Hannibal (1 Viewer)

[JonZ]

Im enjoying the show and glad it got a second season.

 

[Quentin]

That finale was just....delicious.

I cannot express enough how much I dig this show. So smart, so well paced, so hauntingly pretty and eerie at the same time.

And, as we close the season we see Dr. Lecter looking like he has most certainly won. We know he's won a battle...but, the war rages on. it will be interesting to see how Will attempts to fight him from his cell in the BSH for Criminally Insane. I do believe that looks like Miggs' cell.

And, what is up with Scully/Du Marier? She clearly knows more than anyone else. Could she also be a serial killer? Why do I get the feeling she KNOWS she's eating Abigail's heart and not veal?

Can't wait to see this show back.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

And, as we close the season we see Dr. Lecter looking like he has most certainly won. We know he's won a battle...but, the war rages on. it will be interesting to see how Will attempts to fight him from his cell in the BSH for Criminally Insane. I do believe that looks like Miggs' cell.

For an ending where the protagonist's imprisoned and the villain walks free triumphant, it was a surprisingly upbeat ending. Will's mention of Hannibal's clock test put Dr. Bloom onto his encephalitis. Since the episode ended with his encephalitis being found and treated, they know he wasn't faking the clock test and therefore should be wondering why Dr. Lecter kept posing it if it was normal every time. Jack walked into the Hobbs house and heard the key portion of Will's exchange with Hannibal. Whether Jack reacted or not, that should put the idea as a bug in the back of his mind.Most importantly, Will's been treated for his encephalitis, so he's not working blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back anymore. Hannibal's up against an adversary with the disposal of his full talents. The question to me isn't if Will turns the tables on Hannibal, it's when. Do they tell the second season with Will consulting on cases from behind bars with Hannibal finally going down in the second season finale, or does he turn the tables right from the get-go at the start of the next season? I'm assuming they want to tell the Red Dragon story at some point, so Will has to come out on the other side in position where the audience can buy the FBI putting him back on the beat again.

And, what is up with Scully/Du Marier? She clearly knows more than anyone else. Could she also be a serial killer? Why do I get the feeling she KNOWS she's eating Abigail's heart and not veal?

A truly disturbing scene. My feeling is that she's very much like Hannibal; if not a killer like Hannibal, then certainly someone whose curiosity far outweighs their morality.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

TV Guide has an interesting interview with creator/showrunner Bryan Fuller about the finale and his plans for Season 2.In another interview with IGN, Fuller explained the economic model for the show:

I think what’s really in the show’s favor is that it’s doing very well internationally, and we’re in something like 70 countries. It’s a relatively low-cost show for a network. They pay a third of the licensee that they would pay from a standard show because we have such a huge international component to the show. So I think that’s in the favor of continued ability to tell future stories, that the show is fiscally a great model. We’re not a huge-budget show, even though we put every effort into making the show feel like a big-budget, aesthetically beautiful production. But we’re not spending a ton of money.

So because the Dino de Laurentiis Company/Gaumont/Sony Pictures Television were able to presell the series so well internationally, the license fee that NBC faces is a third of the cost of a normal show. Sony's famously aggressive about keeping shows that make money for the studio on the air, and the money they're making on this one internationally ensures that it's cheap enough to find a home domestically. It takes some of the advertising pressure off NBC since they don't need the huge ratings to break even, and it opens up more options if NBC doesn't renew it down the road.In yet another interview with Assignment X, Fuller outlined his season by season plan for the show:

Well, when you get into Season Four, you get into the literature. And so Season Four would be RED DRAGON, Season Five would be the SILENCE OF THE LAMBS era, Season Six would be the HANNIBAL era, and then Season Seven would be a resolve to the ending of that book. HANNIBAL ends on a cliffhanger. Hannibal Lecter has bonded with Clarice Starling and brainwashed her and they are now quasi-lovers and off as fugitives, and so that’s a cliffhanger. It might be interesting to resolve that in some way and to bring Will Graham back into the picture. So once we get two more seasons, say, of the television show, those are the aren’t-novelized stories, and then we would get into expansions of the novels after that and kind of using the novels as a backbone for season arcs that would then be kind of enhanced.

So the next two seasons will be original content drawing from the bits of backstory in Red Dragon, Seasons 4, 5 and 6 would be one-season adaptations of Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal in the much the same way the first two seasons of Game of Thrones were one-season adaptations of A Song of Ice and Fire and then the final season would go back to original content to give the overarching story the sort of ending that Fuller obviously feels that Harris didn't give it.But in this other interview with Fuller from Hitfix, there are rights issues that get in the way. While the Dino de Laurentiis Company has the rights to Red Dragon and Hannibal and all of the characters that originate in each, MGM has the rights to Silence of Lambs and the characters (including Clarice) that originate in that. For next season, they're negotiating the character rights for Mason and Margot Verger. But if his plans make it to season five, there's going to be a much larger negotiation at play, probably involving bringing MGM in as a production partner.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I'll enjoy it as long as it lasts, but...

(book and movie spoilers...)

Spoiler

...sociopaths don't love. Luckily we'll have to get to Season 6 before we get to the inconsistency that is the book Hannibal. Silence of The Lambs had it just perfect with Hannibal saying he had no plans to call on Clarice because he found the world more interesting with her in it. But Hannibal undid all that with the silly love story. And Hannibal chopping off his own hand so as not to hurt Clarice? A sociopath doing that? Good Lord.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Thomas Harris has often said that that Hannibal is NOT a sociopath. His brand of evil doesn't fit neatly into any of psychiatry's categories of personality disorders.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I think people call that retconning. He's referred to in the first two novels as a sociopath. I'm not prepared to dive into an internet way back machine, but Hannibal was commonly referred to at the time as being a sociopath and I don't remember reading anything in the time period from Harris dispelling the notion. I also remember hoardes of "outraged" fans at the time Hannibal (the book) arrived. Some even called it a "f*** you" to fans from Harris.

I don't get that deeply into it, but I remember these things because it's one of the rare cases where I was put off by something like that. Normally I just follow the characters and story where the creative talent leads. The characters are whatever they say they are. In this case, I was so put off, I actually went to the internet to see what others were thinking. What I was greeted with was a vitriol far greater than anything I was feeling.

But whatever anyone else says, I can only speak for myself. To me, Hannibal is what was described in Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. What he subsequently "became" in Hannibal (the book) and the various movies (Hannibal, Hannibal Rising) feels about what it'd feel like if the whole world comes down on GRRM to "just go ahead and finish" ASoIaF and he gets fed up and does just that, finishing all the rest of it in the next year far below the quality he has established, and silently sending a "You happy now" out into the universe. Luckily, I know he won't do that. At least I hope he won't. But I've lived through it once, so I'll always be at least a little bit cautious.

Either way, there's plenty to enjoy until I have to deal with the horrid apparently forthcoming "love" story. It's nice they have a plan and I'm glad to see the show returning.