cop shows for people who don't like cop shows: 3/?

[pocochina]

This is one that I wasn't sure if I'd include because I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Ultimately, though, it's definitely a crime show that's not like a lot of crime shows: dreamy and artsy, with a highly unconventional protagonist and antagonist, a prequel to a well-known franchise that delivers on twists and suspense.

Still, I'm not

Comments

[goldenusagi]

I'm definitely in it for Hannibal himself. I mean, Will is awesome, and I love Will, and I feel a lot more for Will as the show went on, and cared about him more, but I'm here for Hannibal. His disconnect is fascinating to me. Did you happen to catch the episode where he seems to be all lonely so kills a bunch of people to throw himself a dinner party and cheer himself up? Or the one where he fights the other serial killer (first Raphael from SPN). But it's like that total disconnect there in the dinner party episode (1.07). You do see that Hannibal is lonely, that he wants to connect with people, yet he has no concept of how real people go about doing that nor does he want to do it the way real people do it. But the show shows you that spark of inner emotional life, while at the same time, letting you see how those desires manifest themselves in the worst ways possible. It makes it impossible to feel sorry for him. The way he processes everything is just so alien. And then later, the disconnect with Abigail. He seems to

[pocochina]

This is why you don't have friends, Hannibal!

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS HANNIBAL!

In a way, everything is so compartmentalized with him. He does something, doesn't regret doing it at all, but then is annoyed at how it personally affects him. That's another thing: it's all about him. Like, if Will had been killed by Tobias, I don't think Hannibal would have been upset about Will's actual death like other people would have, but would have been upset about how Will dying affected him.

I do feel like Will and Hannibal are a very interesting match in this regard, with Will's inability to keep anything out of his head and Hannibal's total lack of acknowledgment that there's more to the world than what is in his head. I just don't necessarily buy what I've seen of Hannibal as particularly inhuman, though, as much as I think he wants to be. In the major episodes he simply comes across as the logical extension of most dicks who like to control others. Which can still be a really interesting/disturbing thing to explore? But just

[abigail_n]

I'm not sure I can talk you into it, since I'm equally torn about the show (albeit for different reasons) but I do think that Jack is its most complete and best-drawn character. The way I see it, if Hannibal lacks conscience and compassion, and Will has too much of both, Jack has the first but not the second. He knows right from wrong and feels strongly about defending the first and punishing the second, but he has absolutely no sympathy for weakness or for the concept of degrees of guilt

[pocochina]

The way I see it, if Hannibal lacks conscience and compassion, and Will has too much of both, Jack has the first but not the second. He knows right from wrong and feels strongly about defending the first and punishing the second, but he has absolutely no sympathy for weakness or for the concept of degrees of guilt.

That's a dead-on analysis of Jack.

the problem is that Hannibal, who likes to eat people, doesn't appear to be crazy at allHannibal strikes me as someone who has immense intellectual firepower and uses it to operate under the same principles as any other narcissistic control freak. I can't decide if that's a problem with the show, or a thing I find promising about it, though. I think it could end up being a really interesting commentary on the banality of evil - Hannibal thinks he's the greatest of artists, the loneliest and most tortured of souls, but actually he's using the logic of cruelty just like any other predatory animal. Maybe all sadists should look this appalling and ugly; maybe Will is the only one who sees

[abigail_n]

I think it could end up being a really interesting commentary on the banality of evil - Hannibal thinks he's the greatest of artists, the loneliest and most tortured of souls, but actually he's using the logic of cruelty just like any other predatory animal.

I agree that that could be very interesting, but given the history of the franchise and the character I'm not sure there's much reason to hope for it. Pretty much every creator who has gotten his hands on Lecter, including Thomas Harris, has bought into the notion of him as a lonely artist whose cruelty is cool because it's directed at annoying people. The first season seems to do that as well, and while I agree that there's room for the second season to step back and reexamine those assumptions, I'm not sure I see much reason to believe that it will.

[pocochina]

I don't know what my deal is! Maybe it's an expectations problem? With everyone and their mother being over the moon about it, and with the way there are so many nifty elements to it, that "liking it" (which I obviously do) still feels underwhelming somehow.

[myfriendamy]

I like this show a lot, but I'm also not in love with it. I don't really know why, and to be honest I haven't spent much time thinking about it.

But part of the fun for me was the build of the season and watching Hannibal's plan unfold. So it's interesting you skipped to the end!

[pocochina]

It's a puzzle! Because...Brian Fuller! It is the dark, high-concept cousin of Pushing Daisies; there is nothing about that sentence with which to find fault.

But part of the fun for me was the build of the season and watching Hannibal's plan unfold. So it's interesting you skipped to the end!

Maybe that's what I missed! It wasn't so much "skipped to the end" as "didn't latch in enough to watch every episode before it dropped off On Demand."

[pocochina]

One of the themes that I think the show explores are how people can end up using and consuming (not necessarily in the literal sense) others around them without that being their intent at all, simply because most of the time we do not "see" other people clearly except in the light of what they represent to us, or could yield to us

I mean, I won't pretend ability-related microaggressions aren't a berserk button for me. But I think my big frustration is that the constant "are you BROKEN" pestering is just not an effective way to maximize returns on Will's talents? Any more than sitting in the passenger's seat and asking someone "are you gonna crash? how about now? huh? HUH??@?!" would actually make them a better driver. Which is the kind of thing that someone whose job has the phrase "Behavioral Science" right there in the title...just can't not know. There's no way this doesn't make him bad at his job. Either he's a crummy manager or a crummy psychologist, or both. And I can be on board with a story about that, in theory, but I'm not