngest and, specifically, was Too Young To Understand(TM).
posted by tel3path at 11:05 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


So yeah, aside from the faction of the fandom complaining that the Marlana sex scene was REALLY about the MALE characters and why can't the women get their own storyline;

we have another faction bitching BF off for taking the show away from us because he didn't want to do S4 on Amazon's timeline.

IT'S HIS SHOW, FFS
posted by tel3path at 11:41 AM on July 12, 2015


i just want to say, in conclusion

I'M SO HAPPY WITH THIS FIX FIC OF THOMAS HARRIS' NOVEL HANNIBAL

thank you mr fuller i needed that

==========

And here's what I can recite off book:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita.
Ah, quanto a dir qual era e cosa dura
...
um
I can't remember the 5th line. Oh well, it usually takes me two days to properly remember a line anyway.

God that's so eerie and hypnotic all by itself. Such an entrancing quality it has.

It's in such contrast to the late 20th century Russian poetry I've been reading lately, which I must frankly say I find twee, no matter its other qualities.
posted by tel3path at 12:48 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's impressive memorising, anyway. It has the added advantage that if you're ever set upon by youths who've grown up with Harry Potter you can possibly use it to dissuade them, as it will probably sound like a very complicated spell. The way George Melly did with Schwitters' Ur Poem.
posted by Grangousier at 1:04 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just found out my husband, who has been watching Hannibal with me, has only experienced the Hannibal universe through the movie Silence of the Lambs. Now I'm torn between making him read Red Dragon or watching him view the last half of the season cold.
posted by MaritaCov at 1:04 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't really buy WIll Is Daaaark Now stuff cause I believe that he has every possible reason to gut the guy. I find him totally and utterly in the right, even if it means breaking the law because clearly the law is broken. In Will's very personal, very specific case.

A really Dark!Will would be something like the end result of Hannibal's little vampirism - the guy who runs away with him and thinks he can change him or control him, maybe they only kill people who really, really deserve ...aren't they making the world a better place? A Will who gets self-righteous and starts to see it not as a necessity to prevent innocents but as a moral duty, a right. Reveling in their mutual power over life and death as Will's superpower gets absorbed into the greater Hannibal gestalt.

A really Dark!Will is what Hannibal was gunning for all along. It's just something slightly different came out of the cocoon.
posted by The Whelk at 1:46 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, the tone of the scene when Hannibal comes home to Bedelia all bloody is exactly like he just got caught cheating one too many times and she's handing him a suitcase and telling him to book a hotel for a few days.
posted by The Whelk at 1:52 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Oh no, I'm not saying Will IS dark. I'm saying people were going "ooh Will is dark" because he wasn't on a self-confessed mission to take Hannibal down (which might have meant killing him but not, like intentionally).

And now they can say "ooh Will is dark" because he agreed not to call the cops (for reasons which turned out to be 100% justified) and he instead set out to knife Hannibal.

Basically, if Will ever does anything at all, it can be complained that he's dark. Daaaaaaarrrkkk
posted by tel3path at 2:20 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well going back to canon I'd say Will can never go totally daaaark, or his inner conflict in Red Dragon wouldn't have been a conflict. Rather, this is the closest he's let Daaark!Will to the surface, and he's done a few things that are over the line but is still maintaining that separation. The problem is, as with two magnets that get too close to one another, he knows that he is dangerously close to just falling over the edge and losing the ability to maintain that separation.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:21 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


And as for a really dark!Will... there's still time.

Looking forward to Will coming over to the BSHCI and saying "Hi Alana, can Hannibal come out to play, all right then, stay in to play" and Alana will be like "Will, do you remember that the last time you played with Hannibal he tried to take off the top of your skull and eat your brain" and Will will be like "That is like saying Taco Bell is not real Mexican food DO YOU NOT THINK THAT I KNOW THAT"
posted by tel3path at 2:25 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Oh, I think the world famous Hannibal the Cannibal might once have tried to remove the top of my skull and eat my brains but I can't quite remember, I might have picked up my dry cleaning that day instead because IIRC it was a Thursday"
posted by tel3path at 2:28 PM on July 12, 2015


"I wanted to run away with him and YOU ran away with him how COULD YOU"

Must really bother Will, watching Bedelia having enjoyed the lifestyle he denied himself
posted by tel3path at 2:38 PM on July 12, 2015


'THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME IN THAT MARCHESA DRESS AND 4-INCH GINA HEELS"
posted by tel3path at 2:39 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


"HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME DANCE THE WALTZ? I'M STUNNING!"
posted by The Whelk at 2:41 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Aaaand just read a bunch of complaints that this episode was anticlimactic and without deeper meaning

What do you have to do to please some people.

Also, a big part of it is that it really IS a fix fic. That's actually more important to me than basically anything. They just overwrote the horrible things Harris did to Clarice.

And for all the complaints that it was "waah waah contrived" they spent a LOT more time establishing motivations for the characters who served up those "contrivances". They certainly did a better job of it than Harris' cringeworthy Clannibal nonsense.

CLARICE IS SAFE, YOU GUYS. And not even just by virtue of not being in the show. If she had been in the show, she would STILL have been safe.

I could not ask for anything more.
posted by tel3path at 2:48 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


It does make me wonder - if they ever did get the rights, what's left of her story to tell?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:51 PM on July 12, 2015


The part where she's a well-scrubbed rube and still manages to see through Hannibal's line of BS within 3 seconds of meeting him.
posted by tel3path at 2:55 PM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yeah anything post Red Dragon is going to be so different as to be brand new with some touchstones scattered, even more so then now.

Will is going to be real different then Will's interactions in book or movies with Hannibal. Cause movie and book versions have him terrified and apprehensive about Hannibal but now SO MUCH MORE has happened. I want Will to just be a complete gloating dick to him when he's trapped in the box. 'HEY HOW'S THE FOOD IN HERE IS IT INSTITUTIONALLY DELICIOUS?!"

Also, I know all the ComicCon stuff and ed Dragon stuff has us talking but we do have next week for a climax on a naked man farm.
posted by The Whelk at 2:57 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


so is what happened Will shows up and Hannibal is all I love you and Will is all I love you too and Hannibal is all I will let you walk me to jail and then Will is shot and Hannibal is all wait you had a knife you lied to me about forgiveness so now I eat your brain? What happened to Hannibal last season being all I love you Will I can slit your throat and fall back into the stream?

And yeah I feel a little cheated by the last scene. It's like woo we are all stoned all episode and then TAH DAH MASON.

It felt a little like a bunch of people stoned listening to some beautiful opera and having mind orgasms and actual orgasms and then somebody's loud relative bursting into the scene and yelling WHATCHA ALL DOIN WE'RE GOING OUTSIDE TO THE MONSTER TRUCK RALLY AND YOUR ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED

I mean, maybe that was the point.
posted by angrycat at 3:11 PM on July 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


Yeah Mason's a bit like that
posted by tel3path at 3:13 PM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


next week for a climax on a naked man

Well. That will have Tumblr buzzing.

Puerile. Sorry.
posted by Grangousier at 3:19 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's like Hannibal and Will are having a deep conversation about Schopenhauer and De Sade and ortolans and then Mason roars up and is all like, "I'm gonna haul ass to Lollapalooza!" I bet his favorite TV show is The Following.
posted by kewb at 3:35 PM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Puerile. Sorry.

between this and the CBT mix up in my Toast article I'm starting to feel like I have a porny version of spoonerisms
posted by The Whelk at 3:36 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


so is what happened Will shows up and Hannibal is all I love you and Will is all I love you too and Hannibal is all I will let you walk me to jail and then Will is shot and Hannibal is all wait you had a knife you lied to me about forgiveness so now I eat your brain?

I think it was more, I love you, I love you too, so you're gonna run away with me right, or maybe not, hmm we'll see whether that happens or whether one of us kills the other first, oh and there it is, with the killing, well ok then, if we gotta do it that way then I'm eating your brain you beautiful bastard
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:14 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, "if I saw you every day forever" is definitely a book quote
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:14 PM on July 12, 2015


Fanfare: OK then if we gotta do it that way then I"m eating your brain you beautiful bastard
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:06 PM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


The part where she's a well-scrubbed rube and still manages to see through Hannibal's line of BS within 3 seconds of meeting him.

I think she would have also been the one to get Hannibal out of Will's head, eventually. Especially once Dark!Will turns up at the end of this season - because my pet theory is this season ends with Will breaking Hannibal out of prison.
posted by crossoverman at 8:08 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think Hannibal embarked on that conversation with no other intention than to eat Will, and Will embarked on that conversation with no other expectation than that Hannibal would attempt to eat him somehow and that he was going to knife him before that could happen.

I think they indulged themselves in a brief fantasy that it wouldn't go quite like that, but then they had the "remembering who I am and who I'm with" seeping realization and they're off.

Blooming Chiyoh, what a complication. I'm actually wondering if she'll be the one to break Hannibal out just to annoy Will, or something. I agree that this season has got to end with Hannibal being broken out of prison, and that in my mind has to mean running off to Argentina with Will or something like it. I think it's possible that the paradigm will get reversed somehow and Will is going to try to turn Hannibal. But we had some big foreshadowing with Bedelia saying Chiyoh was Hannibal's biggest mistake. Maybe something like Chiyoh and Will vying for custody or whatever.

The wildcard speculation is that Alana might try to break Hannibal out and reform him and that she will have worked to get him an insanity defense for that purpose. However, I think she's on her way to settling down with Margot according to what we heard in this episode, so is on track to becoming a basically normal person leading a basically normal life - just as she always was.
posted by tel3path at 1:42 AM on July 13, 2015


Yes, I think Hannibal and Will in Argentina is right. I wonder if, like Clarice, Will offers his nipple for Hannibal to suckle on. But the three year time gap in the novel fits with Fuller's description of a passage from the canon that has never been explored.
posted by crossoverman at 4:17 AM on July 13, 2015


I wonder if, like Clarice, Will offers his nipple for Hannibal to suckle on.

There's horror, and then, there is horror.

Part of this fix fic is that, however bad it's gotten, we haven't actually had to break out the brain bleach. I'm trusting Fuller to keep it that way.
posted by tel3path at 4:42 AM on July 13, 2015


There's always the reams and reams of fanfic to fall back on!
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:03 AM on July 13, 2015


I know what I want the post-credits coda to the season finale to be.

Black screen, then the click of a bedside light being switched on. On the bedside table is a pile of books prominently including "The Joy of Vegetarian Cooking" and "Eat More Fish".

Hannibal - in striped silk pyjamas - has woken up in his forest green bedroom in Baltimore. "I just had the most terrible dream! And it went on and on!"

Pan to Will, who is sitting up reading in pyjamas with little dachsunds on 'em. "Probably ate too much people before bed, then."

Hannibal "I expect you're right," and settles back down to sleep, turning off his light. Will follows suit, putting his book on his own bedside table.

Total darkness.

[beat]

Hannibal: "Wait, what?"
posted by tel3path at 6:23 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


I've read complaints about the conversation in the museum going on not long enough. But it was paced really slow and leisurely, regardless of the amount of elapsed time.

The way they cut out dialogue and make a display of taking their time, is part of why it gives the impression of being slow, like everybody was whining about it being slow last year when an entire soap opera's worth of stuff would get concertinaed into a single episode. And then this season they really WERE taking their time. As Will said... he needed to understand Hannibal before he confronted him, which is fair enough.
posted by tel3path at 6:56 AM on July 13, 2015


It's hard to buy Hannibal as obsessed with Will as Will is with him.

Will: 'it seems we are merging'
Hannibal: 'ahahahah that's cute. but yeah no.'
posted by ian1977 at 11:13 AM on July 13, 2015


what? come on, hannibal is so obsessed with will that he wants to consume him so that WILL WILL BE MORE INSIDE OF HIM THAN IN ANY OTHER POSSIBLE WAY
posted by poffin boffin at 11:23 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


i mean i guess he could let will peel his skin off and wear him like a mansuit but that's really sotl territory
posted by poffin boffin at 11:23 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Would you profile me? I'd profile me. I'd profile me hard. I'd profile me so hard."
posted by codacorolla at 11:34 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


actually having will shriek DON'T YOU HURT MY DOGGIE would be perfectly in character for him, wouldn't it.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:36 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


YOU GUYS I FOUND A DECENT SUPPLIER OF SILK FLOWERS, SKULLS, FEATHERS, AND BEETLE WINGS I MAY BE MAKING A HORRIFYING DECORATIVE DINNER TABLE ARRANGEMENT
posted by The Whelk at 11:56 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


OH GOD I COULD BE REALLY PRETENSION AND ARRANGE LIKE A DUTCH IMPOSSIBLE FLOWER PAINTING WITH THE BEETLES AND BONES REPRESENTING DEATH AND MORTALITY

i have been completely vampired help
posted by The Whelk at 11:57 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


what? come on, hannibal is so obsessed with will that he wants to consume him so that WILL WILL BE MORE INSIDE OF HIM THAN IN ANY OTHER POSSIBLE WAY

This. He's been clear about his intent here for a few episodes now, and then in this one he makes clear that he wants to eat Will's brain which takes the symbolism of the literal merging to another extra level.
posted by sparkletone at 12:16 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


i have been completely vampired help

What a shocking, unexpected turn of events for you.
posted by sparkletone at 12:16 PM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


who ever could have predicted
posted by poffin boffin at 12:17 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, when Will said to his students early in S1 that they were not to give in to the temptation to reduce the case to a male penetrative control issue, he was telling us what to think of Hannigram.

My headcanon is that Hannigram is not platonic, canonically it's sexual for Hannibal, and my headcanon is that they did do it late in s2. But if Fuller hadn't been yelling IT'S PLATONIC at us the whole time maybe we would have reduced it to a male penetrative control issue.

Wanting to eat Will's brain is pretty much a clue to obsession I would think.
posted by tel3path at 12:26 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


After the last In A Gadda Da Vida fades I'm going to have to go back and watch this all from the first episode.
posted by codacorolla at 12:36 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


i propose a post-finale rewatch/read-along in chronological order:

1. Hannibal Rising (it's character building)
1a Hannibal Rising (movie) FOR SCIENCE
2. Season 1
3. Season 2
4. Hannibal (book)
5. Season 3 eps 1-7
6. Red Dragon (book)
7. Manhunter
8. Red Dragon (movie)
9. Season 3 eps 8-13
10. Silence of the Lambs (book)
11. Silence of the Lambs (movie)
12. Hannibal (movie)
posted by tel3path at 1:13 PM on July 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


Fuller wants Ellen Page for Clarice. WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THIS IF IT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, BRYAN!
posted by crossoverman at 2:01 PM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


He's really very strategic about the way he parcels out information in order to build hype. People say 'oh he just doesn't care about spoiling his own work' but I think it's much more targeted than people give it credit for.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:05 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Wow, I think Ellen Page could play a flawless Clarice.
posted by codacorolla at 2:10 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Uhm. I like Ellen Page, but I don't think she's quite good enough. She can be just that bit too mannered sometimes.
posted by tel3path at 2:11 PM on July 13, 2015


SO I've been wondering. What role (if any) do the following characters have to play in the Red Dragon arc?

Chiyoh
She's the least likely to carry over, I think. If she does, I really have no clue how she could be used. But if she doesn't die next episode, what on earth is she going to do with herself?

Bedelia
This is actually hinted at in the new trailer, though it may be a hallucination. I wonder how active a role she will take in the actual plot, or if she will sort of revert back to her earlier role of saying portentous things and being The Smartest while hanging out on the sidelines.

Alana and Margot
Is their relationship going to continue? Otherwise, once Mason is gone, Margot would need a new reason to stay in the story.

And is Alana actually going to have Margot's child like in the plan/like Margot's gf does in the books? Because then you have Alana Bloom, billionaire queer mother. Are they really gonna take it there?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:17 PM on July 13, 2015


If Jennifer Lawrence hadn't gotten Hunger Games and thus was still even vaguely TV-level, I would have said Winter's Bone qualified her for Clarice.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:18 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I agree, Jennifer Lawrence. If she has an iota of taste she'd jump at the opportunity.

And I think that yes, Alana is going to have Margot's child, and also marry Margot. I would consider this to be a fairly conventional and stable outcome for a character who has always wanted to be conventional and stable. It's not as if Margot enjoys reenacting a sicker version of the Borgias day in and day out. I think she'd like nothing better than to end the violence and live clean. I say this assuming Alana would marry Margot for love, not money. They are highly compatible with (if I'm right) quite similar family backgrounds.
posted by tel3path at 2:26 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


NBC're moving the show to Saturdays now! I can't tell if that's like, immediately starting this week, or after this week.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:33 PM on July 13, 2015


They are highly compatible with (if I'm right) quite similar family backgrounds.

We know she has brothers, was raised religious, and is no longer religious, do we know anything else about her background?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:34 PM on July 13, 2015


Nothing. I've only made inferences from the way she relates to Hannibal and to Will. And from the conversation in Oeuf: Will was the only child, Jimmy the twin, Beverly the oldest, Zeller the middle child. That leaves the youngest-child role unaccounted for; I personally think Alana fits into it.
posted by tel3path at 2:39 PM on July 13, 2015


Alana Bloom, billionaire queer mother

Yep, as said above, totally fits her arc, she gets to be SO NORMAL and STABLE while also being a billionaire.
posted by The Whelk at 2:41 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Word on the twitters is that NBC is moving Hannibal (and Aquarius) to Saturdays starting this week. Official Hannibal website still says Thursdays, but DeLaurentiis Co's twitter confirmed (though they seemed uncertain if it was this week or next). :\
posted by sparkletone at 2:48 PM on July 13, 2015


TV Line confirms.
posted by sparkletone at 2:49 PM on July 13, 2015


That's good, because Thursday night is when people have their book club or their class or whatever.

Friday night was better because people lie about going out on the town but they totally stay in and you know it.
posted by tel3path at 2:54 PM on July 13, 2015


Thursday night is a heavy lifting night for me at the gym so dinner is always VAST QUANTITIES OF DELICIOUS FLESH which makes watching hannibal right afterwards somewhat troublesome

so yay saturday is my vote
posted by poffin boffin at 2:56 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Friday night was better because people lie about going out on the town but they totally stay in and you know it.

I'm neither here nor there about it, really. This sort of thing is so common for shows that are just having their last few burned off.

Thursdays were slightly more convenient for me because I almost never go out Thursday nights. I do and did go out pretty much every week when Hannibal was on Fridays. I'd just... Watch it first. Usually twice. The night of the S2 finale, I went to ~the club~ and sat in a corner being emotional on the internet for the first couple hours I was there.

Same will be true of Saturdays for the next bit!
posted by sparkletone at 3:02 PM on July 13, 2015


Walk into the club like flailing about Hannibal on the internet
posted by tel3path at 3:04 PM on July 13, 2015


I've been in this meditation/yoga boot camp thing this summer and it's been super weird spending two hours getting really chill and then running home to scream and flail at this show, so I am all for the move.
posted by Stacey at 3:05 PM on July 13, 2015


DANCE CRY THE PAIN AWAY
posted by The Whelk at 3:05 PM on July 13, 2015


I never go anywhere ever and tape it on my DVR and have the season in Prime anyhow (belt AND suspenders, yes, thankyou), but I'm not too thrilled about waiting TWO EXTRA FUCKING DAYS this week before seeing Hannibal and Will down in the pigpen singing the Green Acres theme song .
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:32 PM on July 13, 2015


I'm just remembering Wonderfalls, which was cancelled and immediately taken off the air after four episodes, even though there were another nine in the can. And those nine episodes weren't aired or released on DVD until after a massive fan campaign.

So this is way better than THAT anyway
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:33 PM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


...another thing I think people don't get while they're whining that it's "pretentious"

it's a sitcom

I mean Hanni and Will hanging upside down together like that. And Will probably saying "I forgive you for eating my brain, Hannibal. It's just the way you are." come on. It's hilarious.
posted by tel3path at 3:35 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


DANCE CRY THE PAIN AWAY

Yeah... Dance cry... That's it. Sure.
posted by sparkletone at 3:35 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


So this is way better than THAT anyway

Unlike Fox, NBC doesn't have much else to put on the air anyway, so they don't have the luxury.
posted by sparkletone at 3:36 PM on July 13, 2015


Describing media as 'pretentious' (or in internetese 'up its own ass') is such a subjective judgement. You're saying it's pretending to be smarter than it is, pretending to be more artistic than it is, etc, but people generally don't actually provide any evidence that the media in question 1. doesn't live up to the excessive standards it has set for itself or 2. has set excessive standards for itself in the first place.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:45 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I mean Hanni and Will hanging upside down together like that.

It's also a visual quote of the torture scene in Romancing the Stone.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:56 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Gotta love those wacky little references, intentional or not (and I'm sure they largely are). Did you see Fuller's tweet that "Hannibal under the table with knife" was an homage to the little reanimated demon kid in Pet Sematary?
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:12 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Given the fact that they already used Freddie's book death as a fakeout, anybody else think that maybe Chilton will be the one who gets Dolarhyde'd (but somehow survives because lolChilton)?
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:50 PM on July 13, 2015


Liz, at this point almost anything is possible, but yeah that's on the north slope of the bell curve I think. Alana and Margot are kind of like wildcards here; Alana has drifted so far from Harris' original Alan that she might figure in some much more unusual way, perhaps particularly to keep Margot in the story if Mason gets fed to his pet eel. Chilton is just about the only S1/S2 character we've seen who wasn't a survivor of the S2 ending bloodbath.

Another reason to look to Alana/Margot is that in addition to becoming Margot's love interest + potential baby factory, Mason is in this retcon now encouraging Margot to find a sperm receptacle to create a family. That totally did not happen in Hannibal but would have been in character simply because someone like Mason would have hated his father's alternate instructions for the inheritance enough, I think, to go far sideways to subvert them.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:35 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Hannibal under the table with knife" was an homage to the little reanimated demon kid in Pet Sematary?

Fuller has a very public love of cheesy 80s pulp horror flicks with their big monster scares and gore and I get a thrill out of seeing them gussied up and made into Fever Opera Art in the show.
posted by The Whelk at 10:02 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]




only if there is an open bar
posted by poffin boffin at 1:28 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


An actual Cannibal Lecture.
posted by figurant at 1:34 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


also he must be borne there on a gilded palanquin by strapping youths
posted by poffin boffin at 1:37 PM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


If by "open bar" you mean "flask in my pocket" then I can guarantee it
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:39 PM on July 14, 2015


Shit, I said 'Hannibal Lecter, Book Collector' too many times and that phrase has set its teeth in my brains
posted by angrycat at 2:28 PM on July 14, 2015


That's at the morbid anatomy museum of which I am a dues paying member thank you very much
posted by The Whelk at 2:46 PM on July 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'll wear my three piece and paisley tie and look inscrutable
posted by The Whelk at 2:51 PM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Don't try to call him on Dante, or let on that you know he's not Dr. Fell. Even if it means you won't get to meet Gillian Anderson.
posted by sparkletone at 4:22 PM on July 14, 2015


The real trick is to find the scruffy guy in the audience
posted by The Whelk at 5:44 PM on July 14, 2015


So I'm way late to this party because I just started watching this show like, two weeks ago, and after some very diligent binge watching, I'm finally caught up, and I don't really have much to add other than I really regret starting this episode at 12 am when I have to go before 7 am tomorrow. This Poor Life Choice (TM) brought to you by my nonexistent impulse control. I mean, I was all, "I'll just watch the first couple minutes of this episode," but now I'm just like, HAHA WHO NEEDS SLEEP ANYWAY.

Also, I've never read or watched any of the previous installments of the Hannibal et al canon, so all I really knew going into this was that Hannibal eats people. My sole reason for checking out the show is that I saw an article about the show getting cancelled and people were all BUT WHEN WILL HANNIBAL AND WILL FINALLY GET NAKED TOGETHER, and I was like, this sounds like my kind of show. I mean, who doesn't love a dark, twisted, mind fuck of a show featuring intense homoerotic subtext/actual text.

I have to say, THIS SHOW TOTALLY DELIVERED.

I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS.

But please god won't someone pick it up for a fourth season???
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:53 PM on July 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Welcome. We second all those feelings.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:06 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh hey check out Neil Gaiman throwing shade on a Bryan Fuller hater. The internet is truly a magical place.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:10 PM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also litera scripta manet, when this is all over I would love it if you'd watch Silence of the Lambs and then tell us what you think, having seen this show first. I only know one other person who's seen the show and not the movie.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:13 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Welcome to the dinner party! We don't consider late arrival rude.

I've never read or watched any of the previous installments of the Hannibal et al canon

The series is a lot richer if you have some notion of things, but it's by no means required. The lines that people often point to as the show's most pretentious are usually lifted straight out of the novels (even if they're said by some other character/in a totally different context).

These are my personal recommendations, but once S3's done if you're jonesing for more Harris... Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs are by a large margin the best books. Hannibal has things some people like about it, and pretty much everyone hates Hannibal Rising. For the movies: Manhunter (Michael Mann's 80s as heck Red Dragon adaptation) and Demme's iconic Silence of the Lambs adaptation are the best. Ridley Scott's Hannibal is a hot mess but not unwatchable. Ratner's Red Dragon is... watchable but bland though it has some nice things about it (but then I've thought that about all his movies). And once again, everyone hates Hannibal Rising. One of the minor miracles of this third season is the way it's dipped into Hannibal Rising material and done something good with it.

I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS.

We all do it kind of a lot. It's that kind of show (see past threads here and on the blue).

But please god won't someone pick it up for a fourth season???

I'm pretty sanguine (if you'll pardon the roots of that word), to be honest. We're in for a break even if we're not done because contractual realities... But I also trust them to leave us in a place that's not god awful as a stopping point (even if it's incredibly upsetting like S2 would've been)
posted by sparkletone at 11:14 PM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


But I also trust them to leave us in a place that's not god awful as a stopping point (even if it's incredibly upsetting like S2 would've been)

God, that would have been so fucking hilarious
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:16 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh hey check out Neil Gaiman throwing shade on a Bryan Fuller hater. The internet is truly a magical place.

LOL. The context for that bit about casting Hannibal actors is a short interview from SDCC that I can't find a link to at the moment. One of the guys from that What The Flick show we link to in these threads sometimes is interviewing Bryan and Martha and American Gods comes up. The interviewer points out that Bryan has a habit of having actors from his previous shows work on his current one, Hannibal being no exception. Bryan says he's worked with Caroline a lot, and would love, love, love to work with Gillian more. I don't recall if he mentions anyone else by name after that. He just says that there's so many gods in the Gaiman novel you can give small parts to, that he's sure there'll be more of the ~recycling~.

All this to say: Turning that into him wanting to bring the whole cast over (AND WHY IS THAT SO WRONG) is completely fucking ridiculous.
posted by sparkletone at 11:17 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


God, that would have been so fucking hilarious

It was already an all-time great TV mic drop. Once I'd gotten over ~incredible emotional devastation~, I'm positive I'd have made my peace with it and found it incredible.

Someone would finally have gone whole hog and done, "SORRY, EVERYONE. THE BAD GUY WON. EVERYONE'S DEAD. PEACE OUT."
posted by sparkletone at 11:19 PM on July 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


The more I think about it the more I think Chiyoh is going to be the one to break Hannibal out of prison
posted by tel3path at 1:06 AM on July 15, 2015


would love, love, love to work with Gillian more

Gillian Anderson as Media please.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:04 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I really do think the Florence police stuff has been handled a bit poorly, and I was thinking of a way to do it that would be more satisfying.

Suppose it went like this:

Alana figures out, via the receipts, than Hannibal is somewhere in Florence. So the Vergers go ahead and start buying off highly-placed Florentine police officials, so that they can help him find Hannibal.

Pazzi, meanwhile, becomes convinced that Il Mostro is back in Florence because of the heart thing and then figures out that Il Mostro is Hannibal.

Then, Pazzi figures out that the other cops are on the take. So he thinks - well, I'll be damned if I let these corrupt dicks who laugh at me catch MY Il Mostro and sell him! I'd better go get some evidence I can send to, say, the FBI, before they get to him first.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:05 AM on July 15, 2015


Or alternately "I'll be damned if I let these corrupt dicks who laugh at me catch MY Il Mostro and sell him! I'd better sell him first!"
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:15 AM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Or alternately "I'll be damned if I let these corrupt dicks who laugh at me catch MY Il Mostro and sell him! I'd better sell him first!"

This version makes more sense to me. Given his past and what not, I'd rather hang on to Pazzi not really being any better than the rest... Just being a step ahead about Hannibal.

I'm not sure why they didn't go this way. You just kind of shift some scenes around to get the chronology right more or less. Maybe there were other concerns that prevented it from happening that way.
posted by sparkletone at 9:21 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Far more than in past seasons, they seem to be viewing the plot of the show as 'the pieces that need to get moved around in order for certain emotional arcs to occur.' Not to say that the plot has stopped making sense, but that it's become less of a concern, somehow.

For example, most shows would have spent several scenes across a couple episodes on Alana doing long-distance sleuthing in Florence. But this show was like "hey, we can establish the fact that this has been happening in one single scene, so that's what we'll do, leaving more time for extended scenes that are 100% about atmosphere and emotion rather than moving the plot along."

Hell, in this episode Jack essentially said to the audience "hey, you know how you were wondering why I didn't kill Hannibal? Because obviously Jack doesn't kill Hannibal, that's why, deal with it."

I can see why people don't like this. I personally think they're walking a very fine line and occasionally missing the mark, but mostly they've been hitting it and it's been really fucking awesome.

Taking risks doesn't always pay off, that's why they're, ya know, risks - which is why most people don't bother taking them. This show seems to have decided to only take risks so far in Season 3, and the resulting good stuff makes up for the bad stuff a hundred times over in my opinion.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:38 AM on July 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


Spot on, showbiz_liz.

There was a bunch of "where's the dramatic tension of eating Will's head when there's a deus ex machina and we know he won't die yet anyway" from critics etc but for me the tension has been there for that scene since the starling flew out of the horse in S2. I dodn't want Will to do the Clannibal thing.

Once we saw Will's head being sawed open in a promo the tension was: is this real, did Will think he was going to be doing it to someone else, will this be what leaves him disfigured or maybe with some unstylish form of brain damage like Peter Bernardone?

The worry of how the brain eating thing would be handled has been there for a long time and I feel better now.
posted by tel3path at 9:54 AM on July 15, 2015


Gillian would be perfect for Media. Have you seen those pix where she was made up as Lucy Ricardo?
posted by infinitewindow at 10:12 AM on July 15, 2015


I think that option would have been a great way to go with Pazzi - I really did have trouble reconciling his character over the course of what...three episodes? Getting Il Mostro was a way back to his honor, and having the turn come in a quick "I love my wife and she deserves everything I can give her, therefore I will sell Il Mostro to the crazy American for stacks of cash" turn didn't really take for me after the conversation Pazzi had with Jack. Pazzi can still end up dangling out of the window even if his motivations are different.

(We are visiting Florence this October and our apartment will be on the square just opposite the Uffizi. Hannibal tourism!)
posted by PussKillian at 10:14 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


(There's a fairly nice cafeteria and small eatery near by! Also check out the Pitti Palace gardens, much less crowded.)
posted by The Whelk at 10:31 AM on July 15, 2015


The Boboli gardens? Already on the list! I've been before but my traveling companions haven't and I've promised not to drag them into every museum. But they're down for gardens.
posted by PussKillian at 11:10 AM on July 15, 2015


I'm glad they didn't attribute Pazzi's sellout to Pazzi's wife being an acquisitive shrew. I vaguely remembered that from the books and I'm glad they got rid of that part. It added to the general unpleasantness of the book that there was nobody to root for. Really, it's Pazzi's fault if he decides to sell out, and I think it's an improvement that they didn't use his wife to cloud the issue.

I'm also thinking... One wife named Beautiful, another named Joyful, you don't suppose Jack might inherit Pazzi's wife here maybe?
posted by tel3path at 11:23 AM on July 15, 2015


If yer there on a Tuesday the Cascine market along the Arno is a nice slice of life plus I saw a people selling caged chipmunks.
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 AM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


you know I was really keen to get some of those Charbonnel & Walker champagne truffles Alana had on the table last week, maybe even some tartufi bianchi, and I was near two of my favourite delis this week so I thought this was my chance... They both now have strangely depleted stock.

I don't even like truffles, I think any confectionery with the word "truffle" in its name is always disgusting, but I am a mere puppet of capitalistic forces in media so I had no choice.
posted by tel3path at 11:26 AM on July 15, 2015


Have you seen those pix where she was made up as Lucy Ricardo?

Ok now I'm really convinced.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:24 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Really, it's Pazzi's fault if he decides to sell out, and I think it's an improvement that they didn't use his wife to cloud the issue.

I really liked this too. She seems great! And he's not evil, exactly. Just down on his luck and he makes a terrible decision. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware at the time that he's on a show called Hannibal, and you don't get a whole lot of chances to make bad decisions. Unless you're Jack Crawford or Will Graham... But even then they've paid heavily by this point.
posted by sparkletone at 12:45 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


And I mean... He's just dumb, average, etc. He had all the information about Hannibal being dangerous, and all he needed to do to figure out what show he was on was peek down at the logo to the bottom right of his sightline. silly man
posted by tel3path at 1:01 PM on July 15, 2015


and all he needed to do to figure out what show he was on was peek down at the logo to the bottom right of his sightline

Tel3path, you do realize that if you're a character on a TV show, you can only see that logo if you're already dead, right?
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:21 PM on July 15, 2015


So apparently some international broadcasters might not be waiting until Saturday to air this. Which means I am going to have to stay the hell away from Tumblr tomorrow...
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:51 AM on July 16, 2015


Yes! It's super weird and frustrating so I'm going to channel my anger into very srrangeive flower arranging
posted by The Whelk at 8:54 AM on July 16, 2015


TOO SOON, AARON. LITERALLY.
posted by sparkletone at 1:56 PM on July 16, 2015


Is anyone else weirdly watching Dateline where hannibal is supposed to be? Wtf nbc
posted by likeatoaster at 7:00 PM on July 16, 2015


There was this thing going around on Tumblr 'AU where the last two tv shows you watched now exist in the same world' and for me that would be Wonderfalls and Hannibal, so now I am trying to figure out if there would be any way in hell to make that work, tonally
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:00 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh sorry I guess I missed the news. But seriously, fucking Dateline? Ugh
posted by likeatoaster at 7:05 PM on July 16, 2015


Just as a head's up it IS airing in Canada tonight, right now even. So beware spoilers on the tumblr and what not. Bryan and crew aren't livetweeting till the U.S. airing though.
posted by sparkletone at 7:07 PM on July 16, 2015


I'm meant to have people over to see it on SUNDAY NIGHT.

I will probably have watched it twice by then tbh
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:20 PM on July 16, 2015


Just as a head's up it IS airing in Canada tonight, right now even.

This is CERTAINLY not information I am currently aware of, and even if it were I would never act on it. You have my word as a gentleperson.
posted by figurant at 7:31 PM on July 16, 2015


I'm meant to have people over to see it on SUNDAY NIGHT.

Excuse me, Sunday??? They need to take a lesson from me and learn how to be both a gigantic Hannibal nerd and a ~party person~ even on Saturday night. Amateurs.
posted by sparkletone at 7:58 PM on July 16, 2015


While we are all patiently waiting for Saturday cough, Cleolinda posted her 3x02 recap. Links in the relevant fanfare thread or just click on her name earlier in this sentence and read the top two posts.
posted by sparkletone at 8:09 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I made the mistake of looking at tumblr for a second and saw the tag Everything Is Gay And Everything Hurts
posted by The Whelk at 9:00 PM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


That could apply to almost any episode, so at least not really a spoiler... But yeah. Not looking at tumblr unless I'm going to a specific non-hannibal tag. My twitter is safe as long the Bryan et al, and a couple of the major fandom accounts, aren't tweeting, but tumblr not so much.
posted by sparkletone at 9:15 PM on July 16, 2015


Used to be most torrents came from Canada so I'm surprised it's not up. I'm a Canadian without cable so I'm doubly screaming without my crazed cannibal screaming.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:16 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


What if just... nobody recorded it

Nobody in all of Canadia
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:10 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Is there even really a Canada? Really?
posted by The Whelk at 11:11 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've been to what I was told was Canada, but then we got into a car and a few hours later we were in what I was told was America, and then several days after that, back again

i don't know who to believe
posted by tel3path at 11:23 PM on July 16, 2015


You, uh. You people need to stop bad-mouthing our (for USian value of our) neighbors to the north. Like right now.
posted by sparkletone at 11:36 PM on July 16, 2015


Or they won't give us our precious ...


Ice wines

Ice wines that need lots of seeds for before Saturday

Go ice wines.
posted by The Whelk at 11:37 PM on July 16, 2015


Or they won't give us our precious ...

They turned out to be too polite for that.
posted by sparkletone at 11:41 PM on July 16, 2015


I kid you not I was making asparagus vichyssoise last night and bulking it out with lettuce and we had some people over and they said "oh lettuce soup how odd" and I have a good 15 minute speech about how lettuce was considered an aphrodisiac in Anicent Egypt because the wild cultivar ancestor of lettuce having milky resin similar to semen and the possible mild hallucingetic effects it might of had, also cause wild lecture resembles a huge perversely phallic sunflower opposed to the low to the ground modern version and there was a good ten second silence after that only broken by the SO offering to refill people's drinks.

Clearly I need to be more suave with the disturbing food history info dumps. Maybe stick to snails.
posted by The Whelk at 11:43 PM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's out there now. I am going to regret this at 4 am but I'm going in.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:46 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


In the interest of avoiding salty mods, that is probably as much as anyone should say at this point.

Till Saturday around 2 minutes after it airs in the US.
posted by sparkletone at 11:53 PM on July 16, 2015


Can anyone recommend a wine to pair with salty mods?
posted by yellowbinder at 11:56 PM on July 16, 2015




I so do not regret that. The wait until Saturday to discuss will be agony. Bonsoir.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:41 AM on July 17, 2015


Bon...











...soir
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:45 AM on July 17, 2015


I am having insomnia but I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT go watch now instead of trying to sleep

Cry
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:47 AM on July 17, 2015


Be sleepy, Liz. Don't be brave.
posted by sparkletone at 1:26 AM on July 17, 2015


Can we start a Fanfare thread for 3x07 now that it's aired in Canadia?
posted by crossoverman at 1:30 AM on July 17, 2015


You can certainly ask the mods, but my understanding is that the rules are somewhat US-centric. For instance, Ant-Man was out for a week in other countries but only got a fanfare thread tonight because that's when the U.S. release was.

But I dunno. This is an unusual situation. I just figured we'd sit on our hands for a few days. We'll have more to discuss then what with livetwet from the crew and stuff.
posted by sparkletone at 1:34 AM on July 17, 2015


Well, I posted a thread for Disgestivo - see some of you there soon?
posted by crossoverman at 2:49 AM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I kid you not I was making asparagus vichyssoise last night and bulking it out with lettuce and we had some people over and they said "oh lettuce soup how odd" and I have a good 15 minute speech about how lettuce was considered an aphrodisiac in Anicent Egypt because the wild cultivar ancestor of lettuce having milky resin similar to semen and the possible mild hallucingetic effects it might of had, also cause wild lecture resembles a huge perversely phallic sunflower opposed to the low to the ground modern version and there was a good ten second silence after that only broken by the SO offering to refill people's drinks.

This sounds exactly like the kind of speech Hannibal is always giving at dinner parties, but like, from a Hannigram fanfic
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:27 AM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I promise I'm not going to eat people
posted by The Whelk at 9:10 AM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well I mean, it's only cannibalism if you're equals
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:32 AM on July 17, 2015


Just watched this and noticed how Mason has totally redecorated his austere Art Deco bedroom and dining hall into more of Hannibal's Dutch Barqoue tastes.
posted by The Whelk at 8:17 PM on July 17, 2015


I only know one other person who's seen the show and not the movie.

Increment that by one! I'm tempted to see the movies or read the books, but also concerned that I will be disappointed in them because they sound like a slightly different and less artsy sort of morbid insanity.

Gillian would be perfect for Media. Have you seen those pix where she was made up as Lucy Ricardo?

...I'm sold.
posted by ubersturm at 8:14 PM on July 18, 2015


WAIT ANOTHER MONTH AND A HALF AND THEN TELL US. I'm curious as well and can't think of anyone I know personally watching the show that is in your place.
posted by sparkletone at 9:49 PM on July 18, 2015


oh I put this comment in the wrrrrong thread
posted by The Whelk at 9:55 PM on July 18, 2015


WAIT ANOTHER MONTH AND A HALF AND THEN TELL US. I'm curious as well and can't think of anyone I know personally watching the show that is in your place.

Will do! "It'll make the inevitable immediate post-season rewatch extra interesting!"
posted by ubersturm at 9:24 PM on July 19, 2015


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