Wednesday, July 29, 2015

079: Hannibal 3x08 "The Great Red Dragon" - ...And the Egregious Censorship of Buttcracks



SPOILERS UP TO (and including) HANNIBAL 3x08, MANHUNTER, and RED DRAGON

In this episode:
  • After a 3 year time jump we catch up with all our old friends and learn just what they've been up to since the "capture" of Hannibal the Cannibal.
    • It's kind of like catching up with your friends after you come back to school from the summer but with more violent family annihilation and better food.
  • Alana is ruling the roost at the psychiatric ward and we're all kinds of psyched for that
  • Why is Hannibal afforded so many special privileges? We know he's not the type to be a super good boy.
    • Also, we're 90% sure he can escape whenever he damn well pleases and is only staying in one place so that Will knows where to find him.
  • Speaking of Will, we're happy to see him happy and Molly's actually nice so there's no chance this isn't going to be wall-to-wall awful as his entire nice life falls apart.
    • Hopefully we'll get to see some interactions that flesh out his relationship with his step-son before the dookie hits the fan, though
  • We're still curious as to what happened with Margot and Alana, as that might be a bright spot in what's sure to be a very freaking dark half a season.
  • Big picture questions about Will as the prototype for the disturbed genius profiler cliche and how that might play into the rest of his story this season.
  • Will hasn't been to see Hannibal in any of the 3 years of his captivity, dude can't be happy about that. At all.
THERE'S ALWAYS AN ADDENDUM:
Music:
http://archive.org/download/AMOT079/AMOT079.mp3

1 comment:

  1. I would have thought Alana would be the only one Hannibal could get special treatment from, because he's going along with her account of Mason. Chilton didn't give such nice cells to Gideon or Will when they were his prized inmates.

    There wasn't a good explanation for why Gideon was in a mental institution rather than prison. Before he was led to believe he was a serial killer, he seems to have belonged in a regular prison.

    Thomas Harris chose a terrible name for Will's stepson. Wally is a big improvement.

    I thought the "sour" line didn't work as well given that Jack had already used it in Coquilles.

    Child characters are often aged up because the younger they are, the harder it is to find good actors.

    Will's likability stems not merely from the actor: much of it is the dogs.

    King Arthur? A mediocre movie in which he plays a minor part. Might as well mention Black Hawk Down.

    Katherine Isabelle is best known for horor (not just Ginger Snaps, but also with the Soska sisters). I'm completely unfamiliar with her horror work.

    Manhunter also used comic actors for the science squad: Dan Butler (who played a different character in Silence) was Price, Chris Elliot was Zeller. I forget who played Katz, but I also don't know if Hettiene Park has a comedic background.

    NBC has been more supportive than any other network Fuller has worked with. He actually quit Dead Like Me after two episodes because Showtime insisted on meddling with the show.

    I think on cable the language might be a bit different. S&P nixed the phrase "muff diving", although more roundabout references to the same topic have passed this season.

    The show has been doing horrible stuff to Will long before this arc. I suspect he's not going to get the same outcome as in the books, although I'd be very impressed if he did.

    Miriam Lass is another surviving victim of Hannibal, but in some ways she got it much worse. I wonder if she's locked up in the BSHCI.

    The Manhunter supermarket conversation originally had more material about Hobbs (which played into the climax), but at some point Mann decided to streamline things by just talking about Hannibal. Will says his friend Bloom convinced him to get treatment when he was depressed after a case, and this version of the character seems even more in need of it (although presumably more averse to psychiatrists).

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