Hannibal: The Great Red Dragon
July 24, 2015 6:55 AM - Season 3, Episode 8 - Subscribe

Aired in Canada, July 23. Airs in the US, July 25. Hannibal is declared officially insane. Chilton is thinking of writing a follow-up book. Jack asks Will to help him with a new case. Francis Dolarhyde is becoming...

"I think he doesn't like being called the Tooth Fairy."
"It is not as snappy as Hannibal the Cannibal but he does have a much wider demographic than you do. You, with your fancy allusions, your fussy aestethics. You will always have niche appeal but this fellow, there's something so universal about what he does... you might say he's a four-quadrant killer."

Well, at least the show knows what it is.
posted by crossoverman (354 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Welp, welcome to Season Four of Hannibal!

Funny to say about an episode where the protagonist is shown shooting two children to death, but this really felt like taking a breather.

Those two shots of the moon melding into blood drops and a flashlight beam were fucking outstanding.

This week in 'god fucking damn it Hannibal': laughed out loud at that letter.

WHO MADE THAT DESSERT.

And bravo for Hugh Dancy in that shot where he is clearly struggling with whether or not to go into Empath Mode.

(More thoughts later, prob shouldn't have watched this at 8am before work)
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:17 AM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I had to google 'four-quadrant'. That really was a joke just for Bryan Fuller.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:18 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I really, really think Thomas Harris would appreciate this adaptation. It's a fucking doozy. How wonderful to be swept back into the procedural thing and yet have it feel such a part of all the weird shit that happened just an episode ago. Three years feels like nothing!

I hope there's not a backlash about the labia thing; Bryan did say that the whole rape thing was alluded to but it's not lingered on, and that's exactly what happened. It's not gratuitous.

I feel like the waiter in that Key & Peele sketch when it comes to Will. You don't have to do it, man. Don't take that jacket to him, Will!

And tel3path, you were right about Hannibal and Alana. It's a promise he intends to keep. I just thought they had a connection, you know? I thought he would appreciate her enough to back off. That's not how Hannibal works, though, I know that now. In fact, it probably makes her more worthy of eating than ever.

Hannibal is so attractive with his new haircut and immaculately conceived receiving chamber. Lovely and horrifyingly evil deep, deep down to the very depths of his soul. We mustn't ever forget that (I did for a bit because ohhh Mads).

I'll save my observations on Richard Armitage's performance until I've recovered from the deep swoon I'm still in.
posted by h00py at 7:20 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


So what exactly is Alana playing at here? It's obvious why Chilton would lie, Hannibal is a prize patient. But why would Alana collude with him?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:23 AM on July 24, 2015


Also, Chilton getting out of that chair with a little grin on his face and then wiggling his fingers when he was talking about praying was just... just too fucking adorable for words
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:26 AM on July 24, 2015


Here you come again.

Maybe it's just the cancellation grief Grangousier mentioned, or maybe it's that the characters have had three years to recover compared with our one week, but this episode felt really elegiac and sorrowful to me somehow.

On the upside, Hannibal has some pretty cozy and humane accommodations, all things considered (thanks to Alana having replaced Chilton, no doubt), but that made me even more sad. Because I think if Hannibal had just forgone the damn skull-sawing, maybe Will wouldn't have felt compelled to cut off contact completely, just quit the FBI but stayed around and come to visit and talk and be friends in a relatively safe environment. If Hannibal can "entertain" Chilton (was that real dessert or memory palace dessert? -- I can't believe they let him near cooking implements), he certainly could host Will.

But this is probably just Kubler-Ross bargaining on my part because of course contact with Hannibal is never a safe or healthy proposition for Will.

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the impression that Will may have told Molly the "official" bowdlerized bookesque version of the "how I caught the Chesapeake Ripper" story rather than the actual version? She seemed WAY WAY less concerned about sending Will back into Hannibal's orbit than I would be in her situation if I knew all the true facts.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:31 AM on July 24, 2015 [11 favorites]


CACKLING: Blood & Chocolate (2007). In which Hugh Dancy dates a werewolf. "Blood & Chocolate was both a commercial and critical failure."
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:34 AM on July 24, 2015 [16 favorites]


I don't think Alana's playing, she's just doing her job. She's the director of the hospital where Hannibal is being kept. She would have to be in contact with him. The past remains a fact, however.

I think Molly knows Will inside out. I don't think he kept anything from her. She knows him enough to know that he's making all the connections already and there's nothing she could do to stop it from happening.
posted by h00py at 7:35 AM on July 24, 2015


Say...what sort of yoga is this, exactly?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:39 AM on July 24, 2015


Also nice to see that Will has relocated to another Eternal Winter area.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:40 AM on July 24, 2015 [9 favorites]


I was happy to see the dogs again. And I loved Jack's comment about not worrying about the dog, Will. How could he not?
posted by h00py at 7:43 AM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


I don't think Alana's playing, she's just doing her job. She's the director of the hospital where Hannibal is being kept. She would have to be in contact with him.

No, I mean, why did she and Chilton lie about him being insane? Didn't they both admit to doing that in their scene together?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:44 AM on July 24, 2015


"You will always have niche appeal but this fellow, . . . you might say he's a four-quadrant killer."

I will bet the ranch this came directly out of a marketing and promotion meeting at NBC.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:45 AM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Say...what sort of yoga is this, exactly?

It's butoh!
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:47 AM on July 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


I think the decor and layout of Hannibal's cell we've seen has been all in his head. I expect he's in a standard cell that he has transformed with his memory palace. I wonder when we'll see the reality, if ever.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:48 AM on July 24, 2015 [6 favorites]


Yer going to force me to watch the whole episode again now, showbiz_liz, just so I can unpack that.
posted by h00py at 7:48 AM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's butoh!

It certainly is [nudge, nudge].
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:48 AM on July 24, 2015


Yer going to force me to watch the whole episode again now, showbiz_liz, just so I can unpack that.

Listen, what I do isn't coercion, it's persuasion
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:50 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


Dragon fever. Curse you, Richard!
posted by h00py at 7:50 AM on July 24, 2015


Honestly, I do wish we'd gotten this as a fourth season, because they could have included the trial and Hannibal's adjustment to prison life and more than thirty seconds of Will being sorta happy for once in his life. But if it wasn't in the cards, they did a good job of establishing it all in this episode so that we can get on with things.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:53 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


hey so the holes in Hannibal's cell wall are kind of just like the hole that Dolarhyde cut with the glass cutter
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:55 AM on July 24, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think the decor and layout of Hannibal's cell we've seen has been all in his head. I expect he's in a standard cell that he has transformed with his memory palace. I wonder when we'll see the reality, if ever.

That was confusing for me because there are the scenes that are clearly memory palace (Norman Chapel, Hannibal's office), but the room with the table seems like it may be real since it appears to be what Alana, Will, and Chilton experience too? Or yeah, it could still be Hannibal's vision of his cell, but I wouldn't expect him to see something so plain. Maybe that's his one slight concession to his unpleasant situation or something.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:56 AM on July 24, 2015


I'm so glad they didn't use this point as a mid-season where you wait five months for the second half.

I really wanted Jack and Will to meet up again on the beach as he tried to convince Will to come back. That would have been a pretty cool throw-back to Manhunter.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:03 AM on July 24, 2015


I was wanting the beach too. Give the man some vitamin D!
posted by h00py at 8:06 AM on July 24, 2015


Joking aside, I was really impressed by the way they filmed Dolarhyde's psychotic episodes. It reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's Spider (which is somewhat ironic, considering that it's not Ralph Fiennes portraying him in this version).
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:06 AM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm sure there's a bleak frozen lake in the vicinity. They could have used that.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:06 AM on July 24, 2015


Saw this pointed out elsewhere:

Alana figures out Hannibal was putting people in her beer, swears off all beer forever

Chilton figures out Hannibal was putting people in his dessert, shrugs, eats more dessert
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:15 AM on July 24, 2015 [32 favorites]


I'd been woefully behind on this show, so yesterday I caught up by watching episodes 2-7 and then re-reading 52% of Red Dragon in anticipation of this arc. As much as I love the book and Manhunter, the whole Jack-pulling-Will-back-into-the-shit scenes work so much better here. In the book and Manhunter you're thrust right into that from page/minute one, but here you have two and a half seasons of context to give it all weight. Also, there are so many little details they kept from the book with regards to Dolarhyde. The first shot of him is a close up of his finger curled over his lip, which is described exactly like that in the book. Plugging up his ears, the old ledger and the photo of him as a child with his grandmother that he tosses aside. My favorite detail was the shot of him standing in the moonlight, covered in blood, but the blood looks black, which is taken from a bit in the book where Lecter says to Will, "Have you seen blood in the moonlight, Will? It appears quite black. Of course, it keeps the distinctive sheen. If one were nude, say, it would be better to have outdoor privacy for that sort of thing."

Anyway, yeah, loved loved loved loved loved this episode, and can't wait for the rest of the season.
posted by Timmoy Daen at 8:19 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


I also quite liked that they switched Will's idyllic home from Florida to his cozy home in the land of perpetual snow. It would have felt too strange for show Will to be sitting on a log on a Florida beach in short shorts, gazing out at the sunset with his new life partner. This way seems to work much better. Also, I liked that they switched the location of the Leeds house to Buffalo, because, you know, Buffalo Bill and stuff.
posted by Timmoy Daen at 8:23 AM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, it's a good episode for sure, and more consistent. I just like a good 80s aesthetic, and Manhunter was all over that and sitting in the back of my mind for the last 30 or so years.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:38 AM on July 24, 2015


The end of this episode felt a bit rushed to me, especially after the big break-up just last episode. Why wouldn't Will struggle more with the decision of giving Hannibal what he wanted? Because he couldn't resist? I guess, but I would liked to have seen that conflict made perhaps a bit more clear. It just sortof felt like welp okay "this is my design" shrug better check with Hans
posted by likeatoaster at 8:42 AM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


No, I mean, why did she and Chilton lie about him being insane? Didn't they both admit to doing that in their scene together?

I'm going to play "guess the thing before I've seen the thing":

she wanted to retain control of Hannibal.

If she is the new head of the BSHCI, it's not like she'd have taken a job like that by accident. She would have sought it out, again in order to retain control of Hannibal.

Generally speaking, imprisonment is Alana's preferred method of treatment. She locked up Abigail and she locked up Will, and now she's locking up Hannibal. Abigail kept escaping, Will manipulated his way out, so Alana wants to make sure she's there at all times to make sure Hannibal doesn't give her the slip.

That would be my guess pending further info like, you know, actually seeing the thing.
posted by tel3path at 8:50 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


EternalWinterWilgram would never say Daddy-o. He might say, "I know I'm not your father, but..." a lot.

I must admit I spent a lot of this episode looking at props. I could have bought that giant light up Chinese tooth sign, or that silly wooden house on Wilgram's porch!
posted by yellowbinder at 9:21 AM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


This way seems to work much better. Also, I liked that they switched the location of the Leeds house to Buffalo, because, you know, Buffalo Bill and stuff.

I'm glad they can use the cheap(er) Canadian locations as a feature rather than a bug.

Why wouldn't Will struggle more with the decision of giving Hannibal what he wanted? Because he couldn't resist?

Or that a part of his brain was looking for an excuse (although it's probably the one-week break making me think that). Also how Will more or less immediately opened the letter from Hannibal right after Jack left and Molly went to sleep. Uh huh, you don't miss him and you don't want to think about him. Right.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:36 AM on July 24, 2015


I loved how Scott Thompson made his reappearance like he was Alfred on Twin Peaks.

Oh the cheek:

"Colons lose their novelty when overused."

and

"You, with your fancy allusions and your fussy aesthetics, will always have niche appeal."

Indeed.
posted by Catblack at 10:03 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


Hmmm, I wonder if I should take up scrap-booking.
posted by Pendragon at 10:15 AM on July 24, 2015


Fuck me, what a delightful start to something I've been looking forward to for quite some time now. I have some other stuff to comment on/respond to, but I think I'll stick that in a separate comment shortly and for now just post a cleaned up version of my notes from basically livetweeting the show to myself as I watched it for the first time:

- I've been fascinated by what Armitage is doing with his body movements from the first glimpses we've gotten... But there's a part of me that once it saw ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in his pose in front of the reproduction of the Blake painting hasn't been able to shake that. And sure enough, there it was again seeing it in the actual show.

- I understand people wanting a more drawn out trial and everything but ... Given how poorly the show did legal drama in S2, I'm way okay with that being glossed over. I thought the montage they did was a fucking delight. Perfectly chosen music and moments, and the bits of Tattle Crime flashing in the background evoking ... Now I'm blanking. I could swear one of the movies has a bunch of Hannibal The Cannibal newspaper clippings flashing under the opening titles. It's not Silence (that's Clarice jogging). Maybe I'm thinking of the Ratner Red Dragon, but I think that's Dollarhyde's notebook (which admittedly would have some Hannibal clips).

- The mind palace stuff with Hannibal's prison is fun. Put me in the "the cell we see with the table is real." It's contrasted a bunch with both Hannibal's office and the Chapel. How did Hannibal get such posh digs? I think he's made deals over the year for good behavior/it being theraputic. I think it's a sign of how differently Alana is handling him than Chilton did in the books etc. He's shown chained with the room empty when he first arrives, and then the fade through the passage of three years shows his room filled out. While I didn't mind the montage, I'm a little sad we didn't get to see Chilton being a gigantic shit to Hannibal (more on that in a bit).

- "Betrayed by good taste." Bitch, please. You were not even trying to hide.

- The "who" vs "what" lines about the beer was a delight. Rubbing Alana's nose in it just to be kind of a dick.

- I love that the distorted face motif is returning with Dolarhyde. It was kind of a given just because of how Dolarhyde treats mirrors in the book and what not, but given how much the show's already done interesting stuff with that, having it come through again here makes it feel nicely of a piece with the rest of the show.

- WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THAT NOISE RICHARD MADE. It was ... blood-curdling. Cut to ... UH. RICHARD, THAT IS KIND OF A LOT OF BLOOD. Bryan did a screening of 3x08 last night with a Q&A after. One of the funnier tidbits is that Armitage refused to use a stand in for this aftermath scene where Hugh's not shown such, uh, commitment. To be fair, Dancy's been dealing with filming outside in the winter in Toronto for much longer.

- The dessert scene with Chilton was even more delightful than the one with Alana. Someone already pointed out that Alana swore off beer for forever, where Chilton just ... makes a face and chooses to keep eating what he knows is now safe (but still delicious). Esparza's face at the cow line was absolutely priceless, as was Hannibal's little smirk. He's such a happy piece of shit in these scenes. It reminded me a little of his grinning through dinner with Mason, but here I think it's not entirely to piss anyone off (his words are for that). I think he's genuinely relaxed since he doesn't have to hide anymore.

- I do wonder who prepared it though like others. The plating and everything makes me think they let Hannibal cook? Or perhaps direct a cook since WHY WOULD YOU LET HIM HANDLE KNIVES? Also, the plastic spoons... SO FANCY! And seemingly so breakable into a sharp object? I think unlike book!Hannibal and certain movie incarnations, this Hannibal hasn't been attacking the guards or anything. He's been a well-behaved cannibal (so far). No sign of the "in the pantry" monster (yet).

- Chilton gets a bit of revenge for the cow line though, needling Hannibal's pride. Chilton's a certain kind of hapless, but he's not stupid, and the way he's approaching this is pretty smart/insightful. At the Q&A mentioned previously, Bryan said the "you'll always have niche appeal" line was a bit of a shout out to us, the fans.

- RICHARD YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO PRESS LEAVES SND SHIT WHEN YOU SCRAPBOOK. WHAT THE HECK. (I know exactly what the heck as this is in every version, as it should be, but dang).

- PUUUUUPPPPPIIIEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS \o/

- Of course Will's happiness is short-lived (on screen, presumably he's been happy for a couple years now at least). The "aw fuck" on his face is palpable when he sees who's pulling up.

- I liked Jack's line about being let inside. Will only lets Hannibal inside (cough), Jack. You should know that by now! Also, Jack: Three years later, still a manipulative, pushy piece of shit!

- I saw the casting news but strangely not any pictures of who was playing Molly before the dinner scene (or I've forgotten). She's so cute! And she plays the dinner scene wonderfully. GOOD JOB, CASTING PEOPLE. Of course that feeling turns to ash a bit a few minutes later when Jack pulls the same shit on her that he did on Will outside. Jack's not stupid (or at least is only stupid in a very particular way), he knows exactly what he's doing. For all that Molly wasn't having his shit during dinner... The picture gets her. :(

- I had a strong "MOLLY, NO, DON'T DO JACK'S JOB FOR HIM" to the conversation between her and Will... But at the same time I accepted it and recognized it as inevitable. I forget if she's the one who pushes him back out into the world in the book/other versions, but it makes sense to me that in this version it's literally the only way it would ever happen.

- "I'll be different when I get back." Will, honey, I'm pretty sure neither you nor I have any idea at this point. :(

- Of course Will didn't do the sensible thing and burn his ex-murder husband's love letters. Goddammit, Will, you probably didn't even block him on Facebook or anything.

- Fuller's said elsewhere that while it's true that the pilot opens with Dolarhyde's first try at killing, they're not going to explicitly state that anywhere or anything because there just wasn't time/space. We're just left with it perhaps implied by the "attack on a family" thing with the wife left alive where the husband's dead. So Will visits the most recent Dolarhyde crime scene and... At first I thought he was breaking and entering, which was jarring. It wasn't until he pulls out the crime scene report that I put together that like in the book he's come here with permission and has chosen to visit at night.

- The thing they did with the flashlight revealing the crime scene only where the beam was strongest is SUCH A COOL EFFECT. Also, Jesus, Richard, you made a mess. D:

- You sort of knew it was coming, especially once Will entered the parents' bedroom... But I started getting antsy the moment the weird rustling noise started rising to a climax and Will was clearly pushing himself towards... You knew exactly what. This is literally what I wrote when it happened excited typo and all: REUNITED WITH THE FWUM ABD IT FEELS SO GOOD

- Will backing out the house and then breaking in as Dolarhyde did felt like enough of a callback to the pilot for me. And that "FEELS SO GOOD" turned to ash quickly because god fucking damn is this a particularly brutal empathing. I think it's because a few touches aside this crime isn't an Art Murder the way others have been. It makes sense. Dolarhyde's not "elevated" the way other killers have been, certainly not the way Hannibal's displays were. This is ugly and horrible and the empathing reflects that.

- AH. It was mirrors on the eyes and mouths. Those shots were in trailers but it was never clear to me what was going on there. It just looked like the people were missing those things in some bizarre way. Mirror shards make sense and I dunno why I never guessed that. It's a really, really striking/scary visual done just right.

- The shot of Will at the foot of the bed with the blood trajectory strings for wings is something I won't forget for some time. Perfect shot.

- Why is Jimmy in a librar-OH. And a Freddie shout out! Price and Zeller are SO. FUCKING. CUTE. In this autopsy scene. They've been absent so long for good reason, I'm so glad they gave them a reintroduction that really just let Thompson and Abrams have fun for 2 minutes uninterrupted.

- Will will never, ever look happy in the FBI lab except in gag reels. :(

- Will, why are you drinking before sleep, the last time you did that, you went on a night time stroll with the Ravenstag and Winston. The effect with the photos is incredible though. Will seems so lost at the moment despite the empathing....

- "Please don't worry about the dog." FUCK YOU, JACK. "What did you expect me to do..." lol

- Of course those were the last lines of the episode. Of course. What was that music when they first see each other? That felt so familiar... But I couldn't place where I'd heard it before and don't know classical music well enough.

- Anyway, FUCKING. YEAH. This was a great episode. I've had such high hopes for this chunk of the season and this was everything I wanted from a first chunk of it.

There endeth notes. A few more things in a bit in a separate comment.
posted by sparkletone at 10:35 AM on July 24, 2015 [11 favorites]


Remember in the very first episode, where Will is faced with a grieving mother and father who know their daughter has probably been kidnapped by a serial killer, and is all "yeah yeah, how's the cat?"
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:41 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


The post-mortem with Scott Thompson is already up. It's an increeedibly short one.

Also when it comes to bringing levity to this new stuff, tumblr is already at work. I was also amused by this which I hadn't seen before last night. "Tell him the good news," indeed. There's also this one about Will's dogs that doesn't directly relate to this episode but which I thought was cute.
posted by sparkletone at 10:45 AM on July 24, 2015


Remember in the very first episode, where Will is faced with a grieving mother and father who know their daughter has probably been kidnapped by a serial killer, and is all "yeah yeah, how's the cat?"

There was a reason for that beyond him wanting to adopt the cat!

More thoughts unrelated to that:

I was shocked by the branding of Hannibal by Mason (something that doesn't happen in the books), and am wondering if they're going to bring it up at any point. The makeup for showing the brand is probably time-consuming to put on either practically or digitally so I don't really expect them to show it... But I wonder if that is a point of shame for Hannibal as he has never and will never see himself as merely a pig, or if he somehow bonds with Francis over having beastly marks on their back. Dolarhyde's I remember as being much more a source of ... pride isn't exactly the right word, but it's not far off. It's a mark of his transformation's progress.

Also, presumably next week they're going to do a variation of the "you know how I caught you? You're insane" conversation from the book... But I don't see quite how they'll flip it. Will trying that shit with Hannibal in this version would have it thrown back in his face in the most "takes one to know one" way ever at this point and, well... Given how big a fear that was of many people's in S1... Uhhhhhh. It's definitely worse now. Maybe that's exactly what happens.
posted by sparkletone at 10:49 AM on July 24, 2015


There was a reason for that beyond him wanting to adopt the cat!

No, yeah, exactly!
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:53 AM on July 24, 2015


The end of this episode felt a bit rushed to me, especially after the big break-up just last episode. Why wouldn't Will struggle more with the decision of giving Hannibal what he wanted?

Nope, nope, nope, nope (imo). Yeah, there's practical reasons for this outside the show (got a lot to do in not a lot of episodes). But I think it makes perfect sense in-show as well. Someone else put it very, very well and since it's not a long post:
I don’t think he jumped at it at all. He’s admitting to himself he needs to use all the tools at his disposal.

He is clearly agitated by deconstructing the crime in the Leeds’ house. Closer to the distress and fear we saw in Entree and Buffet Froid.

Nothing like the confidence that we saw in the second half of S2, or even with the Broken Heart/Hart in Primavera. He’s terrified.

In the lab, Jack asks him, “What’s he fighting,” Will just has no clue, he can’t even open his mind to it.
His vision in the motel room is of no use to him. He sees himself floating in a universe of crime scene photos, motionless, paralyzed, powerless. He’s trapped.

He’s committed to try to help. Molly has asked him to help. But he can’t, not yet. Not until he recovers the mindset.

He’s not going because he wants to see Hannibal, he’s going because if he’s going to go back into this, his going to use the tools he has to do it successfully.
I think that's exactly right. The Will we see trying to put the pieces together can't quite Do The Thing yet. He puts together how the crime happened, but doesn't gain any insight into the person the way he used to. As the person above notes, Jack asks him what they're up against and he has no answer. And I mentioned in my notes from before I'd seen this post that Will seemed lost in the photos. He knows from the ~lurrrve~ letter that Hannibal will have some thoughts, and we know it even more so because Chilton hits up Hannibal for some insight as well.

Will's gotta do what Will's gotta do and I think he knew even before he left his cabin in the woods that this was likely going to be a necessity. It's why he went straight to the letter once Molly was asleep.
posted by sparkletone at 10:55 AM on July 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


Also, presumably next week they're going to do a variation of the "you know how I caught you? You're insane" conversation from the book... But I don't see quite how they'll flip it.

Hmm. So, it wouldn't quite make sense for Hannibal to say "do you know how you caught me, Will?" because Will DIDN'T catch him, not in the same sense that he caught him in the book and movies. But Will's response still works perfectly well if you do it like this:

"Do you know why I turned myself in, Will?"
"Passion. And... you're insane."
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:01 AM on July 24, 2015


"Do you know why I turned myself in, Will?"

"Because I've got the booty."
posted by sparkletone at 11:03 AM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


RICHARD YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO PRESS LEAVES AND SHIT WHEN YOU SCRAPBOOK. WHAT THE HECK.

The prospect of bumping into Francis is just one more reason to steer clear of Hobby Lobby. I'm probably way in the minority on this, but the only thing creepier than his scrapbook is regular scrapbooks.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:06 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


Three years later, still a manipulative, pushy piece of shit!

Still in Mouthing Off About Stuff I Haven't Seen Yet mode:

When Jack came rolling up in a squad car last week, I got a sense of "at least one actual law enforcer exists in this world now. This is the return of some semblance of order".

And, like, if Jack is literally the only law enforcer in the USA, you can understand why he'd continue to give it his all, now that this has been so forcefully impressed upon him.

tl;dr Jack may be a bastard law enforcer, but he's proof law enforcement exists, so.
posted by tel3path at 11:10 AM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I haven't seen Red Dragon, but I've seen Manhunter, and I love how differently they played the crime reconstruction.

Manhunter, Will's talking to a recorder and he says all of this:
You moved the kids after you killed them, didn't you? Did you arrange them for your performance with Mrs. Leeds on their bed? Did you tie Mr. Leeds sitting up in bed? That's the postmortem ligature on his chest. Did you make them your audience? Did you open their eyes? There is something you can't afford for me to know about. Isn't there? Mrs. Leeds was lovely, wasn't she? It was maddening to have to wear gloves when you touched her, wasn't it?

There was talcum powder on her leg. There was no talcum powder in the bathroom.

The powder they found came out of a rubber glove as you pulled it off to touch her. You took off your glove to touch her. DIDN'T YOU, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH?! You touched her with your bare hands! And then you put the gloves back on. And you wiped her down! While your gloves were off? DID YOU OPEN THEIR EYES? THEIR DEAD EYES?!
And in this episode, very simply:
I moved the family after they were dead and later put them back where they were when I killed them.

Talcum powder on the body. There's none in the house.

I have to touch her.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:10 AM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


I have to touch her.

Bryan's promised they were never going to cross the line to sexual assault stuff, and when asked at SDCC about how they were going to handle Dolarhyde, he said they were going to downplay that aspect and make it more about the assault on the family unit... But that you could kinda read into it if you wanted to, but he doesn't think you should and they're not going to go over that line. I think at least at this point with this one crime scene they did a great job of toeing up to the line but not going over. That one line is absolutely chilling and says all it needs to without saying too much. They can leave it right here and be just fine.
posted by sparkletone at 11:15 AM on July 24, 2015 [6 favorites]


It's really startling how differently dead women and the crimes against them are filmed/written on this show vs. pretty much every other one, especially uber-exploitative trash like Criminal Minds that employ the Psycho-Rapist Gaze.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:24 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


Remember how at the beginning of the show, Will and Hannibal were 'Will' and 'Doctor Lecter' to each other because Hannibal was in a position of authority and power over Will, his patient?

Then it was 'Will' and 'Hannibal' once they became close.

Now it's 'Will' and 'Doctor Lecter' again because WILL is in the position of power - Hannibal wants that close relationship back and Will is actively rejecting it (well, for the next five seconds or so, anyway)
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2015


It's really startling how differently dead women and the crimes against them are filmed/written on this show vs. pretty much every other one, especially uber-exploitative trash like Criminal Minds that employ the Psycho-Rapist Gaze.

I can't pretend I haven't watched Criminal Minds - my whole family are suckers for basically any crime procedural - but, well, Mandy Patinkin said it best
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:28 AM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


I think unlike book!Hannibal and certain movie incarnations, this Hannibal hasn't been attacking the guards or anything. He's been a well-behaved cannibal (so far).

In the books/movies, for the first two years, he was a model prisoner...
posted by tel3path at 11:28 AM on July 24, 2015


I can't pretend I haven't watched Criminal Minds - my whole family are suckers for basically any crime procedural - but, well, Mandy Patinkin said it best.

Oh yeah, I've watched it too (while feeling like a horrible person), although I pretty much swore it off after they did this one lengthy lingering heave-worthy shot of a scantily clad cadaver in a ditch like she was a piece of strudel or something. And oh geez, in the Daniel Travanti with Alzheimer's episode, there were big hunks shot from angles that encouraged us to identify with the killer's enjoyment of his victim's suffering [shudder]. Mandy Patinkin can be a prima donna, but I admired the fuck out of him for quitting the show and saying that.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:36 AM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Now it's 'Will' and 'Doctor Lecter' again because WILL is in the position of power - Hannibal wants that close relationship back and Will is actively rejecting it (well, for the next five seconds or so, anyway)

I suspect Hannibal doesn't even think of the intimacy as being gone since of course his feelings haven't changed. Jumping three years in a week, skipping the trial and associated hoopla and Will's acquisition of a new life, etc., reinforces just how beside the point the intervening time and those trivial externals are to him (and the show overall, I guess) in the grand scheme.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:58 AM on July 24, 2015


And in your latest instalment of "speculating about stuff I haven't actually seen" isn't Hannibal's cell half of Chilton's/Alana's office, divided off?

This would mean one of two things:

Alana REALLY wants to keep a close eye on Hannibal.

or

Hannibal is imagining himself as the head of the BSHCI. And I'm not too sure about the imagining part.
posted by tel3path at 12:01 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


And in your latest instalment of "speculating about stuff I haven't actually seen" isn't Hannibal's cell half of Chilton's/Alana's office, divided off?

No. There was some zaprudering of bits from the trailer on twitter between me, Whelk and Cleolinda a week or two ago. Notably, the bit above the fireplace in Hannibal's cell is different than the one in the office. If you compare Alana's office to this shot in season 1, all Alana's done is some redecorating. Most notably, she's moved the desk to the other end of the room. I don't think Hannibal's just on the other side of a wall from her office.

That said, I do think it is a similar room in the above ground portion of the building. (To reiterate I don't think his room on the other side of the glass is head palace. That's the chapel and his office.) I can't decide whether my headcanon is he earned the nicer digs through good behavior or not. I do think it's smart to keep him very, very separated from other people being kept in BSHCI, and I hope that part of putting him that nicer room was taking the time to build extra hardcore security precautions. No Miggs next door for our Fancy Cannibal, at least not for the forseeable future.

That they're blatantly visually similar though is a wonderful touch that I find very amusing. I hope they do something with it beyond just a funny visual.
posted by sparkletone at 12:11 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I can't decide whether my headcanon is he earned the nicer digs through good behavior or not. I do think it's smart to keep him very, very separated from other people being kept in BSHCI, and I hope that part of putting him that nicer room was taking the time to build extra hardcore security precautions.

The segregation and security thing makes a lot of sense. Also, Alana's "I wouldn't mind seeing Hannibal tortured" shtick may sum up how she feels about him as a person in her life, but she's pretty scrupulous about the humane treatment of patients/prisoners in her professional care, hence her distaste for Chilton's antics from day one. I suspect that the whole dank Victorian madhouse has had a makeover during her administration.

If it is real, what a slap in the face Hannibal's cell must be for Will compared with his cruddy basement hole and the visiting room cages. It's hilarious that Fuller used all the canonical Hannibal props and set decoration for Will but not (thus far) for Hannibal the Refined Upper-Crust Predator.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:31 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'll talk more about it come Saturday but

My GOD, everything about that just exuded confidence and skill, everything is working SO WELL, It really feels like everything was leading up to this. I feel like I'm in such capable hands and i am SO READY.

I also have a thoughts on the Cannibal Prison Suite - I think it's another 2001 reference AND a way to reference the one type of Hannibal Lecter Cell we haven't seen on the show yet --- Lecter's glass cube in the fancy surroundings in the Silence Of The Lambs Movie
posted by The Whelk at 2:05 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


I also have a thoughts on the Cannibal Prison Suite - I think it's another 2001 reference

omg

omg
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:11 PM on July 24, 2015


...and what does the monolith do? It changes people....
posted by The Whelk at 2:12 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


I also loved all the talking to the audience

"You're too niche" and "Stop worrying about the dog!"
posted by The Whelk at 2:14 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I also have a thoughts on the Cannibal Prison Suite - I think it's another 2001 reference

YEEAAAHHHHHHHH.
posted by sparkletone at 2:15 PM on July 24, 2015


... That second picture Liz posted is the first time I've noticed Hannibal's little prison toilet over in the corner. It's even placed so he can at least somewhat ~cover his shame~ while he's using it without it being completely obscured from vision of the guards/security cameras lol.

I'm a little sad he won't be making friends with Concerned Sink.
posted by sparkletone at 2:16 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


Also I've made that dessert it's delicious
posted by The Whelk at 2:16 PM on July 24, 2015


Fuller does a mini video tour of Hannibal's cell, including a leetle spoiler or two, as well as Dolarhyde's attic.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:06 PM on July 24, 2015


Directed by Neil Marshall, notable for doing the big action section set-piece episodes on Game Of Thrones - ' Blackwater' and 'The Watchers on the Wall'. Not sure how much of this was him but there were lovely touches like the repeated circles. I'm sure the teeth virtually rattling in the glass at the end had to one his ideas though!

(And as an aside I'd wish he'd make another film... his last few were a bit ropey in places but Dog Soldiers and The Descent was brilliant).
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:49 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm so mad I didn't see this got posted until I was somewhere far too public to watch it with audio.
posted by sparkletone at 9:25 PM on July 24, 2015


And in this episode, very simply:

I liked the economy with words. It is, to quote a phrase I once heard, devoid of filler.
posted by Bringer Tom at 9:47 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Another thing about Will's economical rewording: In the novel Will is talking to the absent Dolarhyde in the second person, and tentatively: This is what you did, didn't you?

In this version, Will is becoming Dolarhyde. He is speaking in the first person and definitely, without hesitation or doubt, as he puts each piece of the puzzle together. I did this. This is my design.

And this, of course, is the true horror for Will Graham, as explicitly stated by Harris. Because Will isn't ever entirely certain he will stop being what he has become in the course of these exercises.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:17 AM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh frak! CityTV is just hanging and I have to pay for ZenMate to lie that I'm in Canada. (I'm a Canadian citizen! they can't do this to me!)

Just have to wait till tomorrow I guess.
posted by tel3path at 12:16 PM on July 25, 2015


tel3path, I was able to watch it yesterday via this YouTube channel; unlike most search hits it's not a scam directing you to a sketchier service, but it's got odd (easily skippable) commercial breaks and I can't seem to get to it via my phone to stream to the chromecast: Hannibal
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:21 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Something compelled me to change the color of this thing I found on my tumblr dash from blue to... Well. You'll see.
posted by sparkletone at 5:06 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Couple of random rewatch things: Dolarhyde's scrapbook is so beautifully childlike, from the There Came a Great Red Dragon title page right down to the pot of kindergarten paste/glue he uses to add his latest clippings.

When Will does his initial pre-empathy walkthrough of the Leeds house, all the music is predictably unsettling, but after he passes the piano and starts up the stairs, there's a ghostly "finger exercise" melody added for a few bars, as if we're hearing an echo of the life in the house.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:12 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


the pot of kindergarten paste/glue he uses to add his latest clippings.

One thing I edited out when cleaning up my notes because I'd already talked about the way Richard Armitage moves in the episode was a bit about how... Furtive? Child-like? Both? His movements are when he's adding something to his notebook. He practically lunges for the glue like he needs to hurry in case he gets found out.
posted by sparkletone at 5:17 PM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Also, love the back-and-forth bits of Dolarhyde cutting his clippings out of the paper with scissors vs. Not-Allowed-to-Have-Scissors Hannibal me-TIC-ulously tearing the same clipping out of the paper to send to Will.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:18 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


He practically lunges for the glue like he needs to hurry in case he gets found out.

He also knocks over the glass with the pens etc. grabbing the marker to black out Tooth Fairy!
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:22 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


And once again, The Whelk knows all.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:15 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Never occurred to me till tonight's airing that Will showing up halfway through kinda parallels Hannibal not showing up till mid-way through the pilot.
posted by sparkletone at 7:18 PM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Awww man remember the early days when Hannibal was just there and you knew he was bad because he's Hannibal Lecter and the show is named after him, and he'd make comments and serve dinners, but he didn't really do many sketchy/evil things for the first 5 or 6 episodes? That anticipation was so sweet.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:27 PM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]




That anticipation was so sweet.

People got incredibly mad when he slammed Alana's head into a wall because they'd talked themselves into believing he wasn't really The Devil.
posted by sparkletone at 7:29 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


And once again, The Whelk knows all.

I was just about to say this, too.
posted by crossoverman at 7:33 PM on July 25, 2015


"I'll be different when I get back."

"If I get back."

"Btw, did I mention that the last time I disappointed the person in the Washington DC vicinity whom we're so studiously not mentioning in this conversation, he expressed his sadness by murdering my surrogate-adoptive daughter?"
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:39 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I WANT THAT FUCKING PUDDING
posted by poffin boffin at 8:01 PM on July 25, 2015


WHO MUST I SLAY
posted by poffin boffin at 8:02 PM on July 25, 2015


Sepinwall's review is up. "A promising start to this new arc."
posted by sparkletone at 8:03 PM on July 25, 2015


"Amazing quiet performance by @RCArmitage in #Hannibal. Like a Charlie Chaplin movie only instead of pratfalls it's a naked tattooed lunatic." -- Aaron Abrams.
posted by sparkletone at 8:07 PM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


about halfway through i realized how facially similar raul esparza is to dickie arms. i feel like fuller never does anything accidentally so wHY
posted by poffin boffin at 8:18 PM on July 25, 2015


Bringer Tom: In this version, Will is becoming Dolarhyde. He is speaking in the first person and definitely, without hesitation or doubt, as he puts each piece of the puzzle together. I did this. This is my design.

Actually, listen again. When Will says that, I'm damned sure he actually says "isn't" this go around.


Someone please tell me I'm wrong.
posted by coriolisdave at 8:18 PM on July 25, 2015


Someone please tell me I'm wrong.

I saw someone on tumblr saying this yesterday, but I just... don't hear it. I've listened about 5 times over. I think if it was an "isn't," that's a major enough change that it would've been noted by Bryan and everyone during the livetwet tonight. It's the usual line.
posted by sparkletone at 8:19 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Random tangential thought: Do we know if Bryan or anyone has ever seen Greg Nog's puppet videos? I think they'd all adore them.
posted by sparkletone at 8:20 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wait, those are puppets?
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:28 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]




Wait, those are puppets?

Yes. Of Bryan Fuller's. He's the showrunner after all.
posted by sparkletone at 8:52 PM on July 25, 2015


That's not glue/paste, friends.

It's rubber cement. You use glue to permanately affix. Using rubber cement means you can move/remove the elements on the page. Chew on that for a second.

/yearbook editor pedant observation
posted by blessedlyndie at 8:54 PM on July 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


He was really globbing it on there too. I was worried about the pages getting stuck together!
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:57 PM on July 25, 2015


I KNOW that kind of ruined the moment for me tbh, dolarhyde would not have been so sloppy.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:01 PM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


He was only globbing (is that a word?) at the middle of what he was affixing and globbing (ok, I've accepted this as a word) is what you do with rubber cement. Then you smooth it out with your hand. Even if the affixing medium bled (HAHAHA!) over to the facing pages it'd be trivially easy to unstick them.

I'm focusing on tiny details that no one cares about! Finally, after 8+ years of membership, I'm a true Mefite!
posted by blessedlyndie at 9:11 PM on July 25, 2015 [11 favorites]


it is the positions of the globs that were untidy, not the amounts he was using. the second one he pasted in had like a full finger's width of goo sticking out from under it on the bottom.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:18 PM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


the second one he pasted in had like a full finger's width of goo sticking out from under it on the bottom.

That's part of why it seemed like a kid's art project -- more enthusiasm than fine motor control, like all the glunky papier mache and decoupage crap my sisters and I made in grade school.

Armitage really has the fidgety pained dysmorphic vibe down: all stressed and dissatisfied and never at peace (except maybe for a second in those horrible moonlight moments), like a tall fit colicky baby or when you have a sunburn or something and just can't find a comfortable position. Between that and the deafening shit in his head, he must be tired all the time.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:30 PM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]




Just get a load of Chilton's fucking face

Oh Chilton

"Oh, you survived defenstration! How nice! I got half my bowels and half my face!"

Does anyone else feel like Chilton is the voice of reason in this episode? He seems like such a 180 degree turn from canon.
posted by blessedlyndie at 9:56 PM on July 25, 2015


I KNOW that kind of ruined the moment for me tbh, dolarhyde would not have been so sloppy

But Dolarhyde is absolutely sloppy and gloppy. He's only pretending, on the outside, to be neat and clean.
posted by blessedlyndie at 10:01 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I somehow missed this factoid in the east coast tweeting and can't stop laughing at the mental image it creates.
posted by sparkletone at 10:09 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


AV Club with the A-.
posted by sparkletone at 12:42 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does anyone else feel like Chilton is the voice of reason in this episode? He seems like such a 180 degree turn from canon.

I almost wonder if they aren't straying too far away from canon when it comes to Chilton. Book!Chilton certainly wasn't a character that could serve as an audience surrogate the way Show!Chilton does. I really enjoy Esparza's performance, but he is just too darn likable.
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 2:37 AM on July 26, 2015


He is and remains a smug, slimy shit. Alana might've lied about Hannibal to repay him for his role in eliminating Mason.... Chilton did it to cash in. Alana did the smallest lie she could, Mason wrote a whole dang book.

Yes, he's been molded into comic relief and an occasional audience surrogate... But let's not lose sight of who he is and always has been deep down. The way he treated past patients, including Will, etc etc. The way he bargained with Hannibal for mutual ass-covering regarding their more openly unethical treatments. He did try to bargain with Mason too. He just got shut down because he's hapless, feckless even and even a totally disgusting wackjob like Mason can see it.

What they've done with him is another delightful flip of expectations/past versions. He's still slimy, petty (WHY SIT IN ALAN'S CHAIR), a coward... But he's not JUST those things now. It's great, and Esparza's performance is what makes it work. It'd fall so flat with anyone else.
posted by sparkletone at 3:08 AM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Finally watching...

I feel inspired to work out more, put it that way.

Also, shows you what it feels like to have an obsession like Dolarhyde's while holding down a regular job, surrounded by normal people, and having a boss. It's like the Dragon is permanently scratching to break through his skin.
posted by tel3path at 3:48 AM on July 26, 2015


After reading the reviews I have to say that I love the fact that the Dragon trying to talk to Dolarhyde is obscured sometimes by the score. It's perfect.
posted by h00py at 3:55 AM on July 26, 2015


I am speculating about the breaking glass theme... wonder if it's through the looking glass.

Let's not forget that Mason died by breaking glass and falling through it, and Alana helped.

Richard Armitage wins at being the Red Dragon. This is the ONLY rendition that comes close.

He also has the ability to convince us that he could look like a nebbish to his coworkers while being anything but in reality.
posted by tel3path at 3:56 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


YEAH. It is the loss of narcissistic supply that has provoked Hannibal to write to Will now, of all moments.

Chilton deliberately incited him, because he wants another book.

Yeah, Hannibal's fancy cell is real, no doubt about it. Alana had to lie about his mental status and get him all these concessions because he covered up her killing of Mason Verger. Unlike Will Graham's opinion, Hannibal's opinion still carries weight in psychiatric circles. One (more) reason Alana had to take the job in the BSHCI is that more prestigious jobs were not available to her. The FBI will certainly not want her back. But I'm guessing the primary reason for Alana's being there is obsession with Hannibal.
posted by tel3path at 4:15 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I literally didn't catch any of the imagined sounds at all my first time through. Realized viewing two and now dunno why I didn't realize what was going on. Hence why I generally watch twice the first night, I get so overwhelmed I miss things!

As for the broken glass thing.... Well. That's taken straight out of the book. Dolarhyde smashes mirrors because he hates them. When he looks in them he sees the inferior man he's trying to transcend. As for the show... I think they're taking that wholesale and not changing it at all. There's no "through the looking glass." The nature of Mason's death isn't a factor.

But! As I got at in earlier comments they found a great way to link it up and make it part of a motif the show's had for ages: Distorted faces. They make it super literal/obvious too. The way the fractured mirror results in multiple Dolarhyde fragments has been something we've been shown in Will's perspective a number of times. It's so well done.

Like The Whelk said: We're back where we started on some levels but with 2.5 seasons of baggage and meaning and motifs and all that to lean on and to lift it above mere procedural. It's so good.

Literally the show's been becoming and now we're hopefully at that peak and in for a fucking HELL (in all senses) of a send off, should this be it.
posted by sparkletone at 4:21 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, now I know why Will goes back: it's because Molly tells him to go, and Hannibal tells him not to. (Note that Molly was leaning over his *right* shoulder)

Also, not sure it's a great idea to give Hannibal something as sharp as a pencil.

You can see a distinct spark of happiness in Will's face before Jack's car pulls up.

FUCK YOU JACK. If you were ANY GOOD AT YOUR JOB

Also, what does Will have on the porch? A CHAIR MADE OF ANTLERS

Srsly Molly, what the fuck is wrong with you. WTF WTF. The only thing I can think of is you're getting your husband to walk off a glass cliff so your marriage will be over and you won't have to deal with his trauma.

I say this in a superficial sense: Nina Arianda isn't as beautiful as Hugh Dancy. [1] I like that they've put them together, because that never happens.

I like that she's a no-nonsense plain speaker, but for goodness sake Molly. Do you actually know what you're saying here?

It really shows, doesn't it, that Will is deeply affected by the company he keeps. No sooner does he get away from that shower of dysfunctional weirdos than he reverts to his best and sanest self, reinforced and upheld by Molly. The trouble is that his best self is now at war with his sanest self, because his best self wants him to go back into the field and his sanest self says "fuck off Jack".

SERIOUSLY MOLLY WHY TF WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO HIM ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND DO YOU EVER READ THE PAPERS DO YOU ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY, ACTUALLY SUGGESTING.

HE IS GOING TO GET BACK TOGETHER WITH HIS EX, MOLLY



[1] By the dumbest, most superficial scale of values; and I'm not talking esoterically here or waxing sentimental, just, you know what I mean.
posted by tel3path at 4:32 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah I know the broken glass is in the book. But Alana went through broken glass, the firefly man was decorated with broken glass, Mason went through broken glass, and more stuff I can't remember off the top of my head. Your point about distorted faces is a really good one, but I also think there's a sense of 'breakthrough' or 'passing between worlds/versions of self' going on here.
posted by tel3path at 4:34 AM on July 26, 2015


And Hannibal got pushed through glass in a cabinet; later Will looked at his reflection in another of those cabinets as he talked about the part of himself that would always want to go with Hannibal.
posted by tel3path at 4:35 AM on July 26, 2015


Wow, that reconstruction was interesting. Will really was having trouble getting started there. He wasn't kidding when he said he didn't want to think about Hannibal any more. What he did was, he pursued his obsession until he was literally bored with it.

I'd like to hope that's what Alana's doing too, but I'm worried for her. It seems like Hannibal has her wrapped around his little finger. Yeah you could argue She's Known Him Longest, Best Placed To Guard Him but after all she's been through, is this really what there is for Alana? Living her life as Hannibal's guard dog? Just like she was before, but now under even unhappier conditions? What if he gets one over on her again? Damages what's left of her reputation, again? Unless... Chilton tries something nefarious. (And speaking of, it's pretty clear Hannibal is more enjoying Chilton's attention than not.) (Also, gratuitously putting blood into dishes you'd expect to be vegetarian? Was this before or after Chilton's innards got made into decorative garlands? Did Chilton always get slight digestive upset after eating at Hannibal's but was never 100% sure why?)

Also, the wine... in addition to not being beer, it makes her more like Hannibal. Just like the trouser suits do.

Speaking of things in common, getting up to protect the children while losing great gouts of blood is something Will has in common with Mr. Leeds.

I admittedly slept through the movie Red Dragon but in previous versions I've seen, what we saw of the crime in the Leeds house focussed only on Mrs. Leeds, and then only briefly. We didn't see Mr. Leeds' struggle, and for good reason we didn't see the two children being killed. It was disturbing to hear the second child crying, but at least it was mercifully brief.

Seeing Will with the red string wings... that, to me, suggests that he is recovering the mindset somewhat. Based on what I've seen so far he's not (yet) quite justified in reconnecting with his ex...
posted by tel3path at 5:02 AM on July 26, 2015


I somehow missed this factoid in the east coast tweeting and can't stop laughing at the mental image it creates.

Drums?! DRUMS?! DRUMS?!?!??!?!
posted by blessedlyndie at 5:05 AM on July 26, 2015


Woooooooahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


HELLO DR LECTER


it was all worth it

(for us i mean, probably not for will)
posted by tel3path at 5:10 AM on July 26, 2015


omg

they really justified it this time. Not like "oh, Hannibal is just that toxic, he has super toxic powers" but

well need i say more.
posted by tel3path at 5:11 AM on July 26, 2015


omg
posted by tel3path at 5:13 AM on July 26, 2015


omg

that's it.

The definitive onscreen Red Dragon.
posted by tel3path at 5:14 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Todd VanDerWerff goes a bit listicle but the gist is he really loved this episode.
posted by sparkletone at 6:05 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh right, sanguinaccio dolce IS supposed to have blood in it. I am a bit slow on the uptake, but then we said the same about those who never noticed it rhymes, didn't we? Like how was i to know i was in a recipe called Hannibal

but

THEY FINALLY GOT THE RED DRAGON RIGHT

AND IT TOOK ONLY TWO AND A HALF SEASONS TO JUSTIFY WHY WILL GRAHAM GOT INTO THIS JAM

sparkletone, what you said about distorted faces reinforces my fear for Wilgram's beautiful face. I guess it would be bold if a TV show let its hero become facially disfigured and went through with it, showing genuine commitment. I just... don't really look forward to that...
posted by tel3path at 6:08 AM on July 26, 2015


Butoh isn't "ancient" like RA says, it's contemporary?

You know, it dawns on me that I haven't seen butoh before. Or now, even. That is a weird realization to me. I started subscribing to Dance Magazine back in 1987-8 (and had to do things like phoning New York because my issue hadn't arrived and I'd had no acknowledgement and all we had was snail mail so I had no way of knowing my order status) and it was just about then that butoh was starting to get press coverage in the West.

In fact, it was the newest cool thing for the cool kids to know about it. But... I could only read about it, I had no way of knowing what it was really like, because it was never shown on television. I should remedy that now that we have the interwebs and the youtubes.
posted by tel3path at 6:13 AM on July 26, 2015


As to Molly: my read is that she does have a very real sense of what is being asked of Will. Does she know the SUPER GAY but HEAD SAW extremes? I sort of think no. I think Will was honest about the emotional weight this shit carries with him but didn't labor her with specifics. That would be ... Cruel.

My head canon (maybe born out by the book?) is that it was a year before he met her. He was able to honestly present himself to her as someone with a deeply troubled past but reformed (see also any number of perfectly good addiction recovery narratives). "If I struggle with some things it's because I've been through some trauma but let's talk it out and we can be okay." And eventually they hit a super delightful equilibrium.

Jack pulls a shitty trick on Will with the family pic. "What if it was your family." Molly won't let him do it at the dinner table....... But listens later .... But on some level she knows Will won't be happy sitting back. Hannibal nudges Will in his own way. Bu that isn't pertinent.

Molly understands the pressure Will finds himself under yet has no notion of the worst case scenario. She's a good person (doesnt know she's on a show called Hannibal despite intimacy with Will). She wants the right thing done and knows Will won't be happy if he doesn't go and do it, especially if she resists. She does the right thing and will probably pay for it.

I think she's great.
posted by sparkletone at 6:17 AM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


sparkletone, what you said about distorted faces reinforces my fear for Wilgram's beautiful face. I guess it would be bold if a TV show let its hero become facially disfigured and went through with it, showing genuine commitment. I just... don't really look forward to that...

I'm legit scared/curious to see how that pans out. They are restrained by what amount of effort they're willing to go with the makeup/digital of whatever... And that's it. Especially if they swing for the fences in a finale as they usually do. Will already has a cool forehead scar he gets to wear in every scene. There's no reason to think they won't go Tyrion on him or worse in the disfigurement department.
posted by sparkletone at 6:20 AM on July 26, 2015


You know, thinking about why Molly was so cheerful about sending Will back...

Number one, she doesn't talk to Jack about how Will is getting better and is no longer obsessed with the dogs, etc. He may have met her in a better mental state than book!Will. Overall tv!Will is more resilient than book!Will, by quite a lot.

Number two, like most veterans, Will may not have wanted to talk much about his experiences. She could have known what was public knowledge, but may have discounted a lot of it since you can't trust the press for anything.

Number three, Will may have adopted Molly's persona pretty quickly after getting involved with her. She may always have known a perhaps sad, but basically stable Will. She may not have any inkling what he's like when he's in the company of people who aren't as mentally healthy as her.
posted by tel3path at 6:23 AM on July 26, 2015


I think cheerful is way overstating it. I think she made her peace with it fairly quickly given her knowledge of will and what Jack said. She's not HAPPY... She's not... Well. Resigned isn't the right word is what I mean. She knows this is going to happen. She explicitly tells Will that she understands this will fuck him up, maybe super badly... But she's willing to accept that and she's willing to make an effort to accept and love the Will that comes back to her.

It's not that too far off from narratives about the spouses of people who go off to war.
posted by sparkletone at 6:26 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


You know there's the "right thing" and there's also the case against sending a traumatized soldier back into battle. But yeah I do get the sense that Molly doesn't understand the threat. Book!Molly does understand the threat and is totally against Will's returning to the field.

The thing that's most ominous, and that you don't realize is ominous till you think about it?

Will read Hannibal's letter, sure. But he read it after taking it out of his lingerie drawer. Where he'd been keeping it. He didn't burn it immediately without opening it.

On the one hand, I'm glad Will isn't in Florida because sun damage. On the other hand, by the end of the season sun damage may be moot. Waaah!
posted by tel3path at 6:27 AM on July 26, 2015


Oh and thanks Bringer Tom! I didn't see your post until this morning but I tried it now and I can confirm that it works.
posted by tel3path at 6:41 AM on July 26, 2015


Will hasn't done his psychic crime scene reconstruction thing for ages, has he? Not all this season, and I think not for a while before that?
posted by Artw at 7:23 AM on July 26, 2015


Do you guys think Molly knows Will beat a guy to death with his bare hands?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:40 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has she read The Whelk's article? Does The Whelk's article present an overly rosey view?
posted by Artw at 7:53 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, he hasn't done the reconstruction in the form we're used to since Yakimono.

The first 7 episodes of the current season were basically one long crime reconstruction, walked backwards from the crime of Hannibal living it up in Yoorop and wearing those suits. But they're not in their usual form.
posted by tel3path at 7:59 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


As to what Molly knows: I can't imagine that much opportunity was lost, during the trial, to portray Will as a complete art-murdering lunatic. By Freddie if not by the legal team.

The more I think about it the more certain I am that Alana is on Hannibal's leash. I think she knows she's gotten screwed and is being kept in the BSHCI by a combination of blackmail and death threat. She's stitched up like a kipper.

I wonder if she's still with Margot, if she's a mom now. Or if Margot is with someone else and Alana is stuck with Hannibal as the most important relationship in her life whether she likes it or not.
posted by tel3path at 8:04 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


"flame haired" - oh dear.
posted by Artw at 8:09 AM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Yeah! This is the show in which the figurative is made literal...
posted by tel3path at 8:11 AM on July 26, 2015


That was a really short Post Mortem. It doesn't seem like either interviewee really wanted to be there.
posted by tel3path at 8:53 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


He is and remains a smug, slimy shit.

It's pretty fucking reprehensible (and so in character) for Chilton to goad Hannibal into doing something super-viciously brutal and then saunter over to Alana's ("should be mine, MINE") office and warn her like a concerned colleague about "the old Lithuanian trying to stay interesting." What a pal.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:54 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


A thing I thought they were gonna have to change due to how technology has moved on since the book was written... well it looks like they are just going for it (though I could see them doing some sort of twist on it in due course)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:57 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah. Not that Hannibal needed a great deal of pushing; if he's that easily manipulated he's dumber than he's given credit for.

However, the whole thing with the glass shattering, you can see how acutely aware Alana is that Hannibal doesn't even need to kill her by his own hand, and that Chilton has a grudge against her as well (and she's taken his job).

She tells Chilton she's better (morally) than him, and she has to tell herself she's more skilled than he is, and I'm not saying those things aren't true, but they are also things she needs to tell herself.

Because if she's not better than Chilton, she could easily end up like Chilton.

Alanaaaaaa whyyyyyyyyyy did you take this job whyyyyyy. How is it even ethical for him to be under your care. Gawd.
posted by tel3path at 9:05 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


And ommmmmmggg I can't get over that Hannibal's cell is a DUPLICATE of Alana's office.

It's as Will asked last week, is that for his treatment or yours?

WHO DO YOU THINK IS GETTING THE TREATMENT ALANA, GDI.
posted by tel3path at 9:09 AM on July 26, 2015


It is the loss of narcissistic supply that has provoked Hannibal to write to Will now, of all moments.

I'd say the Dragon is precisely the Will-motivating item Hannibal has been waiting so patiently for all this time. Sure, he has that competitive turf vanity deal with other killers and Chilton poked at it, but Hannibal was always going to write that letter the minute there emerged a sick fuck of sufficient monstrosity and uncatchability to cause Jack to consult Will.

Just like sure, Will makes a rational decision to visit Hannibal for totally logical and compelling crime-solving family-saving reasons, but he also does it because he's drawn to Hannibal. That phone call Will makes (I'm assuming to Molly, nobody picks up) before making the Hannibal decision and going to tell Jack? It looked like someone calling their AA sponsor to keep from walking into a bar.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:16 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Like WHEN are these people going to LEARN

HANNIBAL IS NOT A GOOD PERSON TO HAVE IN YOUR LIVES.

like srsly no contact block him on facebook the whole works i just don't get what these people don't get about this

And I'm wondering if Hannibal is ever actually going to kill Alana when he can just keep using that threat to extract, like, bouquets of white orchids in his cell every Thursday or whatever. And now she just has to stay and keep her enemy closer. This is no life for her.

Just read a thing saying she and Margot should run to some uncomfortable country that Hannibal won't likely bother with. Well, for one thing, she may not be with Margot any more; she may need the job she's in now as a source of income. If she is with Margot, Margot may not want to just up sticks; she may be required to manage the Verger estate. Or, if they have a child, Margot may not want to go somewhere uncomfortable with the kid in tow. Or she may not recognize Hannibal as an actual threat, given how accustomed she is to living her life under the gun.

From the things she said, I feel like, though Alana still has her medical license she may have been formally reviewed by her peers or something. Or simply been ridiculed for the part she played in the trial.

Alana wanted her career to be defined by Hannibal, and it has been.
posted by tel3path at 9:27 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Alanaaaaaa whyyyyyyyyyy did you take this job whyyyyyy.

This whole arc is just a depressing assemblage of people who lives could have taken better directions reverting to their worst (or most self-destructive and miserable) selves with a horrible inevitability.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:29 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I wish Will had just said to Jack "just do some police work. You're a good police, you'll figure it out."
posted by tel3path at 9:30 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


whyyyyyyyyyy did you take this job whyyyyyy. How is it even ethical for him to be under your care. Gawd.

Maryland law clearly states that the care of a patient within an institution or correction or mental health must be directly tied to ironic switches of fortune, mirroring plot progression, and the establishment of cruel twists of fate.
posted by The Whelk at 9:32 AM on July 26, 2015 [11 favorites]


I'm really worried not only about Alana's safety but about her becoming Chilton.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:34 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Interesting to me how closely this episode hews to the canonical Red Dragon plot -- in particular to the Manhunter version. Oh sure, chilly not sunny, atonal not 80s synths, but otherwise the Will plot is almost a scene-for-scene remake. Which makes me think they're setting up for a big swing away from that story in the next few episodes.

(If nothing else, it seems to me they need to figure out how to get more scenes with Hannibal. Brian Cox's Lektor in Manhunter is very memorable but is actually only on-screen for a few minutes; I don't think they'll be as willing to sideline Mads.)

Hannibal's memory-palace cell: I am wondering now how much of the Alana and Chilton scenes were real and how much of them were Hannibal's imagination overlaying and augmenting the actual interaction. Does Chilton really sit down for cozy let's-reminisce-about-cannibalism dinners with Hannibal? It seems unlikely to me. But formal dining is absolutely how Hannibal prefers to relate to people.

Am I remembering rightly that both Hannibal and Alana are drinking wine in their initial conversation? But after the shot pulls back out of the memory palace and reveals the glass cell wall, it's only Alana that is holding a wineglass. Hannibal's version versus the real version? Or maybe still a surreal blended version and we haven't yet seen the true version of Hannibal's cell.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:35 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, the whole business with the cheese... that is straight from the book, which was written before DNA (not that Dolarhyde has a record) and before the general awareness that people could be identified by bite marks.

The whole idea of biting into cheese and that being a clue is so retro that it actually featured on one of the Columbo episodes after Ted Bundy was convicted on bite mark evidence (and Columbo cited that case, too). The cheese idea had to have been directly taken from Red Dragon, as well. When I saw that episode of Columbo and the guy bites into the cheese I thought "dude why don't you just leave a signed document saying you did it".
posted by tel3path at 9:39 AM on July 26, 2015


Pretty sure Hannibal's cell really is another room in the building that really is exactly the same as Alana's office. I think that part is real.

Hannibal can identify Alana's wine by smell, so he feels as if he is partaking. Alana is of course being very pointedly rude by drinking it in front of him. That's a kind of pettiness that doesn't speak well of her, or her chances of surviving the season. Or maybe he just smelled it on her, and she didn't drink it in front of him at all.
posted by tel3path at 9:41 AM on July 26, 2015


I'm really worried not only about Alana's safety but about her becoming Chilton.

I'm also worried about Will, in his desperation to Save the Families and "save" Dolarhyde as a Hannibal surrogate, getting too sucked into the Dragon's mindset. "Hi, honey, I'm home!"
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:42 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's a lot of technological elements of Red Dragon that are going to require dancing around or mean we're going to have to revisit the issue of when this thing is set exactly, if it's really set anytime at all.
posted by Artw at 9:45 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, I loved the change at the end, TV Jack is a bastard but there's no way he'd be the first person to suggest to Will he should go back and confront his ex.

Also Molly totally got the bowederlized, extremely edited book version of events.

Some nice call outs to the iconic Manhunter score in there a few times, esp in the Leeds house , odd little whirls of synth strings.
posted by The Whelk at 9:46 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I... just continue to wonder if, supposing anyone gets brainwashed, that it might be Alana. Hannibal does have the perfect setup.

I remember people talking back in the day about how Alana couldn't be expected to follow through on being Will's caregiver, because he was just this burdensome homework project that never seemed to end, and how any rational person would pick Hannibal if they had the slightest sense of self-interest at all. Well, speaking of burdensome homework projects...

Like, also, the whole thing about who killed Mason? There can't be any trace evidence either way. Is Alana really THAT scared of being accused of what must be an unprovable murder? Hannibal just has to sit there going "neener, I'll tell"?

Oh and BTW, in the original it was also Will's idea to go and visit Hannibal. Jack picked up on it in the book just as quickly as he did on screen here. Because he was waiting for Will to think of it first. He was never going to own that he was asking it of Will, but he was absolutely meaning for Will to do that.
posted by tel3path at 9:48 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just read a thing saying she and Margot should run to some uncomfortable country that Hannibal won't likely bother with.

If Hannibal can survive three years in an institutional poly-blend jumpsuit, he can survive anything, even a trailer park in Patagonia.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:49 AM on July 26, 2015


Re: Technology. It looked like they where in a TV studio? Weirdly I was just visiting a friend who works at Technicolor (so much security you will not believe, like palm print scanners and everything, hard drives chained to cages.) and looking at all the editing bays and such and thinking "if you made a few hedges and fudges you could put Francis working in a place like this"

Like he doesn't have to find all of his victims that way, just one of them.
posted by The Whelk at 9:50 AM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


See... it's the time-limitedness of this that has to be goading Will. They have three weeks followed by another predictable kill.

Most likely, the letter from Hannibal came three weeks or so before the latest killing, or maybe more than one killing ago.

The time pressure is the one thing that's really getting to him, the one thing that really convinces him it has to be him on the case.
posted by tel3path at 9:50 AM on July 26, 2015


I'm also worried about Will, in his desperation to Save the Families and "save" Dolarhyde as a Hannibal surrogate, getting too sucked into the Dragon's mindset. "Hi, honey, I'm home!"

In the book Molly basically ditches Will over the course of the investigation, but here I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat reversed - Molly sees something bad is happening with Will and keeps trying to engage, and he keeps pulling away so that she doesn't see what's going on in his head.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:50 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh yeah, Hannibal has it soooo tough right now. He really does.
posted by tel3path at 9:51 AM on July 26, 2015


You know, I sort of wish the Science Bros would insist that Will go out for an after-work drink with them, because they would like his company, and he's free to sit motionless and be as miserable as he likes, or he can be cheerful if he wants to, but they just want to do some teambuilding and let him know they care for him just the way he is.

In the circumstances, they're being as warm as they can while keeping a respectful distance. Maybe he needs just a little bit of boundary-crossing right now, like Beverly used to step over the line and Will always ended up better off for it.
posted by tel3path at 9:54 AM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Molly sees something bad is happening with Will and keeps trying to engage, and he keeps pulling away so that she doesn't see what's going on in his head.

And/or because he's afraid of what he may do, or feel like doing, to her and Walter?
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:56 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Bryan Fuller if you are reading this I respectfully request a commentary track on the Bluray that consists entirely of Scott Thompson and Aaron Abrams. TRACK SASSY SCIENCE.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:59 AM on July 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


You know... I don't think he is ever likely to be tempted to re-enact the crimes on her and Walter.

The worst thing Will has ever been tempted to do is kill Jack, and he had to imagine splitting himself in two in order to accomplish that, and Jack had been tormenting him for a very long time.

Dolarhyde, also, didn't kill his own family. He kills strangers.
posted by tel3path at 10:00 AM on July 26, 2015


One reason it's a relief that Hannibal's locked up is that forced them to lose the adorable Eurotrash haircut that made him look so . . . inappropriately Mads-like in the first half.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:00 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh shit, what if they show a whole scene of him imagining killing them? Like I don't think he would ever WANT to, but I can see him unwillingly imagining it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:00 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


You know, I just don't think Richard Armitage is on the whole "It's FUN to be a FANNIBAL!!!1!!!" train that the rest of the cast is on. I think he might be the Will Graham of the team. Probably thinks we're all a bunch of perverts, and he is so right.
posted by tel3path at 10:03 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Dolarhyde, also, didn't kill his own family. He kills strangers.

Yeah, but they're stand-ins for his own family or for the "happy family life" he can't have or doesn't deserve and doesn't want anyone else to have either. If Will gets too far into Dolarhyde's perspective, then Molly and Walter would be "that other guy's family."
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:04 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


You know... I don't think that would *happen*, but I think that Will would be very *afraid* that it would happen.
posted by tel3path at 10:04 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Like... I don't think that Will is nearly as bad a human being as he fears he is. Self-loathing is book!Will's Achilles heel. I don't think tv!Will is anywhere near as self-loathing, but he does tend to convict himself of thoughtcrime rather unfairly.
posted by tel3path at 10:06 AM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


You know, I just don't think Richard Armitage is on the whole "It's FUN to be a FANNIBAL!!!1!!!" train that the rest of the cast is on. I think he might be the Will Graham of the team. Probably thinks we're all a bunch of perverts, and he is so right.

Seems accurate. Like I imagine he got the role without knowing much about the show beforehand, took it very seriously as is apparently his style, delivered what looks to be a really intense performance, they wrapped the season - and then he started doing press for the show and was confronted with a big giant dose of WHAT THE CHRIST IS HAPPENING
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


...like, I was thinking about the Joe Hill book "Heart-Shaped Box" lately, and at first you buy into the main character's view of himself as the scum of the earth, but as the narrative continues you realize that that couldn't be further from the truth and that he's actually a deeply caring man. This is disorienting, because in general people are *worse* than they think they are. But I think one of Will's biggest problems is believing he's a worse human being than he is. TV!Will isn't as far gone in this matter, because Hannibal framed him, forcing him to push back against the idea of himself as a killer as a matter of survival. He had to refuse the black view of his nature that others were trying to force on him.
posted by tel3path at 10:10 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


You know... I don't think that would *happen*, but I think that Will would be very *afraid* that it would happen.

Exactly. And even after this one episode, he was just imagining himself dragging a kid out from under a bed and shooting him. How the hell do you get on the phone with your son after that and shift your gears to talk about dogs and fishing without it bruising your brain?
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:15 AM on July 26, 2015


I mean, this is the fandom where the lead actor cheerfully admits to reading all the porn written about his character; and a young woman who played a major character also publicly admits to reading fanfic about her character, a good percentage of which fic is probably porn as well. Meanwhile, the leading man is treating the fans' shipping questions in earnest. And all this with the romantic lead being a cannibalistic serial killer. If you walked into this culture unawares, you'd think it was genuinely sick.
posted by tel3path at 10:15 AM on July 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


Though he's still a creature of Dream Logic Dolarhyde's whole deal of breaking into people's houses and mostly just shooting them with a gun is a bit more nastily True Crime than Will has been dealing with for the rest of the show, with its art murderers who turn people into violins and such.
posted by Artw at 10:38 AM on July 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


You know, book!Dolarhyde was very grounded in reality, and I think tv!Dolarhyde is the same. He's just portrayed in a very enthralling way.

"Dream Logic", to me, is something that doesn't quite pass the fridge logic test; Dolarhyde arose out of Harris' experience as a crime reporter so there's that.

It was the first half of the season that - now - already - feels like a dream to me. As I imagine it does to the others.

You've gotta hand it to Jack, that man is truly, genuinely tough. He seems to be able to rise above and bounce back no matter what. Like, you'd think that almost getting his head sawn open would really upset him, but it's ultimately another day at the office from his point of view.
posted by tel3path at 11:03 AM on July 26, 2015


'He lacks your flair for presentation' 'Has a much wider demographic... fancy allusions, your fussy aesthetics, you'll always have niche appeal, but this fellow, there's something so universal about what he does.... strikes at the very core of the American dream. You might say he's a four quadrant killer.'

Plain old simple mass gun killing more popular than philosophical art-murders. Even while I was watching I thought they were talking about much more than Hannibal / Dolarhyde but the show itself there.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:07 AM on July 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


Armitage may also feel like we're making light of his work, even though we know we're not.

But like, how can we not take the humour seriously when every running joke and fancomic turns out to be the canonical theme of the next season every time.
posted by tel3path at 11:11 AM on July 26, 2015


Because Alana isn't really big on forgiveness, part of it I think is that she believes she should be in jail herself. And so she is.
posted by tel3path at 11:32 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Weirdly, Hannibal's institutional haircut makes him look like a decade younger, a lot closer to Will's tinght and groomed hair when he was full on weaponized <seducing him.
posted by The Whelk at 11:40 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Though he's still a creature of Dream Logic Dolarhyde's whole deal of breaking into people's houses and mostly just shooting them with a gun is a bit more nastily True Crime than Will has been dealing with for the rest of the show, with its art murderers who turn people into violins and such.

Oh geez, that just makes things more painful for Will, doesn't it? -- he's right down there in the squalid ugly reality without even a veneer of cerebral beauty as insulation -- and makes Dolarhyde seem all the more pathetic: Hannibal's flower-tree guy or sumptuous table settings vs. Francis's goopy scrapbook and mirror-eyes.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:47 AM on July 26, 2015


Just been reading stuff about how Will's marriage is a sham, and Molly doesn't understand him and they have no chemistry.

I think Molly's an unknown quantity right now. I mean... If she did understand him, what would she do? Go on at him like in the books about how he's on the road to ruin but she'll tolerate it? In the books, that rang true. Here? I wasn't convinced, like Alana was, that Will should just never go out in the field at all; I think that said as much about Alana as it did about Will. What I don't understand is why Molly is so unperturbed by this. It seems like *less* than knowing what he has to face and accepting it, TBH. But maybe my opinion will change on rewatch.

Book!Molly definitely knew the score. This one is such a jarring contrast.

I hope she isn't Alana Mark Two, where instead of thinking Will's a wreck who shouldn't be allowed scissors lest he run with him, she mistakes him for a big strong hero who can handle it all and come home unaffected.
posted by tel3path at 11:51 AM on July 26, 2015


Pretty sure Hannibal's cell really is another room in the building that really is exactly the same as Alana's office. I think that part is real.

Fuller: #HANNIBAL's CELL IS A DUPLICATE OF ALANA'S OFFICE, AS IF THEY CONVERTED A SIMILARLY SIZED ROOM FOR HIS PRISON #BeholdTheRedDragon
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:52 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Whelk: I think it's another 2001 reference AND a way to reference the one type of Hannibal Lecter Cell we haven't seen on the show yet --- Lecter's glass cube in the fancy surroundings in the Silence Of The Lambs Movie

oh holy shit you nailed it
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:54 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think we just haven't seen enough of Molly to know some of this stuff yet.

I've seen a fair amount of Tumblr flailing over how Molly just Doesn't Get Will and how Alana is being So OOC and Chilton would Never Give Up his Job and Hannibal's detention conditions Make No Sense and and and... this half-season is barely even getting started. People need to chill out and let it happen.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:56 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Weirdly, Hannibal's institutional haircut makes him look like a decade younger, a lot closer to Will's tinght and groomed hair when he was full on weaponized seducing him.

Now cut that out! If I find myself looking at a psycho-monster next week and thinking, "Let's run away to India, Jacob Petersen," it's your fault.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:56 AM on July 26, 2015


Also, I'll say this, the Leeds house scene and the Dolarahyde scenes ...both largely wordless, really had me feeling the HORROR part of our Arty serial killer horror show -- the European murders where grand and artful and surreal and darkly comic but I was never really afraid of them like I was back in season two, but yeah nude home invasions with a guy caked in blood mewing like a cat *shudder*
posted by The Whelk at 11:57 AM on July 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think we just haven't seen enough of Molly to know some of this stuff yet.

I'm absolutely sticking with my (and sparkletone's) first take that while Will has confided in Molly about the bad job shit and injuries etc., he has shielded her -- and himself -- from the graphic and murderhusband details. That's the only way the Jack-Molly-dinnertable and Will-Molly-bedroom conversations can plausibly happen without the H word coming up even once or her looking like she is restraining herself from mentioning it.

Meanwhile, until Will says "I have to see Hannibal," Jack also never mentions his name. It's like he's fucking Beetlejuice or something.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:03 PM on July 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


Here's why I'm worried for Alana. She is exposing herself to Hannibal's influence every day. His office being a mirror image of hers - and the fact that, in all likelihood, he *got her to give him that concession* - is evidence that she is still vulnerable to his influence. And yet she seems to believe that he can't manipulate her any more. This despite the fact that he did manipulate her into the position she's in now.

She probably is guarding Hannibal out of a sense of duty, in that she probably thinks she's the only one who understands him well enough to contain him and anticipate his next moves. But, Chilton actually understands Hannibal quite well for the purpose of his own exercise. Sure, she may be right that Hannibal's opinion would carry weight in professional circles. But the big picture is that he's still defining her career.

I mean, sure Alana's known Hannibal the longest. But Hannibal has also known Alana the longest. And he's sitting there in a mirror image of her office and she hasn't picked up on the symbolism. He wouldn't keep repeating his threat to kill her if he didn't have manipulative intent; he'd just find a way of killing her and be done with it. And yet that threat is clearly keeping her in her place.

Maybe she should have relocated and put it behind her like Will did. He might have killed her anyway, but... You know, eventually all these characters are going to die. I think Bella was partly there to remind us of that. In the meantime, you might as well live. But I couldn't blame Alana if she weren't emotionally ready for that; I probably wouldn't be. But she's retraumatizing herself every day.

And to all appearances - ALANA STILL DOESN'T HAVE A THERAPIST! Or does she?

What she said about wanting to save Will... earlier, how Will "knows what he has to do" after he's just set sail for Europe. And then, she tracks down Hannibal by looking at his spending patterns - which is great, it's obviously great to progress on several fronts. But if her plan was to get to Hannibal before Will did, shouldn't that have involved knowing where Will was? I could understand if she maintained ignorance on purpose so as not to draw Mason's attention to Will. But it seems like the reason is she just didn't think of it: "We should have just followed you," is what she says to Will. Partly this tells us that Alana continues to overestimate how much she can take on. It also reinforces the idea that, unlike Hannibal who can entertain several trains of thought at once, Alana seemingly can handle only one thing at a time. I believe she did want to save Will, that that was part of it; but what she actually ended up doing was fixating on Hannibal, forgetting even to watch Will out of the corner of her eye; and then being surprised when he wound up Mason's prisoner as well.

And then she lets Hannibal loose - ostensibly because he's the only one who can save Will Graham, and to her credit she seems to have been right about that. But, notice that her way of achieving that involved releasing Hannibal. Which, you know, great! But it puts Hannibal in charge again! And I also read someone saying that saving Will Graham is "all she's ever wanted" - well, no, it wasn't. There have been other things she's wanted more than to save Will Graham. And when she did want that, having Hannibal save Will Graham was the major part of her plan. And then when she finally succeeded, her successful plan still involved getting Hannibal to save Will Graham.

And as a result of that, and the concomitant blackmail and threats, Alana replaces Chiyoh as the one who's in a cage. I just cannot get over the fact that three years have gone by and everything in Alana's life is still about Hannibal.

I don't mean to trivialize the difficulty of getting away from a guy like him, either. But... Alana really just shouldn't be the one in charge of his care.

It's like Hannibal said to Mason: it's dangerous to get exactly what you want. We'd all like to be able to indict our psycho ex-boyfriend and put him in jail and have power over him daily. Except that Alana has gotten that, and it's not really working out well for her.

I haven't yet seen anyone saying that Alana is badass and is totally ruling over Hannibal now, but I assume that's just a matter of time. Unless, of course, nobody has read it that way because it's obvious to the densest person that Alana is in the one-down position here.
posted by tel3path at 12:11 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Meanwhile, until Will says "I have to see Hannibal," Jack also never mentions his name. It's like he's fucking Beetlejuice or something.

Well, I mean
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:12 PM on July 26, 2015 [14 favorites]


Alana's not being OOC. I think she's reached the state of Sadder but Wiser that we were all hoping she'd attain. Unfortunately there's been so much damage done along the way, I think she's worse off than ever.
posted by tel3path at 12:12 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


There's a cool visual and thematic parallel now between Alana and Dolarhyde as ruthless badass wannabes and the dangers of that for self and others. Behold, the Red Dragon.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:22 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah... but red has a long history in the symbolic order of the show.

I think it indicates that Alana has a very good grasp on reality, as good as she's capable of having; but she's still limited. That's not an anti-Alana statement; I've already explained what position I think Alana is in.

But yeah, the trouser suits are another indication of how much she wants to be like Hannibal so that she won't be vulnerable to Hannibal any more. She always wanted to be like Hannibal, and now the only apparent way to handle the threat he embodies is to become it.

And the Red Dragon, for Dolarhyde, is an ambition rather than something he's yet attained. And Dolarhyde discovers at exactly the wrong moment that he really is just a great big softie at heart. It does not end well for him.
posted by tel3path at 12:27 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm so excited for Rutina Wesley's Reba. I think she's got more chops than True Blood allowed her character. It's going to be heartbreaking.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:32 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


But yeah, the trouser suits are another indication of how much she wants to be like Hannibal so that she won't be vulnerable to Hannibal any more. She always wanted to be like Hannibal, and now the only apparent way to handle the threat he embodies is to become it.

Compulsive imitation: not just for Chilton anymore!
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:32 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


I remember watching True Blood and being constantly frustrated at how underutilized she was. Even when they made her a lesbian cage fighter for no reason!
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:33 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hannibal's cell is ridiculous, and I would say it was memory palace but he wrote an actual letter to Will. The show isn't above lying about stuff like that, so we really can't say. (It's also possible that the letter was fake and represented Will's longing for connection with Hannibal. I honestly don't give a shit anymore; it isn't interesting either way).

How does Alana still have a job, much less one anywhere near Hannibal? "Well, since you were his student, colleague, and lover it makes a lot of sense that you know best how to care for him."

I really wish we had been given more than thirty second with Will-three-years-later before Jack drove up. I know they said there was a time jump but it really did not feel like it at all. Everything looks he same, everything sounds the same, everyone acts the same.

I really, really, wish the show had time to breathe.
posted by mountmccabe at 12:34 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Nooo! It's bad enough that TWC makes me wait days before Hannibal shows up OnDemand, but now they're taunting me by listing next week's episode, sans Play button.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:35 PM on July 26, 2015


Yeah, and I think that Alana has always wanted to be Hannibal's equal when she's more like Chilton's equal. Though demonstrably, Chilton is doing worse on the Decent Human Being scale right now. But there has always been this rivalry between them.

Anyway... here's what I think is going on with Molly. I think she's a parallel to Reba. The thing about Reba is that she wasn't unperceptive or deluded about Dolarhyde in any way. The poignant irony of Reba was that she was *more* insightful about Dolarhyde than anyone ever had been in his entire life.

The problem was that Reba was seeing a part picture. She got involved with him very quickly, based on what she saw of Francis. What she saw was the real Francis, and his neglected humanity just burst into blossom at her touch. However, she didn't see the Dragon, and the Dragon was also real. Because of his love for Reba, Francis desperately struggled to reverse his efforts to merge with the Dragon, and began backpedalling in an effort to separate himself, and protect her from the Dragon. Unfortunately for both of them, the Dragon was part of Francis.

I think Molly does understand Will, but like Reba, she's seeing a part picture.
posted by tel3path at 12:39 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


How does Alana still have a job, much less one anywhere near Hannibal? "Well, since you were his student, colleague, and lover it makes a lot of sense that you know best how to care for him."

It must have taken a whole fuck of a lot of maneuvering on her part. She must have been very very determined to get that job.

Because of Chilton's dissatisfaction, and now Alana's, we know that head of the BSHCI is not in any way a prestigious position. Alana has fallen from the ranks of the elite.

But I think it takes a lot more to lose your medical licence than Alana has done (or than anyone knows Alana has done).

Maybe Chilton also had a hand in it because he wants to keep Alana around in order to settle scores with her. He might have recommended her.
posted by tel3path at 12:42 PM on July 26, 2015


"Colon's lose their novelties when they're over used" was a fantastic line.

One hint as to how this story is going to depart from previous versions was seeing Dolarhyde actually covered in blood in the moonlight. In Manhunter (I haven't read the book and don't remember what they did with it in Red Dragon the film) that was just an incorrect suggestion from Lekter; Dolarhyde went for the large yard because he needed to observe the family.
posted by mountmccabe at 12:43 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah... but red has a long history in the symbolic order of the show.

Exactly, and Francis just adds more layers to an already rich torte.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:43 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


She may of course also have been credited with being The One Who Caught Hannibal Lecter, and did so because of her Unique Insight Into His Mind, which would strengthen her case for being the one to guard him.

After all, this is the guy who has evaded a nonexistent international manhunt and foiled the most mediocre, shortsighted investigative experts in the land. And out of all this, one woman! One woman who can stop him!
posted by tel3path at 12:45 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


everyone acts the same.

Strongly disagree with the possible exception of Jack who just seems to have softened a touch (or is more fearful) , I liked how each character felt just different enough , Alana speaking directly! Chilton being his MOST gleefully smug and like ....SWANNING around in his body movements, Will talking like a normal human!
posted by The Whelk at 12:45 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Remember back when Alana used to wear a lot of scaly lookin' prints and I was like OMG, this speculation is obviously not true but what if Alana were the Red Dragon...
posted by tel3path at 12:46 PM on July 26, 2015


How does Alana still have a job, much less one anywhere near Hannibal?

She probably ponders that every morning during her 10-minute drive from Georgetown to Baltimore.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:47 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


If I were Alana, I would not have liked to be pregnant anywhere that Hannibal could have seen it or known about it. This is quite apart from the shattered pelvis.

They didn't mention a child this week, I wonder if one will be revealed in future eps.
posted by tel3path at 12:48 PM on July 26, 2015


What if they did ALL of that for nothing? The baby plot didn't work and everything fell apart. Hannibal may be the only thing left in her life.
posted by The Whelk at 12:49 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Or maybe the baby plot worked and Alana is rolling in cash and paid off the right people to get the job she wanted at BSHCI. That would fit with the themes of corruption and incompetence in power.
posted by mountmccabe at 12:54 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Here's how I could see it going: Margot, for obvious reasons, wants Alana to be the surrogate. Because of their preexisting relationship, Alana can't simply do that and expect it not to complicate things. But if Margot gets another surrogate - which in this timeline would have to be a professional arrangement - maybe the kid isn't legitimate or something.

Alana doesn't want to get pregnant in any case because of her future involvement in matters regarding Hannibal, including his trial. She doesn't want to be that kind of vulnerable where he can see it. So the deal-breaking obstacle to Alana having Margot's child turns out to be Hannibal. And it goes on for three years. Hannibal Hannibal. Hannibal running Alana's life. Margot looks up to Hannibal, but if Hannibal is just going to be another Mason to Alana then why did she struggle through all this? Margot may decide that not only is the timing not right but Alana just isn't - oh the irony - stable enough to get into a relationship with, because everything in their lives would be subordinated to Hannibal.

I do get the sense that Alana needs the BSHCI job for the money, not just for her emotional needs; but I may be proven wrong. I mean if her new life included Margot they might have put in a brief mention somewhere... Chilton would have said something... IDK.
posted by tel3path at 12:54 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


But, really, Alana: NO CONTACT. You will never move on if you won't let yourself.
posted by mountmccabe at 12:55 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well remember in the Hannibal book, Clarice had been totally ground down and the irony was that Hannibal *was* the only source of interest in her life. That's why the Lifetime series gets mocked at the very idea of a show about Clarice with no Hannibal in it; without him she's nothing as a character. I get the sense that Alana thinks that without Hannibal, she's nothing. I mean she was driven to reinforce her association with him in S2 after she'd made several professional errors of mega proportions.
posted by tel3path at 12:56 PM on July 26, 2015


Yeah, Alana. Also, therapy.

MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF IT?!?
posted by tel3path at 12:57 PM on July 26, 2015


Has therapy ever actually been a good thing on this show?
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on July 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


Who in the world would understand what the hell happened to her enough to be a prospective therapist tho?

Maybe a certain blonde genius?


(Oh god what if Bedelia's in jail and Alana like, goes to her to talk in some parallel and she points out she's free in jail but Alana is trapped on the outside)
posted by The Whelk at 1:00 PM on July 26, 2015


Has therapy ever actually been a good thing on this show?

Hannibal thinks his therapy with Will was very helpful and successful, look how far along he got! Killing people with bare hands and everything!
posted by The Whelk at 1:01 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'd love to see Bedelia pull the Ohh I didn't knooowww shtick on Alana.
posted by tel3path at 1:01 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm Lydia Fell!
posted by yellowbinder at 1:02 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


In all seriousness, Jack's therapy with the FBI counselor - very importantly, someone who wasn't in Jack's inner circle and didn't know him from Adam - gave him the advice that resulted eventually in Jack's enlightenment.
posted by tel3path at 1:02 PM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Pleased to meet you Lydia. I fell too. Did one of Hannibal's patients push you?

Like this? SHOVE
posted by tel3path at 1:03 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Your therapist cannot be your murder chum. It is a rule.
posted by Artw at 1:06 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Jack and Chilton seemed the same to me. Maybe there was something different in Alana, built upon her becoming more active in Digestivo (rather than assuming the FBI would swoop in).

Price and Zeller were gobbed at seeing Will but, I guess. But Will, he did not feel like a normal human to me, except for maybe the few seconds before Jack showed up. Maybe I need to watch again, but he did not feel changed to me.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:09 PM on July 26, 2015


A strict rule, rigidly enforced!
posted by tel3path at 1:10 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have to say I really like what they are doing with the idea of becoming which was the central theme of all of Harris' books. It's much clearer that Will has to become the monster he profiles to do his thing. Alana is becoming either Hannibal or Chilton, or maybe both in sequence. The sense of Dolarhyde aspiring to become the Dragon is palpable.

I am kind of hoping we meet Bedelia again because I'm sure she has become something interesting. If not Lydia Fell.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:13 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rules have reasons.
posted by Artw at 1:15 PM on July 26, 2015


Alana is completely different. She's no longer talking in euphemisms and refusing to acknowledge harsh reality.

Unfortunately I think she's also trying to be a Good Person, and do penance or take responsibility for Hannibal when it should be someone else's job.

Or, somebody else maneuvered her into the position where BSHCI chief was the only job open to her.

The trouble is that Alana is still somewhat intellectually limited, compared to her opponents. I think that in terms of clinical skills and raw intelligence she's at about the same level as Chilton. And I do think Chilton is cleverer than he's cracked up to be, and his treatment of Will was really not bad in terms of outcomes. But nobody could call him a brilliant psychiatrist, and I'd say Alana was at about the same level.
posted by tel3path at 1:17 PM on July 26, 2015


Not everyone can be a mindreader or a dracula.
posted by Artw at 1:19 PM on July 26, 2015 [7 favorites]


I mean I don't disparage Alana's efforts to be a Good Person. I think she's doing it out of a sense of duty to keep her word, and is parallel to Chiyoh in that respect. But she seems to be aware of ethics and boundaries only as a stick to beat herself with, and she's so focussed on that that she's lost sight of the context, which is that her involvement with Hannibal should have ended by now.
posted by tel3path at 1:19 PM on July 26, 2015


Yeah, I agree. I think Alana and Chilton represent people of high-average intelligence and ability and they're just out of their depth.
posted by tel3path at 1:20 PM on July 26, 2015


I think Alana is going to become someone but right now it's a kind of spin the bottle situation where we don't know which of the influences she is under will prevail.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:27 PM on July 26, 2015


Oh, and on Alana trying to be a Good Person, this show being this show and all I tend to think she will find out what the road to Hell is paved with when that backfires somehow.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:29 PM on July 26, 2015


OMG I just flashed a fic vision of Chiyoh keeping Bedelia in the firefly cell back at Chez Lecter. I have got to get out more.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:32 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'll tell you something: I was all gung ho about how Alana was going to become a Murder Butterfly and flutter off into the sunset with Hannibal somehow, as Will stood there shaking his head and going "rude, shockingly rude".

Until this week, the events of S2 had convinced me that was off the table.

I'm putting it back on the table.
posted by tel3path at 1:35 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Alana as Murder Butterfly would be a cool shout to SOTL with Alana as uber-Clarice. I would not put it past this show at all to do that.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:38 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I keep circling back to how Chiyoh was caged despite being the jailer and the parallels to Alana. Living with the semblance of freedom but forever bound until released by Hannibal's {w,W}ill.

I'm also thinking about some parallels with SOTL's Chilton's desperation and obsession at understanding or gaining insight Hannibal. I'm wondering if some of that is being written into Alana, particularly in light of the "Could I ever have understood you?" exchange.
posted by bfranklin at 1:54 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah. And it seemed like that was a moment of acceptance. And yet here Alana is, knowing her limitations but having to work with them anyway. That would explain her insistence on putting herself above Chilton in various ways.
posted by tel3path at 1:55 PM on July 26, 2015


The prospect of bumping into Francis is just one more reason to steer clear of Hobby Lobby. I'm probably way in the minority on this, but the only thing creepier than his scrapbook is regular scrapbooks.

Don't worry. He picked it up at an auction from an old business. The ledger prop itself is almost exactly what I imagined while reading the book, though I'm fine with a less-is-more approach to the actual contents of Dolarhyde's murder journal. The parallel of Dolarhyde and Lecter both working with paper helped address the Hannibal-related stationery withdrawal that I've been feeling since Dr. Lecter left his office setting.

Also, not sure it's a great idea to give Hannibal something as sharp as a pencil.

Not only that, but how does he sharpen them? Maybe there's some BSHCI orderly sharpening a gross of art pencils in grades from 6H to 8B.
posted by audi alteram partem at 2:09 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I guess what I'm saying has something to do with....

Hannibal has a lot of raw physical power. Certainly enough to get tortured and hung from ropes for hours, then escape and kill Cordell, do a quick surgery (didn't need to be too fussy), overpower the necessary guards, and walk 31 miles in the dead of winter carrying a 5ft 11inch man bridal style in the snow.

I mean, we can assume he took the time for a shower and a change of clothes and I guess a bite to eat, because he's not walking through the snow naked. But still, that's quite the feat of strength.

And he is highly skilled. Surgery, psychiatry, and then of course the daily arts of living and all that. And he had - and still has - enormous wealth.

But in so many ways, the power he has is the power others give him. And I guess Chilton is supposed to be the naive one, going "well why should a convicted lunatic's opinion count for anything in psychiatric circles" but Alana insists that it will count. I mean... presumably these papers go through a peer review, so she's right that Hannibal does have credibility whether they like it or not. But... so what the guy has an opinion, and so what some people give credence to it. You know? You're going to have some opponents. So Hannibal wrote a refutation to Chilton's crappy sensationalistic book? Why shouldn't he? He has a right to.

I mean... Alana's taking that as a defeat, and framing it as "Hannibal wins", and Chilton isn't ready to give in to that and I don't necessarily think he's wrong.
posted by tel3path at 2:10 PM on July 26, 2015


And you know what a ledger is for? Reckoning.
posted by tel3path at 2:11 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm also thinking about some parallels with SOTL's Chilton's desperation and obsession at understanding or gaining insight Hannibal. I'm wondering if some of that is being written into Alana, particularly in light of the "Could I ever have understood you?" exchange.

You know, maybe this is it! Maybe Alana took that as a direct challenge. So now she's gonna be his shrink and damn it, she WILL understand him. She'll understand why he did all this to her, to Will, to Abigail, to everyone.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:21 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've either made a new friend or a terrible mistake....
posted by sparkletone at 2:25 PM on July 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


And the hazard there, as I've mentioned before, is that a lot of people (including I think Alana) subscribe to the "it takes one to know one" fallacy.
posted by tel3path at 2:25 PM on July 26, 2015


Oh sparkletone, he's so cute. You should give him these comics to keep him out of mischief.
posted by tel3path at 2:29 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've either made a new friend or a terrible mistake....

I have one on my office desk, right next to my ceramic surfing cow thermometer and Wavy Rancheros puppet. So cute!
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:38 PM on July 26, 2015


Alana why can't you do like everyone else, and just Facebook stalk him from afar.

why
posted by tel3path at 3:06 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh! When Hannibal is in his blink-and-you'll-miss-it processing montage, he's standing as much like Vitruvian Man as a person can when they're in shackles and leg irons. (You know, they didn't put Will or Chilton in those while processing them.)

I also noticed that only the pertinent phrase was intelligible and the text around it was all lorem ipsum-y. It was a quote about how there isn't a word for what he is.

...yeah there is, he's a bastard. A narcissist with some psychopathic traits. Everyone mythologizes him. He has to have his ex-girlfriend in charge of his treatment because then she'll mythologize him. He's king of the hill.

Hannibal you are a twerp
posted by tel3path at 3:14 PM on July 26, 2015


And of course, that he perceives Alana as being in his old office just reinforces that Hannibal thinks he's giving Alana therapy.

I think Alana thinks he's giving her therapy as well. ALANA WHY. WHY WOULD YOU AGREE TO THIS I JUST. WHY.
posted by tel3path at 3:15 PM on July 26, 2015


You don't suppose...? Alana might believe Bedelia's brainwashing shtick.

I think rue72 made such an insightful remark in s2, that Alana was trying her hardest to give her mind up to Hannibal's control and she couldn't quite complete the task; her individuality stubbornly remained.

Look how hard everything is for her now, and how she can afford to have no thoughts in her head that are not about Hannibal. It literally makes my head hurt to think of what she's going through. Wouldn't it be so good to rest awhile in the hot darkness of Hannibal Lecter's mind? If she thought thinking too much was her biggest problem before, well it certainly is now. He could make it all go away.
posted by tel3path at 3:20 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


He could keep his promise by 'killing' Alana and bring forth Evil Alana.

I wonder how much Alana has spoken to Bedelia...
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:42 PM on July 26, 2015


Even without what little meta knowledge I have in this regard: there's no way the show is leaving Bedelia out in the ether (possibly ON ether) in this arc. You don't promote Gillian goddam Anderson to series regular for a season and only use her in half of it.

We'll see what they do with her but I think we might find out.
posted by sparkletone at 4:26 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Might find out soon even.
posted by sparkletone at 5:02 PM on July 26, 2015


Hey do we know if Hannibal and Bedelia are legally married? Not as the Fells obviously but she went for a fairly sophisticated drugged captive alibi that in light of Hannibal's prison arrangement three years on showing collusion might have worked. That's a Bedelia walking around free - possibly incognito as a protected "victim" rather than co-murderer. And I can see her getting the legal protection and access to his nebulous fortune through marriage.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:11 PM on July 26, 2015


Hannibal is Dracula and Dolarhyde is the Wolfman. Dork Shelf's reviews have been pretty great this season.
posted by crossoverman at 7:27 PM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Hey do we know if Hannibal and Bedelia are legally married?

They weren't. There merely wore the rings and claimed to be in public as a facade.
posted by sparkletone at 7:32 PM on July 26, 2015


Hannibal is Dracula and Dolarhyde is the Wolfman.

I saw someone on tumblr make this analogy in response to one of the trailers. It's on point imo, and this is a really good write up.
posted by sparkletone at 7:33 PM on July 26, 2015


That's my question - I know it was a public facade with the rings as Dr Fell and Mrs Fell but I would be surprised if Bedevil hadn't also (HAH! I typed too fast and my computer autocorrected Bedelia but I love that - Bedevil!) arranged for something more structured and legal as Hannibal's wife with the whole testify against your husband etc. defences.

Also the look on Will's face when he finds out that Bedelia got the honeymoon ahahahahhahahahahahaha
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:40 PM on July 26, 2015


Drugged Bedelia: "Heee'sm m my husssband... not.... Yours."
Will: "I. Don't. Believe. You."
posted by sparkletone at 7:44 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


While I like the idea of Alana becoming Hannibal's murder protege, Fuller and Dancy are saying that this season finale could feel like a satisfying conclusion. I think Will and Hannibal running away to be murder husbands would be satisfying, in a way Alana and Hannibal doing the same would not.

At this point, I'm at the acceptance part of mourning Hannibal - even though I can't believe I want Will & Hannibal to get together.

In the best of all possible worlds, Clarice hunts them down and throws them in separate prisons.
posted by crossoverman at 7:58 PM on July 26, 2015


I saw a still of Dolarhyde's ledger with the headline 'Graham to testify in Ripper case' or something.

Wonder what THAT was like.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:16 PM on July 26, 2015


Was he allowed to bring a pack of comfort animals?
posted by Artw at 8:21 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Here it is.

"Describe your relationship with the accused."
"Where do I even fucking begin"
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:27 PM on July 26, 2015


Also, given the fact that Hannibal has the right to confront his accusers, he was definitely there when Will testified.

I'd actually figured that Will wouldn't have agreed to testify at all, both because he wanted to put it all behind him and because, if he testified for the prosecution, he'd basically be working to have Hannibal killed. And I reeeeeally don't see him testifying for the defense, even if it were just to get Hannibal the insanity defense. (The article snippet doesn't make it clear which one it was.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:33 PM on July 26, 2015


"He manipulated me, drugged me, framed me for multiple murders, fake-killed my surrogate daughter, framed me for that too, unframed me, helped me mutilate someone I killed in self defense after he sent him to my home, fed my dogs a face, seriously injured everyone I know/care about, gutted me, ACTUALLY murdered my surrogate daughter in a fit of pique, turned a man into sculpture to show me he cares, sawed my head open, got me kidnapped by someone even worse than he is...

And he could still get it. *winks at Hannibal*" -- actual trial transcript
posted by sparkletone at 8:34 PM on July 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


I wonder if we'll get a little taste of his testimony, either in flashback or just referenced in the conversation he and Hannibal are about to have. Full legal drama was a bad idea, but a scene of it looking back could be fun. It was probably the last time Hannibal saw Will in person for literally years.
posted by sparkletone at 8:37 PM on July 26, 2015


He probably left out some of the unimportant details.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:39 PM on July 26, 2015


mY FRIENDS MY INTARNETS FROND I MUST wARN YOU OF THE TERRORS TO COME

DO NOT FORGET ONE EVENING THAT YOU HAVE ALREADLY TAKEN YOUR AMBIEN AND THen DECIDE TO DRINK THE REST OF THE ANGRY OERCHARDS IN THE FRIDGE

BEcause then the one thing you will immediTELY DECide to do is embARK upon your own journey towards YOUR BECOMING

right now i am pretty sure i am becoming some sort of small orange gecko with aspirations towards eventual dragonhood


i have to pee
posted by poffin boffin at 9:20 PM on July 26, 2015 [19 favorites]


I just started reading The Red Dragon, as I've never read any of the Hannibal books. So far, I'm really impressed with how they honor the source material; for example, some of the exact dialogue is used, personality quirks and interactions between the characters, Will's love for dogs, his wound from Hannibal that took him out of the game. I guess I hadn't realized before the attention to detail, and it's pretty impressive. One thing the book hits right away is how Will has this ability to transcend and understand in a way that is psychologically very painful for him, yet astoundingly effective. The way that it's carefully described in the book (as it's not an easy thing to try and convey) is almost entirely the impression you get of him as a TV character from the first three seasons. Really well done.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:43 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


right now i am pretty sure i am becoming some sort of small orange gecko with aspirations towards eventual dragonhood

You are Becoming Charmander, which we all know is the first step towards... C H A R I Z A R D
posted by sparkletone at 9:58 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


/rubber cements trading card onto one side of Nintendo DS clamshell.
posted by Artw at 10:20 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Okay, Hannibal taunts Alana with his "baker's dozen" - the 13th being her own, of course.

Alana thinks she's being truthful in attributing a dozen murders to Hannibal. the number he was convicted of vs the ones he did.

She doesn't know there are more!!!!!!!!!!
posted by tel3path at 11:20 PM on July 26, 2015


I don't think anyone on the show is dumb enough to think those were the only people Hannibal killed. Those were just the ones they had prosecutable evidence of. For the purposes of that conversation they're talking more about the charges he dodged with the insanity plea than the literal number of people he murdered ever.
posted by sparkletone at 11:24 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


will being a "key witness" - I wonder is his testimony carried much weight or if they dismissed him as mostly insane and weird.
posted by tel3path at 11:25 PM on July 26, 2015


And that would be why Chilton was like "oh the word of some crazy won't count" ( overreliant ob that aren't you Frederick" and Alana says "it will" (if only Will had kept his mouth shut)
posted by tel3path at 11:26 PM on July 26, 2015


yeah, I know, but alana is talking about the number he was convicted of *while* leaving out Mason, because she knows Mason isn't 'true'. So it isn't just about the charges he dodged via the insanity plea.
posted by tel3path at 11:39 PM on July 26, 2015


It's book canon that Hannibal took the blame for Mason's death to shield Margot. In this version Alana is part of that and it's not as crucial to the plot (at least so far) but a nice nod to the source material.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:37 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


mY FRIENDS MY INTARNETS FROND I MUST wARN YOU OF THE TERRORS TO COME

behold the great red derp
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:40 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]


Who can identify the drawing that Hannibal does of Alana?
posted by tel3path at 8:29 AM on July 27, 2015


Tumblr has you covered.

La Fortezza (Fortitude) by Botticelli. One of the four cardinal virtues. The ability and willingness to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.

It's in the Uffizi gallery, even!
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:36 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


For Hannibal to depict Alana as Fortitude would seem to support the reading that, for all he still intends to kill her, he is also pleased to see that she's had her own little 'becoming.'
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:46 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


Aha. And Hannibal even manages to use that against her. It's her own conviction that only she can contain him, that she owes him, that she herself deserves to be imprisoned, that are keeping her caged like this. That, and the probably accurate perception that she has few other options. The worrying thing is that she's almost certainly wrong about being able to keep him contained, and when it all hits the fan I'm afraid she's going to be in disgrace all over again.

It really puts Bedelia's shrewdness into perspective. I wish Alana had been more self-serving and just gotten out of Dodge. Don't be Chiyoh Mark II, Alana.
posted by tel3path at 8:47 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay, Hannibal taunts Alana with his "baker's dozen" - the 13th being her own, of course.

Alana thinks she's being truthful in attributing a dozen murders to Hannibal. the number he was convicted of vs the ones he did.

She doesn't know there are more!!!!!!!!!!


I doubt this. I think she was speaking rhetorically - "we had enough evidence to convict you a dozen times over" - and he was riffing on that by saying "baker's dozen."

According to this list, the absolute minimum number of Hannibal victims is FIFTY-SIX, and there's no way there aren't more. Geez. (And that list doesn't count Sogliato or Georgia Madchen, so really, call it fifty-eight.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:26 AM on July 27, 2015


Even given the fact that not all of his murders would be known to the general public, he is known to be both the Ripper (12 known victims) and the copycat killer (4 known victims, when they thought it was Will); plus the judge, plus the tree man, plus Gideon's guard, plus Gideon, plus the agents that came to arrest Chilton, plus Abigail. That's 23 known victims before you even get into Italy and Muskrat Farm and everything that happened in the years before Hannibal was the Ripper. Alana DEFINITELY knows it's more than 12.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:36 AM on July 27, 2015


I doubt this. I think she was speaking rhetorically - "we had enough evidence to convict you a dozen times over" - and he was riffing on that by saying "baker's dozen."

Ah right!!! I totally misremembered that one.

I don't like to rewatch until the season is over (though I do my duty like a loyal Fannibal and leave it playing in the background on mute).
posted by tel3path at 9:39 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


They only actually convicted Bundy on two murders IIRC.
posted by tel3path at 9:39 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've just been thinking whether a picnic meal consisting entirely of Batard-Montrachet, smoked oysters, and acorn flour flatbread or biscotti would go down well.
posted by tel3path at 10:17 AM on July 27, 2015


I feel weird about watching Comic-Con panels or interview videos but I saw that one today with HD where he said Janice Poon offered him some frogs' legs out of the blue one afternoon. And he accepted but was concerned about eating frogs' legs she might have had reserved for a scene; but she said there was no scene, she'd just made random frogs' legs.
posted by tel3path at 10:20 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


i've been thinking about how Alana's present situation is her own crime reconstruction.

Alana didn't have any empathy of her own; she had to experience directly in order to understand. She's now gone through a similar sequence of events to the one Will went through: partnering with a criminal in the belief she could pretend but not become, that she could snatch justice from the jaws of injustice with the help of the FBI; having to kill to defend a child (and having it be too late); having to compromise with Hannibal anyway; and finding herself, albeit in a gentler way, imprisoned and disgraced. She has to face the most dangerous person she knows every day, with an acute sense of how dangerous he is; while everyone now believes Hannibal is a killer, Alana has no credibility in her professional world and the battle of her word against his is already lost.

And now she's in jail and only Hannibal can let her out.

OKAY ALANA, THAT WAS HIS DESIGN, YOU GOT IT NOW A++ CAN YOU JUST PLEASE SKIP TO NEW ZEALAND WITH MARGOT AND THE KIDS?
posted by tel3path at 3:02 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


also also also. Alana's clothes in the first half were heavily padded, but her current suit isn't like that. In the first half Alana began by denying any contribution to the disaster, and asserting that she was a completely different (i.e. invulnerable) person now. she progressed from there to "whoops I accidentally anti-saved Will Graham again, i wonder why that keeps happening, the common denominator is Hannibal yes but also me"

And now in the current episode Alana is bleakly mowing down Chilton's confidence with "no, there will be consequences and they will hurt", "no, that's going to backfire" etc. She acknowledges to Hannibal's face that what he did distressed and affected her, with the beer being a metonym for countless other things in her life.

In many ways she must have experienced Hannibal's trial as her trial, and this apart from any external judgement, realizing all the things she closed her eyes to. Ironically, she's no longer a respected psychiatrist at the moment when she most deserves respect. Too, she has finally earned, from Hannibal, something that could rightly be described as respect (the drawing) even as he most overtly treats her as his bitch; and this comes after she's finally learned that his respect isn't worth having and she's long past caring about it.

Reckoning.

Awww bby. Maybe just maybe it's time to move on from the Old Testament?
posted by tel3path at 3:11 PM on July 27, 2015


Ironically, she's no longer a respected psychiatrist at the moment when she most deserves respect.

I'm not convinced we've been shown this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:14 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


She was talking to Chilton about how the opinion of their peers would "sting". I agree we don't have proof, but I got the strong impression she was speaking from experience.
posted by tel3path at 3:18 PM on July 27, 2015




She was talking to Chilton about how the opinion of their peers would "sting". I agree we don't have proof, but I got the strong impression she was speaking from experience.

I think you're misreading that. She's not talking about herself at all. She's talking about Hannibal's response to Chilton's book that's going to be published soon. She's saying Hannibal's words will sting because he will once again have a nice lol at Chilton's expense by showing him up professionally despite the fact that he's in BSHCI having been deemed criminally insane. The line before it is about how Hannibal's always been viewed as a psychiatric wunderkind in a way that Chilton never has/can't be, and so the following line is about how he's going to do it again.

Alana's fine. She's got a prestigious job and the world's most fascinating patient under her care. All Chilton's got is fleeting book fame built on even more lies than the ones they told in court (not like he needed the money).
posted by sparkletone at 3:51 PM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]


While they've done a really amazing job of swinging everything around to where it was at the start of Red Dragon despite all the plot rearrangements of the first two and a half seasons, there are two big wild cards I see that are substantially different:

1. The whole situation with Alana makes her a much more critical and interesting character than Alan Bloom was in the book. I don't see Fuller not doing anything with that.

2. We have already had the Flaming Freddie Wheelchair scene, and as with Wound Man, I don't see Fuller doing that again. But that was a very important scene in the book, because Will and the dying Freddy both saw Will as at least partially responsible for Freddy's murder. This also highlighted the danger to Molly and Will's potential complicity should anything happen to her. I really wonder what Fuller is planning to do instead since he's used that scene already.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:32 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I don't see Alana as in any particular need of money, or that her current position is the only one she can hold as she's disgraced in some way. But it can't look good to have your "insane" incarcerated serial killer running around writing brilliant papers. This is more Lecter-from-the-book, isn't it? Where everyone is waiting for him to write something that reveals too much of himself and instead he consistently writes brilliant analyses of other people's problems and remains inscrutable himself?

I do wonder if she's a parallel to Chiyo, because it would make Chiyo make more sense than just Artemis, Goddess of the Sniper Rifle.

Also, I really wish we had more time to see Will pulling himself free of the FBI and perhaps meeting Molly and him having a little more happiness. While tonally this ep worked to differentiate itself from the crazypants first half, I don't think I got enough of a sense of Will having found some peace before the narrative acts to disrupt it.
posted by PussKillian at 6:27 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


We have already had the Flaming Freddie Wheelchair scene

I am, however, still hoping that they find a way to reclaim the "DO YOU SEE?" scene from South Park.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:08 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was wondering why they gave Alana that faux-bob. Alan Bloom was described as "round-faced" with "sad eyes". Now Alana has the sad eyes, and the faux-bob makes her face look rounder.
posted by tel3path at 11:54 PM on July 27, 2015


But that was a very important scene in the book, because Will and the dying Freddy both saw Will as at least partially responsible for Freddy's murder.

Yeah. And no matter how many times I read the book I can't ever agree with that accusation. I think Freddy's wrong, and Will is being too hard on himself and doing his usual thing of agreeing with every accusation.
posted by tel3path at 12:40 AM on July 28, 2015


You know, Alana could have taken the BSHCI job explicitly to prevent Chilton from bollocksing things up.
posted by tel3path at 12:43 AM on July 28, 2015


I sort of assume that's exactly what happened. It makes sense as a move for keeping the character around and giving her cool stuff to do but also if Chilton's off cashing in on his famous rhyming nickname, she'd be an obvious candidate when they replace him.
posted by sparkletone at 1:10 AM on July 28, 2015


This is more Lecter-from-the-book, isn't it?

I'm forgetting specifics but I know it's mentioned several times that he keeps publishing psychiatric papers after his incarceration and there's some stuff about whether the publishers are doing it because it's insightful (which it generally is) or because it's a lurid thing that'll get attention.
posted by sparkletone at 1:13 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wonder if those publishers have a double-blind reviewing process, or whether a letter written in pencil in copperplate and snail-mailed in defiance of the required submission template is enough of a giveaway.
posted by tel3path at 1:26 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yellowbinder, please continue to point out stuff you wish you'd gotten in the wrap sale.

I made some Titanic costumes and the excitement of MY DRESSSS HERE COMES MY DRESS is unparalleled. Same must go for props?
posted by tel3path at 5:22 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


The most obnoxious thing book!Lecter did was constantly turn Chilton's attempts to study him back around on Chilton; the famous test where Chilton put a blood pressure cuff on Hannibal's privates got used as material for Lecter's paper on Chilton.

It doesn't seem like he's done a study on Alana yet?

I guess we don't have any evidence that Alana's been disgraced. i was overinterpreting her warning to Chilton and combining it with Chilton's taunts and Mason's gross remarks.

Maybe even being head of BSHCI is what she thought she exactly wanted. But she sure isn't happy now. she knows Hannibal has her right where he wants her. And Chilton doesn't know the same is true for him. I like that she warned Chilton, I like that she took correction about not warning him and it stuck, no matter how far beneath her he might seem or actually be. Heck, even Chilton's warning her about Hannibal getting restless, even though (he thinks) he's the one who stirred Hannibal up in the first place.
posted by tel3path at 5:29 AM on July 28, 2015


A couple of things:

1. Isn't the exchange between Hannibal and Alana:
A: I stopped drinking beer when I discovered what you'd been putting in mine.

H (smugly patronising and, for once, grammatically in error): Whom.

A (claiming a small victory): Who.
2.
Blood and Chocolate
I hope you're satisfied what you have done
You think it's over now
But we've only just begun

I asked for water
And they gave me rosé wine
A horse that knows arithmetic
And a dog that tells your fortune

Chorus:
It's in your eyes
It's in your eyes
It's in your eyes
It's in your eyes
Uncomplicated

I want to buy you
A big blue Diamel
Cheap white plastic shoes
That don't walk out and don't let in

I want to show you
How I love you
When you're over me
There's no one above you

(Chorus)

You think it's over now
But this is only
This is only
This is only
The beginning

(Chorus)

You think it's over now
But this is only
This is only
This is only
The beginning

(Chorus)

Elvis Costello, Uncomplicated from the album Blood and Chocolate
Which doesn't seem to have much to do with it, to be honest, but I keep getting it as an earworm during that scene.
posted by Grangousier at 5:34 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


So, does anybody have a single clue how they might end this season? Especially given all the very vague hints they've dropped which tl;dr to "very satisfying, big, huge, amazing inversion, new kind of storytelling, dramatic, bold, so much changes, closure, utterly fucking crazy in the very best way"?

I just don't see them Doing The Book, where Will goes off to be a hermit and Hannibal stays parked in BSHCI. This show has never been leading to that. BUT WhaT ELSE UGH
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:43 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Somebody responded to that post "I wonder if it has something to do with Will and Abigail’s conversation about different world’s in the beginning of the season? Maybe we’ll get to see how things would have played out in a different “world” had different choices been made by Will at key points in season 2? That would be a pretty unique twist, and a really interesting season 4."

That would be utterly insane and either the best or worst thing ever
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:50 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't buy alternate timelines, but there's maybe something to the thought of alternate choices? Maybe Dolarhyde, unlike in past versions, gets Molly and Walter and in his grief, Will goes apeshit and becomes the monster people have feared since S1. Who could catch him? His ex-murder husband.
posted by sparkletone at 6:55 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


For the record, I don't know what closure that would provide, so it is likely incredibly wrong. Past finales definitely threaded that needle for me.
posted by sparkletone at 6:57 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I just have to remember that both the S1 and S2 finales threw in some shit that was WAY out of left field and would have been very difficult for fans to predict.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:00 AM on July 28, 2015


"Will the actual monster" is the biggest inversion I can think of that doesn't repeat anything. I just don't see the connective tissue to get there from what we've got. As I've kind of said before, I'm betting it will be slightly more clear a few weeks from now. Even if we couldn't have guessed the whole traumatic picture, it was clear that things were going to go TERRIBLY after 2x12 and the only question was how terribly. We're not anywhere near that point yet in this season.

Though admittedly in s2 we had the Jack fight foreknowledge to color everything and we have none of that here.
posted by sparkletone at 7:04 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


it was clear that things were going to go TERRIBLY after 2x12 and the only question was how terribly. We're not anywhere near that point yet in this season.

D:
posted by Room 641-A at 7:11 AM on July 28, 2015


I stopped drinking beer when I discovered what you'd been putting in mine.

H (smugly patronising and, for once, grammatically in error): Whom.

A (claiming a small victory): Who.


Sad to say, Hannibal is correct, as usual. "What/whom" needs to be in objective case since the direct object phrase "what you'd been putting in mine" is an inversion of "you'd been putting [thing/person -- direct object] in mine," i.e., my beer.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:30 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


I didn't read it as Alana trying to correct him or claiming anything. He's being a dick, and she's humorlessly acknowledging it with a left unsaid, "You ass," on the end of her statement. It's why she's staring daggers at him when she says it.
posted by sparkletone at 7:41 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


That's how I read it as well. "Sure, be pedantic; I'll just be incorrect but, you know, free and in charge of your prison."
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:42 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Maybe Dolarhyde, unlike in past versions, gets Molly and Walter and in his grief, Will goes apeshit and becomes the monster people have feared since S1. Who could catch him? His ex-murder husband.

I can buy Will going murderous, but I'm not sure I can buy Hannibal trying to stop him (maybe just catch up with him). Of course, this show has demonstrated a remarkable ability to make nearly anything plausible.

I'm just excited to see the next few episodes. They started the Dragon arc so faithfully that they HAVE to be poised to fuck with it in major ways.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:46 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


That is, I can't see Fuller just retelling the same story even though his adaptation is already way better than the other two.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:49 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


yeah but everyone including will expects will to be a monster. Many argue that he already is. It is just that bit too predictable for me.
posted by tel3path at 8:05 AM on July 28, 2015


I won't like it if he gets Molly. She already seems like she's not going to have much screen time. To have that and just to get got would make her a kind of predictable female character to prop up a man's plot that Fuller has assiduously avoided thus far.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:28 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Do you guys think we'll get a Hannibal and Molly scene? Because I would love that. She goes to tell him to stop fucking with her man, and finally sees just how broken-down Will must have been in order to bond so strongly with this monstrous person...

Also, that would give them an opportunity to riff on Silence of the Lambs, given that Molly is in a similar position to Clarice - she knows OF Hannibal, by reputation, but doesn't KNOW him.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:39 AM on July 28, 2015


Wills normcore life does not intersect with Hanniworld.
posted by Artw at 8:59 AM on July 28, 2015


Normcore? Please Will is currently living inside a Brooks Brothers Winter Sport catalogue, if the rustic charm was any more designed they'd be an apple pie in every frame.
posted by The Whelk at 9:05 AM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]




I also noticed on Sat that the very first establishing shot of Will's new location (before we see him or Jack) is of the lake near the cabin, so it's like Fuller saying, "Oh yes we ARE at the beach, bitches."
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:37 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


The single thing I found aesthetically displeasing in the episode: that newspaper, with the poor use of space in the banner headline that is the mark of a cheap prop. Bad form.

Other than that I was delighted. And now to read this thread!
posted by rewil at 10:41 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


You know, people used to go on about how much Hannibal "respected" Alana and ohhh he didn't want to kill her!!!!! I do not think he respected her before, I think that he viewed her as his pet and most loyal guard dog. i still think he regards her as his most loyal guard dog, but he has gained respect for her and I don't think there's any way to deny that.

So, how about this: Will is provoked into going apeshit and rampages across the land killing absolutely everyone. the title of the last ep, "the wrath of the lamb", makes it seem like this is not impossible. And supposing one of the people he kills is Alana.

Now, Hannibal may have a yellow sticky note with "kill Alana" stuck to his desk, and every so often within her earshot he remembers out loud that he hasn't got round to killing her yet. I think it's nonsensical to ever say that Hannibal "doesn't want to kill" a given person, and if he hadn't wanted to kill Alana he wouldn't have had her defenestrated and then left her for dead. on the other hand, if he were committed to killing her as a high priority item on his to do list, he would have quickly impaled her on the porch as he departed the scene in Mizumono.

Plus, Alana is Hannibal's kill. If Will kills her it will be like he ate that bowl of chocolate pudding in the fridge that Hannibal was saving for something. In a word: rude.

And considering how far these people pushed him even unto the early episodes of this season, I don't think it's a theoretical impossibility that he could just snap and turn on them.

But I really very much do not want dark!Will to ever cross over into that zone. Fuller keeps teasing us with it. I am also very worried about something he said at ComicCon about Abigail being the embodiment of What Might Have Been, whereas HD said he was playing it like Abigail was a manifestation of the impossible and that disappearance of that fantasy was its inevitable conclusion. So they're at odds there, it seems, and I really side with Will on this one. A world in which Murder Family was a plausible option of any kind would not be a world I would enjoy seeing on screen, and it would also seem to contradict everything that Fuller has given us so far. But maybe I'm not actually seeing this as it is, and the show really is about romanticizing abuse. In which case my entire life for the last two years has been a lie. Oh well, that'll teach me to hang my entire existence on a tv show.
posted by tel3path at 11:07 AM on July 28, 2015


I won't like it if he gets Molly. She already seems like she's not going to have much screen time. To have that and just to get got would make her a kind of predictable female character to prop up a man's plot that Fuller has assiduously avoided thus far.

Yeah, I would really prefer some variation on the "This isn't working out; your life is just too screwed up for me to handle" or "We were good supports for each other for a while but not as a permanent thing" deal as in the original just because it gives Molly some agency and an existence of her own to manage.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:21 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Besides, even at home he can't escape Hannibal

I can see it now. Will and Molly just bought the cabin. The kid's at his grandparents' place for a few days, they're wandering around Upscale Rustic Bullshit, their favorite store for interior decoration...

Molly: "Will, honey, look at this deer pillow, it's so cute!"
Will: .........
posted by sparkletone at 1:18 PM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


Yellowbinder, please continue to point out stuff you wish you'd gotten in the wrap sale.

Hannibal's drafting table, for one! If it had appeared on screen before I went I would've been so tempted. I *think* they also had the frame around the Red Dragon painting, without the painting itself in it.
posted by yellowbinder at 2:19 PM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


And that enormous stag print is up in my bedroom. So pretty with a nice touch of creepy Hannibal associations.
posted by yellowbinder at 2:20 PM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


Anyone care to engage in some pointless speculation about what the total lack of preview for this week's episode means? (I know discussing previews for the coming week isn't kosher and that's fine, but I'd think discussing their pointed absence is?)

They were coy about it the night 3x08 aired (a winky-faced twet about "things we don't want you to see yet"), and then this today, where someone asks and they say simply, "Not yet. We are looking into it."

I haven't looked thoroughly, but I'm pretty sure there's been a few times in the past where a preview wasn't included on the tail end of an episode for time reasons, but was put up on YouTube later. This time there simply isn't one. I'm thinking they're not going to post it until tomorrow night or Friday when the cat will be out of the bag because of the Canadian airing.

Without looking up blatant spoilers because that would be boring and terrible: WHAT COULD THEY BE HIDING? We were blatantly teased last week about Freddie, but surely they're not going to do their version of what happens to that character in the book on ep 2 of 6? Bedelia shows up and does something shocking? Driving myself slightly crazy thinking about it (but also mostly I'm just impatient for it to be ... not Wednesday).
posted by sparkletone at 1:11 PM on July 29, 2015


Ah. Actually further digging back in twitter reveals something far more prosaic: Apparently NBC is in charge of the previews and was just feeling lazy this week, and so one hasn't been posted. RUDE.
posted by sparkletone at 1:12 PM on July 29, 2015


The Hannibal page at NBC.com does have a prominent "Next on Hannibal" (and a Hannigram-baiting one at that, ha) with some preview stills, so it appears that yeah, they just cheaped out on doing a promo this week for whatever reason.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:24 PM on July 29, 2015


Still photos. Bah. Bah, I say! There's sites that just dump super high res promo stills in easier to browse directories pretty quickly after they're sent out to press and what not. (There's one for 3x09 that I've been seeing on tumblr for 2-3 weeks already.)
posted by sparkletone at 1:42 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


so in s2 I kept thinking "Faustian bargain" when I thought about Alana. And her time did run out, and it seems like she did get dragged into hell. i think that she consciously thinks the same thing, she says outright to Mason that they're all dead.

Because she was (she said) about Old Testament revenge, I don't (yet) see evidence that she's no longer a black and white thinker, I get the feeling she's judged and condemned herself here. I just, like, bleak, man.
posted by tel3path at 1:48 PM on July 29, 2015


Still photos. Bah. Bah, I say!

I concur, but at least it suggests that the subreddit worry about how NBC might not bother to air the rest of the episodes at all is off-base. I don't mind going into 3x09 sight unseen; we're reaching the stage where the week between episodes is excruciating but I hate that each one brings us closer to the (putative) end. I'm trying to clear a few days after 3x13 for wallowing in abject despondency.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:50 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


well I'm still in the bargaining phase. After the last episode I am going to wait one week, then count off as many days as there are chapters in Hannibal Rising, and then I'm gonna put up a post about the movie Hannibal Rising which will include book discussion. We can follow my proposed schedule from there. Also we should try to find a recording of the Silence! musical. And of course Greg Nog's recaps will fit into the canon for viewing after each episode of s3. I don't know if we're allowed to put up a whole post for a YouTube video though, so that's another thing we'll have to incorporate into the screen discussion.
posted by tel3path at 2:12 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


We must all pull together and sing campfire songs and name the apostles and pray for the return of that which gave meaning to our lives
posted by tel3path at 2:35 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am dreading the finale. I have a friend who used to make horrible "Crossing the Alps" jokes whenever I'd rave about the show on Facebook in the early days. I stopped paying attention, but he kept doing them. For his birthday, I promised I would react to his next Hannibal joke. That actually got him to stop entirely for ages now, but he has been gleeful about cancellation and has promised to deliver said joke after the finale and that it will be devastating.
posted by yellowbinder at 3:35 PM on July 29, 2015


I adore you all, but I'm not sure I Hannibal Rising adore you all........... (I will probably read thread tho)
posted by sparkletone at 4:03 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


FOR SCIENCE
posted by tel3path at 10:16 PM on July 29, 2015


What The Flick (they fucking loved it for all the right reasons).

Haven't listened yet but:
Sound On Sight podcast.
A Matter Of Taste podcast.
posted by sparkletone at 2:33 AM on July 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


If Bryan doesn't go on the Kevin Pollack Chat Show for another thoughtful 2 hour conversation after this season's over I'm going to 1) scream, 2) eat him, 3) take VERY GOOD CARE of his dogs.
posted by sparkletone at 2:38 AM on July 30, 2015


deliver said joke after the finale and that it will be devastating.

Except maybe if you let it just no. This is some rando (yet not) making a weak sauce joke about a thing he's wholly ignorant of. Like. The only way this joke could really hurt is if it came from a place of knowledge, but this person's premise for their poorly constructed joek is predicated on ignorance.

In short: D E S T R O Y H I M. You deserve a higher grade of Hannibal joke.
posted by sparkletone at 3:04 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


This episode is just so ominous.

Let me tell you how it goes in the nice!Hanniverse:

Will retires because of a traumatic case, but the trauma is certainly not from Hannibal because Hannibal is a nice man. Hannigram and the dogs move somewhere nice, not too hot, and without alligators. Abigail visits them during vacations from her highly expensive college, which Hannibal funded as an anonymous donor. Everyone knows Hannibal is the anonymous donor but somehow they manage to not know it and it remains a mystery.

One day, Jack rolls up. Hannibal acknowledges that he knows Will has been missing the fieldwork, and he feels the same. So Will goes back into the field, and Hannibal knows just how to comfort him and Will does not take to drink. Dolarhyde is caught quickly, but not before meeting Reba. When confronted, he immediately gives himself up because Reba makes him want to be a better man. Reba is distraught and tearful, but she knows he is a good man deep down despite what he's done, because look how he gave himself up. They part sadly, but on good terms. Hannibal offers Dolarhyde treatment, which is unethical but extremely helpful and definitely does not involve any form of death therapy whatsoever. Dolarhyde thrives, and though he is in an institution for the rest of his life he becomes his best self and lives out his long life as a powerful force for goodness and wisdom amongst his fellow inmates.

Hannigram acquire even more dogs. Abigail becomes a wildly successful performance taxidermist. Alana marries a guy named Tim and they have 1.6 children, but luckily they can afford to adapt their house for the truncated child so it's all good. Tim is allergic to dogs so Applesauce moves in with Hannigram. Applesauce and Winston live happily ever after.
posted by tel3path at 5:45 AM on July 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Let me tell you how it goes in the nice!Hanniverse:

Now that should be the Season 4 storyline. Are you listening, Bryan?
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:43 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Or, wait, no! Alana could also meet Margot in a nontraumatic way - it doesn't have to be Tim!

Yes, how about this... Mason isn't some abusive bastard, he's just a bit lacking in practical intelligence and keeps roping the farm into harebrained schemes that never work out as he expects. Other than that, he's quite supportive of Margot. He can't get women to date him because he always puts his foot in his mouth at the last minute, and he's despairing of ever producing an heir or even having kids generally, because he loves kids - he really wants someone his own age to play with.

So when Alana hoves into view, and then it becomes legal for them to marry in all states, a light bulb goes off in Mason's head and he explains his plan to them. Margot is about to remonstrate with him for coming up with another hare-brained scheme but then both she and Alana get "that's so crazy it just might work" face. And so a legitimate male heir is born, and the fortune is safe. Uncle Mason absentmindedly drops Junior in the pig pen a few times, and finds him in there later, playing with his four-legged friends. They're getting quite good at 5-a-side football with a discarded cabbage.
posted by tel3path at 7:49 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Later on, when their daughter is born, Alana and Margot invite Will and Hannibal to be the godparents a second time. (Hannibal tries not to be religious, but he's compelled to partake in the most formal, ritualized and distant affirmation of his faith almost despite himself every Easter. He drags Will into a Russian Orthodox church with no prior explanation and is like "shut up and eat your Savior" and then takes him out for a very taciturn and subdued brunch afterwards.)

And when they introduce the new baby girl, they announce "this is Miss Willow Annabelle Verger". Everyone has tears in their eyes. It's adorable. Chilton plays show tunes at the new-baby party. He's a bit of a hamfisted psychiatrist, but he's attentive and humane and that goes a long way.
posted by tel3path at 7:54 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Personally, it's just not Hannigram without the psychosexual manipulation, but no one need be a murderer for that to be a factor. How's this for an AU: recast Dancy's Venus in Fur with Hannibal as Thomas and Will as Vanda.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:50 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's a preview online finally! I'm gonna skip it because we're so close, but just FYI.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:54 AM on July 30, 2015


I see a 309 post mortem with Scott, Armitage and Rutina Wesley but no preview.

Definitely not watching that ahead of time.
posted by sparkletone at 12:08 PM on July 30, 2015


I saw it on Tumblr, not on NBC.com.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:56 PM on July 30, 2015


Wonder if Armitage is less incredibly awkward in this postmortem
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:57 PM on July 30, 2015


I propose that we flood all social media with the rumour that Hannibal has been picked up by HBO and see if we can make it trend.
posted by neuromodulator at 1:12 PM on July 30, 2015


I'm sure the teeth virtually rattling in the glass at the end had to one his ideas though!

That visual augmented the audio cue, which was screeching violins (just like the ones in Psycho!). And then the hard cut to the next scene gave us a rare straight-ahead scene-setting shot of a ramshackle MOTEL.

I get the idea, watching this episode, that the showrunner is showing his hand with the next half-season of television. Laying it all out. Stringing it all up, all these references and influences, in bright red, shiny and taut. As one does when addressing the Red Dragon.
posted by carsonb at 1:18 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


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