Hannibal: Discussion Thread

[Vee]

I have never noticed that outrage before, but neither of them are, really. They are simply what they are. Any character on any popular show has its fanatical apologists, but fortunately the TV showrunners (unlike the people who made some of the later Anthony Hopkins sequels) know what Lecter is, and he is not an antihero or a vigilante. They have said he is simply evil.

I never knew much about Dancy before the show but he gives an incredible performance.

[YRBB]

I need season 2 in my life. Maybe I'll try to get the DVDs.

I think Dancy does a fantastic, consistent job.

[Vee]

Season 2 is pretty incredible. The show isn't back til summer, so you have time (and no earthly excuse).

[YRBB]

That's true -- with this delay until Season 3, there's plenty of time to catch up and then watch Season 3 as it airs.

The DVDs are already on my Netflix Queue!

[Vee]

You can always pony up for Amazon Instant!

[DRW50]

I think one of the producers went off on Twitter because some Mads fans kept accusing the show of ignoring his accomplishments and being biased against him/Hannibal.

They catered so heavily to "Hannigram" and all that, but a lot of those fans ended up becoming a constant headache in season 2.

I do pity them having to deal with crazies. But that's what happens when you pander so heavily to them and coo over their stupid flower crowns and "murder family" and all that crap.

[Vee]

Well, the show is all about Hannibal (he's the title!) so I don't know what more some crazies would want. But you always have those people in a fandom.

They do have an active social media presence and they do enjoy their active fanbase, which I think is fine, and fun in moderation. Leveraging those fans got them their renewals on a network that is frankly a mess, and now with their international deal they are likely secure to continue elsewhere even if NBC was to cancel the show (I think they had offers from Amazon and FX). But engaging your audience offscreen is not the same thing as pandering onscreen or being led by fan opinion. The show itself doesn't cater to them and never has. The show is on its own weird trip and it's the closest thing to art that I've seen on network television since David Lynch, AFAIC.

And as for Hannibal and Will Graham - well, the show has always been explicitly about that relationship first and foremost, even before any fans latched onto it. It's not really a show built on a group dynamic, or crimebusters or anything like some CBS procedural. They are the two primary leads, everyone else is compelling but ultimately supporting. It's hunter and hunted, killer and prey, etc. That relationship, and the tangled web, the twisted sympathy mixed with the hatred, the homoeroticism, has been there since the original book as well as Michael Mann's Manhunter. It was specifically built on that before they had any audience. Like, say, The X-Files with Mulder and Scully, or to cite yet another Gillian Anderson example, The Fall with her and Jamie Dornan, the entire show is built on that principal connection and double act. Without that there is not a show. They're not going to suspend that or back away from the central dynamic of the show just because it has garnered an audience, some of whom are idiots, nor should they.

They have talked about weaving in Clarice Starling or a Clarice-esque character in later seasons while giving Will a back seat and then bringing him back in - much like the books - and that would work, because Clarice and Lecter had a similar relationship. I think they may end up using Anna Chlumsky's great character if they can't get the rights to Clarice from the studio. After Red Dragon Will ended his career a lonely, crippled, mutilated drunk, which is how he is referred to in SOTL. I expect that to happen to him now that they are bringing in Molly and her son as his future family (which he lost at the end of the book), but I think they intend to bring him back for one final round as Lecter in a future season. I hope they'll give him some sort of peace, but on this show peace has been pretty momentary so far (the arc with Laurence Fishburne's Jack Crawford and his dying wife, played by Gina Torres, is just heartbreaking - I know she died in the books but I keep hoping for the best).

[DRW50]

To me things like that silly fourway fantasy with "Hannigram" and Alana and the stag was the worst kind of fan pandering and pretentiousness, but that's just me.

[Vee]

But that's always been the show's nature. It's not fan pandering - it's been the show's narrative thrust, as well as their aesthetic, since the very beginning. Lecter and Will are friends, they are enemies, they are in-between. And while Will deeply cares for Alana Bloom, for example, his twisted understanding with Lecter is the deeper, darker heart of the show. It's always been that way.

Lecter recognized what he felt was a kindred spirit in Graham and tried to mold him into being a sort of homosocial partner in life - gaslighting him, manipulating his illness, trying to isolate him, tear him down psychologically and rearrange his life according to what Lecter thought would bring Graham's 'ultimate self' out (i.e., a psychopath, like Lecter). He's done that to other people, that's his M.O.; there are a string of them throughout his history, some of whom are shown in the story. Anything he can't turn into something like him he destroys. And so that, as well as the weird sexual component, and the undercurrents of the different strands of their relationship, from (mostly platonic) love to hate, and the mindfuck visual concepts, are really deeply embedded in the central DNA of the show. They always were, since the very beginning of the pilot with the blood spatter on the walls of the first crime scene. It's not something they brought out to tease people. It's the central concept.

Anyway, I don't want to bicker about it and I don't know how far you've gotten into the show so I will leave it at that. I hope if you haven't seen it that you will watch it sometime and judge for yourself.

[Vee]

Former True Blood star joins the show in the Joan Allen role from Manhunter. Richard Armitage will be playing Francis Dolarhyde, the Tooth Fairy (previously played by Tom Noonan and Ralph Fiennes).

[Antoyne]

Carl I swear you pay way too much attention to the fans of everything you watch. Wouldn't you enjoy watching some of these shows more if you didn't pay attention to crazy fans?

I'm super pumped about season 3 though. Season 2's finale was one of the most intense finales I've ever seen and I'm very curious to see where everyone is at the start of 3.

[YRBB]

I didn't quite do that but Season 1 Disc 1 is at home... I think I'll be starting tonight!

[YRBB]

Started Season 2.... What a stunning shocker of an opening scene. Wonderfully done.

[YRBB]

Hannibal and Psychiatrist Gillian Anderson are just fabulous together. No wonder they get so many scenes. I love that, clearly, she knows... something but we can't tell what the extent of it is or what she's covering etc. I just don't want to see her dead.

Will remembering Hannibal feeding him the ear. I can't.

The poor guy having to literally tear his skin off to escape the human body circle the killer put him in. Only to jump off and get killed. I can't. I CAN'T.

[YRBB]

And Cynthia Nixon is the last person I expected to see here.