As I said, I understand how Will was driven to kill - he's desperate, he's unstable, and seriously Chilton yeah let's bring the fucking Chesapeake ripper to talk to Will yeah wonderful idea.
I just fear this is a point of no return... I mean, you're trying to prove you're innocent, killing people really isn't the way to do that.
Also is anyone else terrified of the thought of Hannibal/Alana because I know I am.
What's really intriguing me is that it seems like Chilton knows Hannibal is the Ripper. Or if he doesn't, he knows Hannibal is something not right. And yet he's just... sort of... playing with him. I'm interested to find out what his angle is.
Also, I was really surprised to see Gideon again. I thought Will had killed him. Did they mention before that he was alive? Because I feel like that was brand new information. I thought for a bit that Gideon was actually in Will's imagination. I can't tell what's real anymore with this show, man.
The last episode went a little too far with the visual effects, I'm not sure what else to call them. Close ups, time lapse, slow motion, and on top of them crazy sound design as well!
What did you think?
This is a matter of taste of course, but as crazy as the show is it has been still on the subtle side. Because some of the scenes are so crazy it doesn't need so much work with editing, cinematography and sound.
Also, Hannibal & Alana, I thought it could happen but I thought the screenwriters wouldn't go there so.. surprised and not so surprised. Haha.. thoughts?
I believe the implication was that Hannibal drugged Alanna. He was snapping right next to her ear - that would wake anyone up. He was making sure the drugs were in effect. Combine that with the bit where he picked up her wine glass from next to the bed...
As for the visuals, I have felt a few times that they were overdoing it this season, but this episode wasn't one of the times that it struck me. Although now that you mention it, maybe there were too many time lapse shots. At times this season, I've felt like they were doing things "because we did them last season and people liked it!" rather than because it's organic to the flow of things.
That ending part with Gideon... jesus fucking christ. I had to pause during that scene to stop and process what was going on. My boyfriend was teasing me, "he's a serial killer cannibal. You never thought he would do this?" but no, I never imagined he would go as far as feeding someone themselves. Major props to Eddie Izzard for his acting in that scene. He seemed, of course, horrified and disgusted, but like he was trying his hardest to remain calm and cool. It's not easy to act an emotion as complex as that. Izzard is really proving himself as more than just a comedian. But as an aside, how many times are they going to almost kill him? I really thought Will killed him when he shot him, then he was alive, then he got beaten and I thought he was dead... then he was alive... then I thought Hannibal killed him... then he was alive. When they actually kill him, I'm not going to believe it for weeks.
I had accidentally seen a spoiler for this episode before watching it; a shot of Jack looking down into that pit with a caption to the effect of "she's alive." I'm happy to see Miriam's alive, but gotta admit, I was hoping it was Abigail.
Final thought... what's up with Chilton? I can't figure out his agenda. I feel like he definitely knows something's up with Hannibal, but of course he's too self-serving to get involved with the investigation with Jack. But what exactly is he doing?
rather than because it's organic to the flow of things.
How eloquently put! Ohh I wish my English was that smooth. Still learning!
For some reason especially the flowery flower clips before showing the body stuffed with flowers made me think "tacky". haha..
Hannibal did feed someone themselves in one of the movies (Hannibal), the infamous brain eating scene? When I first saw it I thought it was pretty funny actually. I think it's the way Hannibal's so happy and chill about it. It goes so overboard, maybe it's like a panic reflex to laugh?
About the last episode: Hannibal playing a harpsichord(?) was.. hilarious. He's like one of the happiest guys on earth. He goes home and smiles and whistles everyday.
Chilton seems like a character who looks like he's probably going to get killed but still doesn't. Does that make sense?
I had mixed feelings on the flower bit. It isn't a scene I'm going to really criticize because at least it was unique to everything else they've done. There was an issue, however, where it seemed like nearly every scene was punctuated with a time lapse shot. In S1 they did those shots maybe once per episode, now it seems like we get 3+ to an episode. That's definitely overkill; it's perfectly possible to convey the passage of time without those shots. Other shows do it all the time.
Ah, okay. Silence of the Lambs is the only movie from the franchise that I've seen, and while I do own most of the books, I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. So I suppose it just shows some of my ignorance of the canon as a whole to have been surprised by that scene. I have to say, though, that I'm kind of glad for my ignorance. It gave the scene a really strong emotional component to me for the fact that I was so shocked. It made it a more interesting experience.
I did notice he seemed uncharacteristically jovial while playing the harpsichord! I think that might be the only genuine smile we've seen from him that didn't involve cannibalism.
And yes, that completely makes sense, especially given he's gone through a lesser version of what Gideon has; you think he's dead, then he shows up the next episode alive and well. So he sort of already has been killed off but not. Schrodinger's institution director?
This week's episode was so intense, oh my god. Wonderful episode. Some of the episodes this season have felt a bit slow, but this one was just nonstop.
SPOILERX
I'm going to miss Chilton and Gideon, honestly. They were wonderful characters, very complex and intriguing. Shame to lose them both in one episode, though the way it all happened was interesting.
Has everyone just forgotten about Bella?
And finally, I'm not very happy about what's going on with Alanna. She's a very smart woman who doesn't let her romantic urges sway her from that (see: Will), but she seems to be siding with Hannibal completely blindly. It just makes her look like a silly love-struck woman, and I'm not digging that color on her. :/ Beverly is dead, Bella is dying, and now Alanna is playing girlfriend. Where did all the strong, smart women go? Like, I guess there's still Freddie but where the hell is she, anyway?
This latest episode made it so clear that Alanna is being manipulated the hell out of. Like seriously, that whole conversation in the bed where Alanna was like "Dude, we need to talk not just screw" and Hannibal was super deliberately vague and then initiated sex was just like "hey look Alanna's actually still onto it but Hannibal is a clever douche", which is both heartening and disheartening at the same time.
Also, who the HELL is that patient of Hannibal's? I haven't read the books but I feel like she's gonna be super important and I can't wait to see what happens with her in the next couple of episodes.
Yeah, she is being manipulated... It makes me sad that she can't see it.
Margo, wasn't it? Yeah, this is going to be interesting. Although that clip that showed "what happened" with her brother was so vague that I couldn't even figure out what did happen. And the way she dresses is sort of over the top. Not really painting believability there.
Also, I spent most of the episode thinking "the guy who plays Peter looks like that guy who always plays weird, twichy guys." Looked it up and it totally was. Missed you and your typecasting, Jeremy.
I was under the impression (before last week, anyway) that Will was acting a certain way to manipulate Hannibal and try to turn the tables. I was not under the impression that he was actually becoming Mini Me. And then he killed the animal guy and okay maybe I can sort of understand anD THEN FREDDIE, WHAT? WHAT? I did not exactly see that one coming, to say the least...
Though when Hannibal and Will were consulting on the guy mounted to the skeleton, it was kind of funny how they were both talking and then Jack kept looking between them like "are you guys having a moment? what subtext am I missing here???" Honestly, we can't forget that this is Jack's job; he's not just there to organize the investigation, he's an investigator himself. He has to see something. Eventually. Well, I mean, obviously he does since we saw that scene at the beginning of the season with his altercation with Hannibal. But maybe he sees what's up with Will, if only a sneak of it.
And yes, Hannibal has the most graphic, yet, by far, least erotic sex scenes in the history of television. Although did you notice there was actual thrusting pictured? I thought you couldn't do that on network television. Hannibal always amazes me with what it gets by the censors, honestly. It feels a boob flash away from a cable show most of the time.
I remember in the first season they did the fleshy angel thing and the censors were like "no", and so they asked why, and the censors said "you can see the angel's buttcrack". They got away with it by filling the buttcracks with dried blood. Moral of the story, censors are weird.
Alright, full disclosure, I have not read the books yet. The only movie I've seen is Silence of the Lambs, which, as far as I can recall, doesn't contain any of these characters aside from Hannibal. So really all I know about the canon future is that Hannibal is caught. I know most of the characters are at least mentioned in the books (well, sort of. I know Freddie and Alanna have been genderswapped) and that Will is in at least one of them. But beyond that, I don't know anything. I don't know to what capacity Will was in the books. I thought it was in a similar role as he was presented in the beginning (i.e. not a serial killer), but given how things were going lately... I figured I was wrong.
So I was really reeling from how quickly Will seemed to have switched over to serial killer. As I mentioned in a previous post, I thought he was just playing Hannibal up until the bit with Freddie. So Friday's episode just fucking floored me. In a good way, though. I'm happy my Willbaby is not actually becoming Hannibal Jr. I wasn't really sure where that could actually go. Apparently my boyfriend saw it coming but "didn't want to spoil it for me." Whatever. I think he just likes watching me get really emotional over TV.
So now let's talk about Alanna. Let's talk about Alanna starting to think for herself again and being a smart lady again. Because this makes me a happy sponge. (◡‿◡✿)
So the following is a spoiler. Not for any episode that has aired. It's speculation based on stuff that's in the books. So don't read if you don't like the books tellin you what does and doesn't actually happen, who survives, etc.
Hello! I'm just gonna come in on your conversation to say I love this show to death and have a bit of talk! About canon and what's in the books. Because Cherry brought it up and I feel like I have to explain because people get confused about it a lot.
SPOILERX
Frederick Chilton is indeed in the books. He plays an important role in the books. But you know who else was in the books? Beverly Katz. Yes that beautiful lady who got sliced and displayed earlier in the season. So...just because a character is in the books doesn't mean they're coming out of this show alive.
And you're right Bryan Fuller and the crew are indeed deviating from the books' canon. It's a re-imagining of the events. Most of this is kind of because MGM retains the rights to the character Clarice Starling who plays a very, VERY important role in Hannibal's story and life. They also don't seem to keen on releasing those rights either. I don't know something about starting their own show about her or something.
As for season 3 Frederick has been confirmed for it so if you fell in love with him like I did you're in good hands.
So who here watched the season finale? Because I just got done and let me tell you I am kind of not OK right now. Like...sobbing into a bottle of alcohol not okay.
Excellent point about Beverly, and something I was just coming in here to contradict myself on. See, I know Alanna is in the books as Alan, so I went to look up what capacity s/he was mentioned in the books as (that is, as a past-tense figure or presently alive) to get a clue as to whether she's going to die in the show. Then I saw the mention of Beverly and realized no one is safe because... yes, Beverly is most certainly, definitely, for sure dead.
During my research, I also found a very early pre-production article about some casting for Hannibal. Blah blah, but anyway, it mentioned that Fuller's intention is to have season 4 be a retelling of Red Dragon. This answers some questions for me as I was kind of thinking that this was moving at too fast of a speed to continue having Hannibal be a free man (especially given the season finale), and also why they would kill off characters who were present for the books (because this is going to bleed over into them rather than standing just as a prequel). So if anyone finds that interesting, there you go. Shame Clarice will probably never be involved in the show, but I guess that means more Will. At least he can't die... right?
So wait, that suggests that either we're getting some flashbacks or Chilton is alive. I'm really curious to see how they'll do that, given that he was shot in the head. Maybe that was staged. Chilton has proved pretty indestructable, though. This would not be the first (or second...) time I thought he was dead only for him to waltz back in.
And yeah, the finale was all kinds of cruel. I admit to gasping when I saw Abigail, but I kind of thought she was alive all along. Hannibal isn't really someone who quietly disposes of his bodies without us at least seeing their fate. We never saw talk of Abby interspersed with scenes of Hannibal chopping liver, and all we really did see from her was a few non-vital body parts. So I had a feeling she was alive, though time was making me less sure of it. Now, though... yeah, now she might be dead.
Also, holy shit, poor Bedelia. Gotta give Gillian Anderson props for her acting in that last scene - good subtlety in the terror behind that little smile. And if anyone has no clue what I'm talking about right now, go back to the episode and WATCH AFTER THE CREDITS.
Chilton is definitely coming back. Fuller has confirmed his survival and I went back to watch the scene where he got shot. He was only shot in the face (cheek area) and the bullet exited out his neck. If it bypasses his spine or does no serious and irreversible damage to it he can most definitely come back from that. It did miss his brain entirely after all. Also I don't think they'd pass up the chance to have Hannibal under Chilton's care. I wouldn't want to miss that for the world to be honest.
It is a shame about Clarice, but we'll definitely have to see how that turns out. As for Abigail...yeah. I kind of had the feeling she was alive. They were hinting at her quite a lot and the parallels between the series premiere and the season finale become pretty obvious on a second look. Plus you can equate us never seeing Abby's body to Hannibal 'honoring every part of her' but I see that was silly thinking now considering Hannibal's capacity for caring is purely selfish which is the same reason she was even kept alive at all.
The finale literally broke me. I was staring headlong at the television screen with my mouth open for a solid five minutes just processing what I saw. Then I snapped out of it and made a yelling noise. Also fun fact; on a second watch and some reading online, did you know there's a theory that the fall from the second story window blinded Alana? It's called Cortical Blindness and is defined as a partial or complete loss of vision. It's usually caused by a blow to the back of the head, where our brain processes visual images. Considering she didn't react to Will until he spoke to her and said his name and the fact she didn't react to Hannibal at all on his way out is a little bit of proof. Of course that could also be the shock and the act of dying numbing her reaction time. Who knows. We won't until the second episode of season 3. It's gonna be a long ten months...
And yes everyone applaud Gillian Anderson she was superb throughout that entire scene. I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of her character in season 3 I am so pumped for that.
You think through this stuff much better than I do. Neat to know Chilton's coming back! That man is indestructible.
Interesting theory on Alanna! I did notice that she seemed to be staring very far off every time we saw her. That certainly would explain it... Or it could have just been, like you said, that she was dying.
Yeah it's unfortunate that is it has to be so long, but they do still have to film the season. Plus I believe some of the actors have other projects they're working on. I know Mads Mikkelsen just got done filming a movie. Not to mention writing and casting for any characters coming up...so yeah I can see why it would take so long. It's gonna be tough but we can do it!
And believe me I'm not that smart when it comes to this show. I know a bunch of people online who do a LOT analysis for this show and I'll find their things, read them, and then decide if I agree or not. Sometimes it requires episode rewatches, but not too often.
Schrodinger's institution director?
Whatever. I think he just likes watching me get really emotional over TV.
