Hannibal - "Naka-Choko"
Mostly I'm going to wait for ignipes to post about Hannibal and then link to what she says, but I can't stand it; I have a few things I have to let fly.
This show is the craziest, freakiest...this show DOES THINGS TO ME. It messes with my head. EVERYTHING IN THIS SHOW IS A METAPHOR. And if it's not a metaphor, it's a parallel - explicit or implicit - or an analogy, or a master class in symbolism. Sometimes I just sit there with my mouth open and I say to myself, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE. I can't actually believe this show is even on the air. I don't love it in a squeeful way, exactly? More like it engages me on a very visceral and also an intellectual level, and I just go into overload and short out and come to at 11PM going, HOLY SHIT.
FOR INSTANCE. First we get Hannibal telling Margot Verger a little bit of cold-blooded wisdom about how love saps away our reason, and how to see things clearly, you have to let yourself hate. This to me is the most obvious thing about the table-turning that has been happening this season - that Hannibal loves Will (in his sick, perverted, psychopathic way - he loves him sort of like a well-trained pet, because he sees himself and Will as being halves of a whole he created and designed now) and thus has lost his ability to see that he's being played. Whereas the moment Will let himself give in to his immense hatred of Hannibal, he was able to build an invisible mousetrap. Or, rather, a mousetrap that is uniquely attractive to one particular mouse. (Jack Crawford is totes over on the side, baiting it with liver and Will Grahams and undead Freddies, because there is no way Will killed her; she's now a part of the machinery.) There is an implied analogy in Hannibal telling Margot that she can't kill her brother until she stops loving him - just as Will was not able to try to kill Hannibal until he was filled with hate. Or imaginary stag horns. Same difference.
This just builds on the opening scene from last week's show, where Will fantasized about pulling the noose tighter on Hannibal, while Hannibal calmly spoke of love. And it builds on the dinner party scene, where Alana is completely fucking perplexed at what is going on between Will and Hannibal, and basically Will tells her to mind her own fucking business, that he and Hannibal know what's between them AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. And Hannibal sits there looking IMMENSELY PLEASED at this turn of events.
But really? What I want to talk about is the goddamned theremin. Music made in the air. The need to have perfect pitch to play it. The need to be aware of what one is creating. At the end of the extended sex scene (scenes? IDEK), my head exploded. That scene had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with sex, and it was so not about Will thinking about a threesome. That scene was about intimacy, and power, and boundaries, and the creation of who we are/want to become/believe we are/believe others to be, and it was about seeking but not really finding, and it was EXTREMELY DISTURBING, and I totally did not rewatch it three times in a row just to try to figure out WHO THE STAG MAN WAS FUCKING because this is sort of the key to the whole thing. Who was standing in for whom, here? Who is playing whom? Will might be fantasizing about Alana, but it was ever so strongly implied that Hannibal was fantasizing about Will, and that there's all sorts of fucking going on here of the mind and body variety, and that Alana is between them -- the boundary. THEN THEY HAVE DINNER AND TALK ABOUT BOUNDARIES AND HOW THERE ARE NONE. And also let's not forget the bit where Hannibal was saying (to Alana) that through their friendship they never touched, but there was all this connection between them, and uh-huh, yeah, that was totally about Alana. /skeptical face
AND WILL GOT TO SAY 'THIS IS MY DESIGN' AND HAVE IT BE HIS DESIGN ON EVERY POSSIBLE LEVEL OMFG.
And then they had SLIM AND DELICATE BUT UNFORTUNATELY STRESSED OUT AND FRIGHTENED LONG PIG. LONG PIG. AND HANNIBAL AND WILL COOKED IT TOGETHER. AND MADE EYES AT EACH OTHER WHILE THEY ATE. AND WILL MADE SERIAL KILLER JOKES. UM. And Will was all, I reject your binary systems of good and evil! and Hannibal was like, you are so hot when you are eating long pig. AHAHAHA.
All of that ate my brain (no pun intended), so I couldn't even focus on the magnificence of Michael Pitt as Mason Verger, and the debut of his homicidal pigs.
...I can't even draw a straight line right now, much less say anything logical about this show. IT DOES THINGS TO MY HEAD.
Dear NBC, please love us enough to give us a season three.
This show is the craziest, freakiest...this show DOES THINGS TO ME. It messes with my head. EVERYTHING IN THIS SHOW IS A METAPHOR. And if it's not a metaphor, it's a parallel - explicit or implicit - or an analogy, or a master class in symbolism. Sometimes I just sit there with my mouth open and I say to myself, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE. I can't actually believe this show is even on the air. I don't love it in a squeeful way, exactly? More like it engages me on a very visceral and also an intellectual level, and I just go into overload and short out and come to at 11PM going, HOLY SHIT.
FOR INSTANCE. First we get Hannibal telling Margot Verger a little bit of cold-blooded wisdom about how love saps away our reason, and how to see things clearly, you have to let yourself hate. This to me is the most obvious thing about the table-turning that has been happening this season - that Hannibal loves Will (in his sick, perverted, psychopathic way - he loves him sort of like a well-trained pet, because he sees himself and Will as being halves of a whole he created and designed now) and thus has lost his ability to see that he's being played. Whereas the moment Will let himself give in to his immense hatred of Hannibal, he was able to build an invisible mousetrap. Or, rather, a mousetrap that is uniquely attractive to one particular mouse. (Jack Crawford is totes over on the side, baiting it with liver and Will Grahams and undead Freddies, because there is no way Will killed her; she's now a part of the machinery.) There is an implied analogy in Hannibal telling Margot that she can't kill her brother until she stops loving him - just as Will was not able to try to kill Hannibal until he was filled with hate. Or imaginary stag horns. Same difference.
This just builds on the opening scene from last week's show, where Will fantasized about pulling the noose tighter on Hannibal, while Hannibal calmly spoke of love. And it builds on the dinner party scene, where Alana is completely fucking perplexed at what is going on between Will and Hannibal, and basically Will tells her to mind her own fucking business, that he and Hannibal know what's between them AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. And Hannibal sits there looking IMMENSELY PLEASED at this turn of events.
But really? What I want to talk about is the goddamned theremin. Music made in the air. The need to have perfect pitch to play it. The need to be aware of what one is creating. At the end of the extended sex scene (scenes? IDEK), my head exploded. That scene had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with sex, and it was so not about Will thinking about a threesome. That scene was about intimacy, and power, and boundaries, and the creation of who we are/want to become/believe we are/believe others to be, and it was about seeking but not really finding, and it was EXTREMELY DISTURBING, and I totally did not rewatch it three times in a row just to try to figure out WHO THE STAG MAN WAS FUCKING because this is sort of the key to the whole thing. Who was standing in for whom, here? Who is playing whom? Will might be fantasizing about Alana, but it was ever so strongly implied that Hannibal was fantasizing about Will, and that there's all sorts of fucking going on here of the mind and body variety, and that Alana is between them -- the boundary. THEN THEY HAVE DINNER AND TALK ABOUT BOUNDARIES AND HOW THERE ARE NONE. And also let's not forget the bit where Hannibal was saying (to Alana) that through their friendship they never touched, but there was all this connection between them, and uh-huh, yeah, that was totally about Alana. /skeptical face
AND WILL GOT TO SAY 'THIS IS MY DESIGN' AND HAVE IT BE HIS DESIGN ON EVERY POSSIBLE LEVEL OMFG.
And then they had SLIM AND DELICATE BUT UNFORTUNATELY STRESSED OUT AND FRIGHTENED LONG PIG. LONG PIG. AND HANNIBAL AND WILL COOKED IT TOGETHER. AND MADE EYES AT EACH OTHER WHILE THEY ATE. AND WILL MADE SERIAL KILLER JOKES. UM. And Will was all, I reject your binary systems of good and evil! and Hannibal was like, you are so hot when you are eating long pig. AHAHAHA.
All of that ate my brain (no pun intended), so I couldn't even focus on the magnificence of Michael Pitt as Mason Verger, and the debut of his homicidal pigs.
...I can't even draw a straight line right now, much less say anything logical about this show. IT DOES THINGS TO MY HEAD.
Dear NBC, please love us enough to give us a season three.