Haters to the left.
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Haters to the left.
Oh so very excited.
I guess I should've said something amongst 8's dissatisfaction with it that even though my afterthoughts were super positive, I did find the first season to get more and more thematically enticing and then relentlessly atmospheric as it went on, with more issues I had early on falling by the wayside. But I guess if anyone doesn't even like the first half of Season 1, I don't exactly where the lack of engagement might be from a subjective standpoint. If it's the procedural bend, that falls away and comes together like, say, a great season of Justified would.
What I'm getting at is: WATCH DIS SHO, PPL. IT IS BACK.
Great start.
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Excellent first episode. I was very curious how they were going to reorganize the dynamics, but it worked for me. The flash-forward first scene was a really great choice.
Loved it, but immediately thought of []
Holy crap Hannibal's red and black checked suit. I mean he's a psycho killer and all but hot damn.
I guess I didn't comment on the last episode. It was solid. Many of the visuals were great.
Oh, and I spent the first five minutes last week covering my eyes and trying not to hear ripping flesh because that crap was nasty.
I watched the previous episode again last night and cringed just about as much as I did the first time around.
HOLY CRAP
I've been about a week or two behind for much of this season, in small part because even though I'm way more tolerant of gore than most people I know, this show somehow finds ways of forcing me to opt out during scenes like the main Amanda Plummer one in the middle of the honeycomb episode and not return for days, but I pulled myself together and caught up aaaaand wow.
These last few episodes were absolutely excellent and feel almost like the perfect distillation the entire creative identity of the series. So perfectly threaded from its mythology (past, present and future), intertwining plotlines, its character relationships, the often unbelievable bursts of surreal wordless visual wonder (which might be the most reliable aspect of any show airing right now for me), the unexpected pitch-black funny spurts, and how everything congeals together to become something so overwhelmingly, morbidly gorgeous and intriguing to no end.
If I wasn't watching this, everything above might read like a hyperbole machine coughed up a furball, but I just can't believe how much more room to impress this series ongoingly carves out for itself.
Okay, I know a lot of important stuff happened this episode, but every time Will was on screen, I kept yelling "Get a haircut! You look ridiculous!"
And then he did. And I'm so happy.
I cannot believe some of the stuff they get away with on this show. Only three episodes into the season, and it's just wow.
Maybe my favourite so far this season. I know the stunningly disconcerting visual dressing is pretty inherent to the series' DNA at this point, but I thought Vincenzo Natali crafted some particularly remarkable moments that blended those gorgeously heightened, glamour shot-filled pieces with central dramatic action in this episode. Very few shows really use television as such a strictly sensory medium quite as effectively as this one, and it's unnerving and exhilarating all at once.
Not to mention how the core character dynamics and plotting are so excellently, uniquely twined right now. Knowing where it's generally going to go somehow doesn't relieve it of any significant tension.
And that final scene just basically just found a way to bring everything I love about the series right now together in such an intensely gratifying way, with that line at the end just nicely throwing another dizzying wallop at everything. For a show that often has bits that are so hard to watch, it sure finds a strange way of making me wish it wouldn't end.
I can't figure out if Will is legitimately becoming more like Hannibal, or if he is acting out the part (getting into the head) of someone who is becoming more like Hannibal in order to get close enough to try and catch him. Or a combination of the two. But the games within games these two are playing have me totally hooked.
The killer of the week plot was a little silly, though. Worth it to end where we did.
I'm fascinated that we're meeting the Vergers, who I remember a bit from the books and films, of which I have read/seen about half. The girl playing Margot was fantastic on Supernatural, playing a character who first seemed very innocent with that round baby face she has, and then get very dark and scary later on. This part has a similar dichotomy between how pretty and put-together she looks, versus what a total disaster she is.
So, I figured out a thing! I was so pleased Will got a haircut a few episodes ago but I didn't really think about why. But in this episode, he went even further and has started dressing really well. His coat in the last scenes was freaking dapper. Will has always dressed like a mountain man after an all-night moonshine party, while of course Hannibal is impeccable to the point of absurdity. (His red and black checkered suit with the flowered tie for when he testified at Will's trial was like something a dandy from another era would wear.) So, Will's more clean-cut, wealthy, and tailored look is mimicking Hannibal's outward mannerisms, just like his behavior is mimicking Hannibal's world-view. Synergy.
Mads is the best:
http://i.imgur.com/KXdwOWY.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Ft4EOJs.gif
http://i.imgur.com/G1IlNuO.gif
I'm sure most will recall the context, but just to be clear, the second .gif is his hilarious reaction to Will's question ("Is your social worker in that horse?"). In the last .gif, he's reacting to said social worker struggling out of the horse. The first .gif needs no explanation, although I somehow missed that bit during my viewing of the episode.
I wish Mads Mikkelsen had a cooking show.
The visual palette and cinematography on this show continues to amaze me. I'm expecting the show to get cancelled though.
The ratings seem to have been increasing to a point where they resemble what they were early in the first season, and there are so many international backers and sales tied into the production that'll likely keep it alive even if NBC were to drop it. Apparently outside interest to pick it up was a major factor in them keeping it this year.
So I'm cautiously optimistic, especially because at this point it's just too good to imagine it gone.
I'm also not certain Abigail Hobbs is dead.