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Opening fight was amazing and had some quality workrate. The knife thing should have been absurd, but it didn't seem that way.

 

I think Crawford could be done for. I know he's in the later books, but that looked like a very nasty wound. And, besides, the guy has been so inept at his job (he can't spot a psychopath who is LITERALLY right next to him), it's hard to see how he'll be in power by the time Silence of the Lambs rolls around.

 

Hannibal openly telling people he's a murderer and everyone just laughing is some American Psycho shit right there.

 

 

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SO GOOD. I have no idea why more people don't watch this show. It has everything - great writing, unique characters played by fantastic actors, the most beautiful cinematography on TV this side of TRUE DETECTIVE (which this show is better than, for the record), good action when it goes there (as evidenced by the kitchen fight that perfectly walked the line between being inventive in it's use of various kitchen utensils and appliances without drifting over into campiness), and, of course, some of the most insane horror imagery you will find anywhere.

The dude waking up in the middle of the sewn-together-corpses-in-the-shape-of-an-eye was beyond fucked up, but I think the sound of that plastic flex tube going down Will's throat is the thing that's going to haunt me forever. Next time I hear a kid playing with one of those bendy straws, I'm going to compulsively vomit all over the place.

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Kind of a good news/bad news deal on the ratings front.

The premier did 3.4 million viewers live, which is way up from the end of last season when it actually dipped under 2 million. That's the highest viewer count since before the episode they skipped because of Newtown.

On the downside, that was still way down from the first season premier, it lost a good chunk of it's lead-in, and the key demo was roughly the same as DRACULA was doing.

I guess we'll see how the DVR numbers help. I know I had to watch it on a slight delay because of the move to Friday. I think it's good for the time being, but if it tails off as sharply at the end as season 1 did, it could be in trouble on NBC, co-production or not.

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https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/nerdist-writers-panel-129-bryan-fuller/#.Uw2bKFssu48.twitter

 

Long, fascinating interview with Fuller where he goes into his whole career and gives a lot of upcoming spoilers. I think the highlight might be him talking about Dead Like Me and mentioning all his arguments with crazy Showtime executives throughout Dead Like Me:

 

"Re-cast Rebecca Gayheart. She's not attractive."

 

"She was a supermodel! Of course she's attractive!"

 

"How would you know?"

 

(Fuller is openly gay.)

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Thanks for that interview link, Reed. I was shocked that the budget of this show is roughlty $1 million less per episode than you average network drama. You can't tell by looking at it.

As for season 3...Fuller continues to insist that Red Dragon is season 4, but it'll be interesting to see if he builds in an out to the finale this season that might allow them to skip to Red Dragon if he feels like season 3 will be their last stand. From the way he talks about it in interviews, it sounds like he REALLY wants to do that story.

At this point, I would guess that season 3 has Hannibal on the run as a fugitive (in other words, they'll do the season of DEXTER everybody wanted to see but the show never had the balls to do).

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I just saw a naked guy peel his skin off to escape from a stitched-together mural of dead bodies on network TV. How is this possible?

It's funny, though: Now that I've heard the part of that podcast where Fuller talks about the show's budget, I can't help but notice how much they reuse sets. They definitely made sure to get their money's worth out of that silo full of bodies.

Too bad this is probably the last we see of Gillian Anderson's Dr. Du Maurier, but she went out on a high note, being the one person with enough of the pieces to put them all together and figure out that Hannibal is psycho and then promptly getting the hell off the grid.

I loved the way they utilized Hannibal's sense of smell as his investigative "superpower" like Will's psychadelic windshield wiper. Also loved how spacey Hannibal's plastic kill suit looked out in the sunlight.

ALSO loved how they continue to get the most out of Will playing the traditional Hannibal role while locked up. Thoug I'm pretty sure Beverly is going to end up dead this season if she keeps consulting with Will. Eventually the FBI is going to get too close to one of Hannibal's interventions, and he's going to have to put a stop to her.

I could ramble on about every little detail of this episode, but I'll stop. Episode was flawless. Anybody not watching this show is fucking up.

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http://grantland.com/features/hannibal-nbc-hugh-dancy-mads-mikkelsen/

Andy Greenwald came out with a wildly enthusiastic take on the show today. He's wrong about how much the show costs to produce, if Fuller himself is to be believed, but unfortunately, I think his conclusion remains valid: The ratings are just too bad for us to see the whole story that Fuller has planned.

It's kind of a bummer knowing that I'm so invested in a show that has almost no chance of ever reaching its conclusion, but I can't pull myself away. It's too damn good. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best show going right now.

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I think the worse the ratings get, the less attractive it becomes to cable. If it continues dipping at its current rate, it's going to go from "bad by network standards" to bad by anyone's standards.

It would be perfect for Netflix, but I wonder if the show's current streaming deal with Amazon Prime would affect that.

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I'm going to have to rewatch this one, because I'm still not certain I know exactly what was going on (and maybe we're not supposed to yet).

My first thought is, yeah, Hannibal staged the new murder in order to give Will an out.

But then, Hannibal would have to be smart enough to know that by altering his M.O., even slightly, he was decreasing the likelihood that the judge would dismiss the case. So at that point I'm thinking Hannibal, knowing that Will and his lawyer would alter Will's plea to Not Guilty after the new murder (and thus forfeiting his right to plead insanity), changed the M.O. on purpose, thereby creating enough doubt about it being the work of an admiring copycat and not the "real" killer for the judge to side with the prosecution and proceed with the case, and ensuring that Will would take the blame, and everything he knows, to the grave. Phew, that was a mouthful. In short, I'm thinking it was a brilliant play by Hannibal.

But then the judge turned up dead afterward, and I have no idea what to think anymore. Did Hannibal do both murders? If so, I really need to rewatch, because I've missed something. Or, did Hannibal do one of the murders and some new killer did the other? If so, which was Hannibal's work? The way that the judge was displayed kinda reminded me of some of Dr. Gideon's work....But surely he would be in custody....

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I loved the irony of Hannibal actually saving someone's life being one of the cruelest things he's done so far.

 

Also, people on this show need to start saying loudly to everyone "I'm off to investigate Hannibal Lecter, if I don't return, he ate me!" before they go to his home by themselves.

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Beverly will be missed. But with the way the series is laid out, I think it's necessary to have people figuring Hannibal out, so that everyone besides Will doesn't come off like a bunch of doofuses. Unfortunately, if you're not Will and you figure it out, you're off the show, one way or the other. I like how effortlessly Beverly's trip into the dungeon turned into an homage to the end of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

I think Gina Torres has only done two episodes of the show, but both of them have been excellent. Obviously her relationship with Hannibal is interesting and unique from every other character on the show, but she brings out a different side of Jack that I think is important, otherwise he'd be a much more unlikeable character. Seeing him so powerless to influence, or even really know, his own wife make it a bit easier to take the way he influences and manipulates everybody at the FBI to get results.

So I'm glad she's not dead. But Mikkelsen is so inscrutable sometimes that I couldn't really read what Hannibal's intentions were when he brought her back. Who was he punishing there? Bella, or Jack? Or was there no cruelty intended, and he simply saw the value in keeping the wife of a high-ranking FBI official as a client? My guess is that he's playing some sort of long game on Jack like he was Will last season.

Speaking of inscrutable...I won't say too much since I know some people don't like to watch previews, but it would seem that next week's episode will answer the questions I had about the two murders in 2.3.

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Hannibal does genuinely like Bella, I think, but as we've learned from Abigail and Will, him liking someone isn't going to stop them being victims. IMO, I think he brought her back 1) to continue to have a hold over Jack 2) He gets off on playing God. Most times that means killing people, this time it meant saving someone who clearly didn't want to be saved. 

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Yeah, it was inevitable. I'd hoped she'd make it a little longer, though, because I thought the actress did a nice job.

I liked the b-story with the acupuncturist. It's nice that not every killer on this show has to have a huge body count or be a cunning mastermind or incredibly elusive. They fairly easily tracked the case back to her, and then it was cool that she basically confessed without even being threatened or confronted with any evidence.

Plus, the idea of permanently easing someone's suffering dovetailed nicely with a-story between Hannibal, Jack, and Bella. But that's par for the course with this show. Fuller keeps a tight focus.

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Best solution I've heard to catching Hannibal: Ask him where all his receipts are. Guy is constantly eating meat, throwing dinner parties where he feeds everyone...but never has the receipts to show for it!

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