Hannibal 3x03: "Secondo" part 2

[cleolinda]

Comments

[femaelstrom27]

This took me my full lunch hour to read and I loved every minute of it. Reading your recaps always helps me see things I never would have spotted and resolves things I was confused about. Plus, BTS pictures. I can't imagine how much work this is for you so all I can say is thank you so much.

[petronia]

Thank you for doing all the research, as usual. <3

At one point I made a Hannibal S2 fanmix that opened with Cibo Matto's "Artichoke", Cibo Matto being as ever the queens of food metaphors ranging from cute to disturbing.

I had a Timeline Theory myself that was jossed by Contorno, when Chiyo said that she first met Hannibal without his sister, although they had expected her. I still like it a lot, though! Generally I think it makes more sense in this 'verse to assume Mischa was older than a toddler when she died. Not least because Lithuania ceased being a SSR in 1991 and previous to that it would have been impossible for the Lecters to have held onto the property, though anytime afterward they could conceivably have pulled strings and bought it back. TOO MUCH LOGIC MAYBE?

Speaking of animal imagery, hawks.

[petronia]

Also, I spent all of last night reading The Shining and boy do the contents of that book ripple up and down the timeline.

[cleolinda]

It's so funny when you realize how deeply this or that particular book/movie is embedded into the show. They've had a couple of really obvious Dead Ringers homages with the red surgical smocks, but--I was reading a couple of reviews today because I haven't seen the movie in probably 20 years now, and I was really struck by the codependent folie à deux quality of the brothers' relationship. Like, I think there's a little of that, intentionally, with Will and Hannibal.

But yeah, like you're saying, The Shining is one of their big touchstones; I'm not sure offhand what other big ones are. I wish I was at all familiar with Dario Argento, because I can tell I'm missing a million homages. In a way, I feel like the livetweeting of the show would be great for horror buffs and film students to read, because the way they list all the homages is like a survey course.

[cleolinda]

Oh God. The timeline. I despair. Here are the variables I need before I can figure it out

[ext_342496]

I think Lithuania/Hannibal is a substitute by Harris for Romania/Dracula, in the same way that Romania is a substitution for Albania, as Bram may have done in researching vampires. Byron's travels were in Albania- Byron is the ur-vampire aristocrat, thanks to Polidori, and Eastern European history is murky enough for Western readers that any -ia will do, Baltic or Balkan. IDK, but the emphasis on Byzantine architecture seems to point thataway. Your guess is better than mine...

[cleolinda]

I am genuinely *cheerful shrug emoticon* about it by this point--I would love to know his exact train of thought, just for fun, but I'm thinking of the choice as just ~Eastern Europe~ now. "You know, somewhere in there, the Balkantic, it's fine."

[ext_342496]

I had totally never thunk that Hannibal of Carthage, would actually be connected to Baal, devourer of children, despite having read the actual account of the rituals. Duh! And you are right-(throws dart)"close enough."

[cleolinda]

Trust me, I was as surprised as anyone to find out the "deity of Carthage" thing. I had genuinely not expected to come up with anything coherent.

[innocentsmith]

Fabulous recap. This episode was so gorgeous yet freakin' WEIRD that I mostly didn't even know what to make of it, and this helps clarify my thinking on it a ton.

Re: the blood Will crosses through: my thought on watching was of Thomas the Rhymer, who walks through a river of blood in his passage into Faerie. So, in order to get to a beautiful, sinister magical place? I am now sort of taken with the idea of Will as Thomas, not least because I suspect that makes Hannibal the Faerie Queen.

[championlurker]

Back in S1 I read some meta about Will as Tam Lin (which speculated on which character would be Janet etc.)--so this makes Hannibal *all* the iterations of the Faery Queen :)

[cleolinda]

You know, makes the Matter of Taste guys' (I'm not sure whether Fio or Ian were tweeting that night) comment about Will being led to the garden by "faerie fire" even more interesting.

Late to the Party

[meleth]

Chiyoh is another example of women on this show functioning as Truth Tellers. Hannibal lies, and Jack ignores emotional problems in order to catch killers, and Will keeps on losing his identity and getting caught in nightmare dreamscapes. But the women on this show, even when they deal in tortured and Baroque metaphors (Dr. DuMaurier, I'm looking at you), cut through the layers of bullshit that the male characters try to sell themselves and the people around them

Re: Late to the Party

[meleth]

Also, the guy sticking out of the serpent's mouth totally looks like he's shrugging, all "meh, what can you do? Some days you get the horrifying terror-snake, and some days the horrifying terror-snake gets you."