An embarrassment of riches
My telly is happy.
Most of the episodes I have watched lately, among them several finales, were really good.
If I had to do some ranking I would probably put Fargo's "Buridan's Ass" on the top, but The Good Wife ended a stellar season with a very good finale, Mad Men's faux-finale -- they have divided the last season in tow halves, Breaking Bad-style, so the true finale won't be showed until many months -- was terrific and had my favourite last 15 minutes of the week, and The Americans ended its fantastic second season with a devastatingly good episode too. BTW read this walk-through with the show-runners!
I'll have to rewatch it before I write down any review.
As for Hannibal, its second season's finale wasn't the same quality as the three finales I mentioned above but was definitely better than the previous episodes. It did work, especially thanks to Mads Mikkelsen's amazing performance. His subtle acting makes up for all the plot holes and missteps, that the second half of the season, and the show in general, have been guilty of.
So I was right about Hannibal's little fantasy.
He did plan to make that little fantasy family with reuniting Will with Abigail. I'm suprised that so many viewers were shocked to see her alive and were convinced that she was dead.
There's a Bene Gesserit's saying about not believing that someone is dead, unless you have seen their corpse, and even then it could be a trick!
I loved the scene in which Hannibal sniffed Freddie's redhead scent off Will, even though it didn't make sense for Will, who knows about Hannibal's exceptionnal sense of smell, to be so careless -- unless he unconsciously wanted Hannibal to find the truth?-- for the way Mikkelsen acted it. The look in his eyes and the facial expressions told the viewers how much Hannibal had just received a "reality slap" in the face!
I loved the last supper that happened then between Hannibal and Will, when Hannibal, who already knew of Will's lies, gave him yet another chance. It was a sort of last temptation: let's leave together tonight, leaving everything behind, including Jack.
Perhaps Hannibal's suggestion had something to do with what Bella asked him before, and he was willing to spare Jack and simply disappear, but I think it was first and foremost a test for Will. Hannibal even suggested that he would forgive Will if Will came clean then.
But Will failed the test once again, and Mads' acting showed again how much it affected Hannibal and that he made his mind at that moment, giving up on his fantasy, and therefore sealing Abigail's fate.
I also loved everything Mikkelsen did in the last scenes, the way he moved, the way he delivered his lines to Alana or to Will...that pained look on his face, as if he were on the verge of tears, during his last speech to Will, after he gutted him.
Hannibal loved Will, and it was a tremendous love, and Will obviously felt something for Hannibal, was torn between complicated feelings -- hence his phonecall warning Hannibal ("they know") and his final cry ( "you were supposed to leave!"), but when all is said and done, it's Abigail whom Will loved. So Abigail was simply Hannibal's gift to Will.
Hannibal, as I had guessed in a previous entry, did cause the end of Will's unborn child by Margot because he had already another child for Will-- which added to the ambiguity of Hannibal's supposedly non-romantic love, given that he echoed the cliché about women wanted to give a child to the men they love! --, but it was a fantasy, so as soon as Hannibal realised that Will worked against him, there was no reason to keep Abigail no more. Deep down Hannibal knew Abigail could not be a Misha 2.0 to him, and that without Will she had no raison d'être.
She was mostly instrumental in making Will happy, but Will did not want the gift. I don't think that Hannibal sliced her throat to hurt Will, out of revenge, but simply because he acknowledged that the fantasy was no more. It was the consequence of Will's choice. Hannibal really played God there, especially given the fact that the saved Abigail (fro Will) from the same kind of wound he inflicted on her. God gives, God takes.
BTW the choice he offered Will during their last supper, was echoed by the choice he gave Alana "Be blind, don't be brave". But they both chose reality over fantasy, and everytime Abigail turned to be a key element in their going down.
The final embrace, as Hannibal was using his knife on Will, was extremely homoerotic, in an eros/thanatos kind of way. I almost expected Hannibal to give Will a kiss. It reminded me of Mark Antony's and Vorenus'.
That said when Hannibal accused Will of wanting to change him, and Will replied "I already did" I almost laughed. Such a Star Wars-like line! Except that in Return of The Jedi it's Darth Vader who said it to a clueless Luke.
I don't know how Mads managed to keep a straight face and acted as well as he did, after that line!
As for Jack, I hadn't realised weeks ago, when we saw that fight for the first time, that he fought like a boxer. Dancer and boxer, they were.
BTW I liked the reason behind Jack's attack that the flashforwards had left unknown at the beginning of the season. It all happened because his boss was about to ruin everything.
I wasn't sure about Alana's dreamy sequence, in which she slept in black sheets that turned into black water, but I liked how it foreshadowed her final fall from what had to be Hannibal's chamber, and the way she apparently was dying, suffocating under water, in the night. Although she might survive and simply have her spine broken...
I couldn't understand what Abigail said when she pushed her through the window. Could anyone help?
I also liked Bella's scene. Gina Torres was really great and generally improved the show every time she was on screen.
I won't linger on the plot holes, especially the convenient timing that had Alana warn Purnell before she herself showed up at Hannibal's house, but there was no FBI agents anywhere to watch the house of a potential serial killer, and of course Will only showed up much later, so the show(and Hannibal) could deal with each character one by one...
The cops' incompetence was already the show's weakness in season 1 and it was there again in the finale. And how long does it take for the emergency services to arrive? Alana called before she faced Hannibal, Will called again when he arrived...and yet there was still nobody there when Hannibal walked away.
Oh and when did Hannibal remove the bullets from Alana's gun? Are we supposed to believe that she went there without checking it?
But the one thing I can't quite wrap my mind around is the final twist, with Bedelia Du Maurier being next to Hannibal on the plane. I mean, I said in my previous review that she did sound deranged in her conversation with Jack, so I am not suprised that she is team Hannibal, but I smell a plot hole again there.
When she ran away, Hannibal was about to kill her, since he had put his murder suit on, so they really had fallen out. It was not an act. She came back only recently so she might have reached out to him-- or he might have found out about her return -- and they might have found a common ground that would ensure her safety. I have the feeling that the show is hinting at her being Hannibal's informant (especially since Purnell called Will an "informant" and undercover, but...
Hannibal, obviously, didn't know about Will's deception before he sniffed another woman's Freddie's scent on him so he and Bedelia couldn't have gotten together before that, otherwise he would have known from her about Will's and Jack's work against him!
For the ending to make sense, in terms of plot, Hannibal would have to find Bedelia or been reached by her, immediately after his last supper with Will, and before the bloody night!
Unless the scene on the plane happens days after the night in question, and Hannibal, while on the run, has found Bedelia in the meantime. Now that his fantasy involving Will's little family is gone, he might consider Bedelia a suitable replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that Bedelia was jealous of Will and got only scared of being killed because she knew that Hannibal favoured Will over her. But now that Will is out of the picture she might be right where she always wanted to be, at his side.
Two last thoughts:
- As usual the show seems to play with what we know of the books and the movies. Hannibal on a plane recalls the end of Hannibal by Ridley Scott. It was said at the time The X-Files started that Gillian Anderson's character, Dana Scully, was a tv version of Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling from Silence of The Lambs, and those who have read Hannibal know how it ends with Hannibal and Clarice as a couple.
- I can see Fuller and Co telling Mikkelsen: "Hey Mads, how cool would it be to have you speak French in the last seconds?! With all the French-speaking films you've made lately, and all the time you've spent in Cannes festival!"
ETA: I'm stealing this gif from lijability to keep Mads in here, now that that handsome man won't be on my screen every week anymore!
Most of the episodes I have watched lately, among them several finales, were really good.
If I had to do some ranking I would probably put Fargo's "Buridan's Ass" on the top, but The Good Wife ended a stellar season with a very good finale, Mad Men's faux-finale -- they have divided the last season in tow halves, Breaking Bad-style, so the true finale won't be showed until many months -- was terrific and had my favourite last 15 minutes of the week, and The Americans ended its fantastic second season with a devastatingly good episode too. BTW read this walk-through with the show-runners!
I'll have to rewatch it before I write down any review.
As for Hannibal, its second season's finale wasn't the same quality as the three finales I mentioned above but was definitely better than the previous episodes. It did work, especially thanks to Mads Mikkelsen's amazing performance. His subtle acting makes up for all the plot holes and missteps, that the second half of the season, and the show in general, have been guilty of.
So I was right about Hannibal's little fantasy.
He did plan to make that little fantasy family with reuniting Will with Abigail. I'm suprised that so many viewers were shocked to see her alive and were convinced that she was dead.
There's a Bene Gesserit's saying about not believing that someone is dead, unless you have seen their corpse, and even then it could be a trick!
I loved the scene in which Hannibal sniffed Freddie's redhead scent off Will, even though it didn't make sense for Will, who knows about Hannibal's exceptionnal sense of smell, to be so careless -- unless he unconsciously wanted Hannibal to find the truth?-- for the way Mikkelsen acted it. The look in his eyes and the facial expressions told the viewers how much Hannibal had just received a "reality slap" in the face!
I loved the last supper that happened then between Hannibal and Will, when Hannibal, who already knew of Will's lies, gave him yet another chance. It was a sort of last temptation: let's leave together tonight, leaving everything behind, including Jack.
Perhaps Hannibal's suggestion had something to do with what Bella asked him before, and he was willing to spare Jack and simply disappear, but I think it was first and foremost a test for Will. Hannibal even suggested that he would forgive Will if Will came clean then.
But Will failed the test once again, and Mads' acting showed again how much it affected Hannibal and that he made his mind at that moment, giving up on his fantasy, and therefore sealing Abigail's fate.
I also loved everything Mikkelsen did in the last scenes, the way he moved, the way he delivered his lines to Alana or to Will...that pained look on his face, as if he were on the verge of tears, during his last speech to Will, after he gutted him.
Hannibal loved Will, and it was a tremendous love, and Will obviously felt something for Hannibal, was torn between complicated feelings -- hence his phonecall warning Hannibal ("they know") and his final cry ( "you were supposed to leave!"), but when all is said and done, it's Abigail whom Will loved. So Abigail was simply Hannibal's gift to Will.
Hannibal, as I had guessed in a previous entry, did cause the end of Will's unborn child by Margot because he had already another child for Will-- which added to the ambiguity of Hannibal's supposedly non-romantic love, given that he echoed the cliché about women wanted to give a child to the men they love! --, but it was a fantasy, so as soon as Hannibal realised that Will worked against him, there was no reason to keep Abigail no more. Deep down Hannibal knew Abigail could not be a Misha 2.0 to him, and that without Will she had no raison d'être.
She was mostly instrumental in making Will happy, but Will did not want the gift. I don't think that Hannibal sliced her throat to hurt Will, out of revenge, but simply because he acknowledged that the fantasy was no more. It was the consequence of Will's choice. Hannibal really played God there, especially given the fact that the saved Abigail (fro Will) from the same kind of wound he inflicted on her. God gives, God takes.
BTW the choice he offered Will during their last supper, was echoed by the choice he gave Alana "Be blind, don't be brave". But they both chose reality over fantasy, and everytime Abigail turned to be a key element in their going down.
The final embrace, as Hannibal was using his knife on Will, was extremely homoerotic, in an eros/thanatos kind of way. I almost expected Hannibal to give Will a kiss. It reminded me of Mark Antony's and Vorenus'.
That said when Hannibal accused Will of wanting to change him, and Will replied "I already did" I almost laughed. Such a Star Wars-like line! Except that in Return of The Jedi it's Darth Vader who said it to a clueless Luke.
I don't know how Mads managed to keep a straight face and acted as well as he did, after that line!
As for Jack, I hadn't realised weeks ago, when we saw that fight for the first time, that he fought like a boxer. Dancer and boxer, they were.
BTW I liked the reason behind Jack's attack that the flashforwards had left unknown at the beginning of the season. It all happened because his boss was about to ruin everything.
I wasn't sure about Alana's dreamy sequence, in which she slept in black sheets that turned into black water, but I liked how it foreshadowed her final fall from what had to be Hannibal's chamber, and the way she apparently was dying, suffocating under water, in the night. Although she might survive and simply have her spine broken...
I couldn't understand what Abigail said when she pushed her through the window. Could anyone help?
I also liked Bella's scene. Gina Torres was really great and generally improved the show every time she was on screen.
I won't linger on the plot holes, especially the convenient timing that had Alana warn Purnell before she herself showed up at Hannibal's house, but there was no FBI agents anywhere to watch the house of a potential serial killer, and of course Will only showed up much later, so the show(and Hannibal) could deal with each character one by one...
The cops' incompetence was already the show's weakness in season 1 and it was there again in the finale. And how long does it take for the emergency services to arrive? Alana called before she faced Hannibal, Will called again when he arrived...and yet there was still nobody there when Hannibal walked away.
Oh and when did Hannibal remove the bullets from Alana's gun? Are we supposed to believe that she went there without checking it?
But the one thing I can't quite wrap my mind around is the final twist, with Bedelia Du Maurier being next to Hannibal on the plane. I mean, I said in my previous review that she did sound deranged in her conversation with Jack, so I am not suprised that she is team Hannibal, but I smell a plot hole again there.
When she ran away, Hannibal was about to kill her, since he had put his murder suit on, so they really had fallen out. It was not an act. She came back only recently so she might have reached out to him-- or he might have found out about her return -- and they might have found a common ground that would ensure her safety. I have the feeling that the show is hinting at her being Hannibal's informant (especially since Purnell called Will an "informant" and undercover, but...
Hannibal, obviously, didn't know about Will's deception before he sniffed another woman's Freddie's scent on him so he and Bedelia couldn't have gotten together before that, otherwise he would have known from her about Will's and Jack's work against him!
For the ending to make sense, in terms of plot, Hannibal would have to find Bedelia or been reached by her, immediately after his last supper with Will, and before the bloody night!
Unless the scene on the plane happens days after the night in question, and Hannibal, while on the run, has found Bedelia in the meantime. Now that his fantasy involving Will's little family is gone, he might consider Bedelia a suitable replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that Bedelia was jealous of Will and got only scared of being killed because she knew that Hannibal favoured Will over her. But now that Will is out of the picture she might be right where she always wanted to be, at his side.
Two last thoughts:
- As usual the show seems to play with what we know of the books and the movies. Hannibal on a plane recalls the end of Hannibal by Ridley Scott. It was said at the time The X-Files started that Gillian Anderson's character, Dana Scully, was a tv version of Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling from Silence of The Lambs, and those who have read Hannibal know how it ends with Hannibal and Clarice as a couple.
- I can see Fuller and Co telling Mikkelsen: "Hey Mads, how cool would it be to have you speak French in the last seconds?! With all the French-speaking films you've made lately, and all the time you've spent in Cannes festival!"
ETA: I'm stealing this gif from lijability to keep Mads in here, now that that handsome man won't be on my screen every week anymore!