(Note: As always, no spoilers in the post itself, but comment sections are allowed to be spoilertastic.)
Apparently? I mentally blog to you guys more often than I actually do. I was shocked to see I hadn’t discussed this show yet.
So. *ahem* Let’s rectify that, shall we?
Hannibal is a TV series based on the iconic cannibal Hannibal Lector from various movies such as Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal (handy, that), Red Dragon, and others. Even if you haven’t seen the movies, you’ve likely heard of them. Hannibal Lector, the gentleman serial killer, nibbling on human body parts with fava beans and a nice chianti.
You might not have watched the tv show, however, and I strongly recommend it as long as your stomach can handle artistic gore.
Because it IS artistic, and that was the biggest surprise for me. (Granted, there are two scenes in Season 2 that are pretty spectacularly cringeworthy, so it’s not ALL artsy).
It took me a while to warm up to this new Hannibal, as portrayed by actor Mads Mikkelsen, but I’m 200% on board with his Hannibal now. To the point where I rewatched Silence of the Lambs and found the original portrayal to be almost crass in comparison.
The tv show is a reboot. It borrows heavily from events in the movies (so if you want to be surprised by a few things, don’t rewatch. If, however, you want to see the nods and homages to the originals, I recommend a rewatch.)
We start Season 1 with a Hannibal who has never been caught, helping the FBI solve serial killings. Hannibal’s foil in the show is the superbly portrayed Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), a profiler with the unique ability to put himself in the place of a killer in order to understand and capture them.
Aaaand that’s all I can tell you about the plot without being spoilery. The first episode is good and it skyrockets from there into one of my all-time favorite tv shows.
It’s not a scary show. It’s not intended to be a horror series at all. It’s … cerebral, with a lot of tension and no shortage of horrific ways for people to die. (or delicious-looking ways to eat them)
Will’s character is prone to … well, not “visions” really, but they’re certainly stronger than daydreams. For example, early on in the series, he begins seeing a black elk. The elk is his brain’s attempt at creating a symbol to help him solve a mystery that he doesn’t even really realize he’s trying to solve that early on.
Symbolism, color use, and very deliberate scene setups are rampant throughout the show. A favorite shot seems to be a balanced camera shot, with something in the middle of the screen and two characters (usually Will and Hannibal) placed evenly on either side of it (typically with one of them in shadow and the other in light).
There are throwaway lines in the very first episode, tiny little seeds planted that seem nearly unimportant until the FINAL episode of Season 2.
And then? Let’s talk about it from a writing standpoint, shall we?
Season 1 ends with a situation that just … honestly? When I watched it? I couldn’t imagine how they’d possibly continue the show after it.
But they dug themselves out of that impossible hole, with me watching incredulously at how deftly they did it … only to shove the characters into an EVEN DEEPER hole at the end of Season 2!
I haven’t seen 3 yet (we’ve been watching via Amazon Prime, and Season 3 isn’t available for free yet) but HONESTLY. I can’t imagine how they’re going to resolve this, but I can’t WAIT to find out.
The writers of this show have taken the writing advice “think about the absolute worst thing you can do to your characters … then make it worse than that” and polished it to diamond perfection.
There will be no Season 4, much to the despair of everyone I know who has seen the show.
I’ve been rewatching it with Perry (thanks to the rabb.it web video sharing site) and it’s EVEN BETTER on a rewatch, because I know what I’m looking for. (Plus, Perry’s ever-expressive two-hands-in-the-air exclamations are fun to see)
So yes. If you are even remotely inclined to watch this show, I super-duper-double-dog-dare you to try it.
