Another Friday, another discussion with Margaux about a brilliant episode of Hannibal.
Trevor: Every time I see a new episode of Hannibal, I wonder why I even bother watching anything else.
Margaux: I know this probably means nothing to you, but I’ll say it anyway. Having the Warriors play in the NBA finals AND new Hannibal on the same night is basically like my birthday, for the last two Thursdays. Basically, my life cannot get any better than this.
Trevor: I know the Warriors are some sort of sporting squadron. Also, the overlap between people who watch basketball and people who watch Hannibal is probably pretty small, so you’re part of a very exclusive group.
Two episodes into Hannibal’s third season, and I’m still surprised at the use of flashbacks. The opening of “Primavera” was just the end of last season’s “Kazumono,” and re watching it, I got an equal dose of heartbreak and terror, two feelings that this show balances extraordinarily well. It actually makes you feel bad for Hannibal, who is a murderous cannibal! That’s a hell of a feat.
Margaux: And that’s how Bryan Fuller doubly confounds expectation, not only has he done so much with the source material to the point where authorship between Fuller and Thomas Harris blurs severely ( we talked about it more last week). But we essentially got the premiere we thought we were going to get last week, but didn’t and I think it worked well to fill in the blanks of “Antipasto” without over explaining anything, I appreciated the dream-like time jump.
Trevor: Dream-like is a good word to describe “Primavera,” and I think that’s because it revolved around Will Graham, Hannibal’s most cerebral character. But that’s no new observation. What I liked most about “Primavera,” and what I’m enjoying the most about season three so far, is how weird it was. What do you think, did Abigail actually make it to Palermo with Will?
Margaux: I was 100% shocked to my core that Abigail survived, AGAIN. She’s like a really fucked up cat, doomed to live through these two men’s (Hannibal and Will) homoerotic courtship/friendship. I know Abigail told Will that Hannibal deliberately shanked them with surgical precision because that wasn’t the ending Hannibal wanted for them, that Hannibal wants them to find him in Italy, was oddly not surprising. That’s so Hannibal.
Trevor: I might have missed something, but I’m not totally sure that Abigail actually lived. I know it’s not like this show to go all Beautiful Mind on Will, but keep in mind that he was hallucinating hard during “Primavera.” I feel like if I rewatched it I could find more clues that she was just another hallucination. Remember the last shot of her in this episode: sitting on the chapel steps with Will after bringing him out of his reverie. He imagines her throat opening up; blood pours out, and we see that Will is alone. Is she another fantasy like the stag? (Which, by the way, is one of the best recurring visual motifs on TV right now. I’m glad to see its return.)
Margaux: This show is nothing but a mind fuck to try to review. I agree that I wasn’t totally sure if Abigail lived or not, I was more so speaking to Will’s first “vision” of her in the hospital, where she lays everything out for him, maybe a ghost way of giving Will closure. Because, by the end, we hear Will whisper to an unseen Hannibal that he forgives him. And I also agree that you don’t come out of an eight month coma with your hallucinations suddenly cured.
But with Will in Italy and Hannibal nearby, the stag was bound to make a reappearance.
Trevor: I like that the show is drifting away from the food titles. Yes, primavera is a type of pasta, but it was used here to refer to the Botticelli work that Hannibal recreated in Florence so many years ago. I’m also glad because another painting reference adds credibility to my theory that season three will be a picture, not a meal.
Margaux: Botticelli’s painting is also known as Allegory of Spring which I think ties in nicely with Hannibal’s admission from last week of shedding his “person suit.”
Trevor: I liked the introduction of Renaldo Pazzi (another character from the novel Hannibal) as kind of a foil for Will. Pazzi knew Hannibal as il mostro, the Monster of Florence; Will knew him as his friend and as the Chesapeake Ripper. Hannibal has this connection to both of them, and more importantly this hold over both of them. Will and Pazzi played nicely off one another.
Margaux: I wrote in my notes, “Hello Italian Jack Crawford!” It was very Catholic of Pazzi to meet with Will in a church, and was a refreshing change from the interiors of a police department, but Will and Pazzi exchanging horror tales of The One Who Shall Not Be Named was an amusing volley of battle scars. But knowing what we know of the character, do you think Pazzi is going to stick around very long?
Trevor: Oh, I don’t see him making it to season four. One line he had that I really loved was “Is Will Graham here because of the body, or is the body here because of Will Graham?” Will’s rap sheet notwithstanding, the body is there because of him. He just isn’t the killer. I feel like Hannibal wanted Will to find him in Italy, but had no idea if he actually would, which makes the broken heart tableau – a “Valentine written on a broken man,” another excellent line – more than a little sad. Hannibal misses his buddy!
Margaux: If Bedelia is still around, how long until you think she and Will find each other? Her pleas last season to help Will, though somewhat withholding in the info department (as usual), I think were sincere. She’s dug quite the grave for herself.
Trevor: I could see Bedelia spilling her guts (phrasing) to Will about what happened with her patient. (Who will be played by Zachary Quinto, by the way.) Association with Hannibal is like being war buddies, or being in a twelve-step program: something about it just strips away your ability and tolerance for bullshit, and promotes some really striking honesty.
Margaux: Maybe Hannibal IS a good therapist, after all.
Trevor: I want to talk about that…well, I won’t call it a “chase” through the chapel catacombs, but it was close. The catacombs resembled nothing so much as they did the bowels of hell: the eerie light, the twisting corridors, the skeletons. Perfect place for Hannibal. And it’s then that I realized, outside of flashbacks, Hannibal didn’t say a word in “Primavera.” Mads Mikkelsen’s presence is terrifying enough on its own. And the way Will whispered “I forgive you” was so intimate and chilling. Brilliantly done.
Margaux: Chase or not, by the end of the creepy, suffocating tour of the catacombs, I got the sense that the chase between Hannibal and Will is definitely back on. And to bring it full circle to what you were saying earlier about honesty, I think the lines between them are more clearly defined than they ever have been.
Trevor: I’m really looking forward to Hannibal’s “pursuit” season. This show is so much better than your average procedural, and I know there’s no way they’re going to do anything as trite as some “cat and mouse” bullshit. They’re both the cat, they’re both the mouse. I adore this show.
Margaux: It’s not so much “cat and mouse” as it is a struggle for power and dominance (phrasing). And all the fucked up shit that happens in between that fuels the tension.
How gruesome was Will and Abigail’s surgical scene?! I had to look away when they stitched up her throat like the Joker’s mouth.
Trevor: Oh man, that was brutal. Yet, like all the blood and gore on Hannibal, hard to turn away from.
Do you want to talk stars? Unless you have more to discuss, which I’m sure you know I’m down for.
Margaux: Let’s talk stars before this turns into reaching conspiracy theories of what could happen next. “Primavera” was very much Will’s episode, like “Antipasto” was Hannibal’s, and it was another beautifully shot and wonderfully acted hour that NBC can usually never brag about. 4.5 stars.
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