Hannibal, through 3x07

[kindkit]

So, I'm not loving S3 as much as I did the first two seasons. There's some good stuff--3x04, the episode focused on the various survivors, was excellent--but overall the show seems to be turning away from what I love, which is the complicated, dysfunctional, amoral, wild, strange relationship between Will and Hannibal. In its place, there seems to be a lot of OTT plot stuff taken from the books--the Mason Verger plot (which I'm tired of), the Italian detective (who bores me), Chio (who bores me and who is a ridiculous stereotype). None of this fits with the kind of show that Hannibal is, or at least was in the first two series. In particular, Hannibal himself seems to be turning into the cackling, grotesquely cruel villain of the later books instead of the dangerously seductive person he's been up to now. The whole bit where he's about to eat Will's brain is just . . . ugh. It's not that I can't seem him killing and eating Will, but not like that. Not callously. Plus it's cribbed from my least favorite bit in the Hannibal book.

Hannibal and Will are still awfully (in all senses) wonderful when they're allowed to be. The scene in the gallery is gorgeous in its subtle emotion, as is the following bit with the two of them walking together towards whatever reckoning is coming . . . and then there's assassin!Chio on the roof with a high powered rifle and the whole tone of ruined.

Also, while I found myself shipping Alana/Margot as soon as they met in the stable, I could have done without the exploitively-presented trippy sex scene. (And why is it that even in a show made by a gay man, we still get the exploitive male-gaze lesbian sex scene while Will and Hannibal don't even kiss, and the showrunners get mealy-mouthed and coy about it and keep saying their love is "platonic"? Is it the network to blame?)

Oh, you guys, I was on such a high from how good this show was. I was expecting so much of S3, and I'm beginning to be really, painfully disappointed.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

The first part of S3 was unfocused and I agree that it drew too much from the really crappy bits of the books! I didn't mind Chiyo - I thought they took the ridiculous stereotype from the book and did more with her, in her refusal to bow to Hannibal and kill someone, then Will became like Hannibal forcing her to kill, and now she refuses to let Hannibal die. But Mason Verger is vile and dull.

Alana/Margot, yay! I'm wondering if the network was okay with them if they got a sex scene, and it was shot in that bizarre way to get around the demand. But we seriously need a male equivalent, even if it's weird kaleidoscope sex.

[kindkit]

With Chiyo I think they're over-relying on people's knowledge of the book. My memory of it is vague and I don't remember her at all, and so I found her connection to Hannibal's family confusing and inadequately explained, and there just didn't seem to be any need for her in the narrative. Plus I didn't love the Orientally Inscrutable + Fantastic Assassin Skullz stuff. It's painful to think that she's even more of a stereotype in the book.

US network television tends to prudish about sex scenes, although a good deal less so if it's het or f/f than if it's m/m. And broadcasting standards are still quite restrictive here (for sex, not for violence and gore), so it's possible that the kaleidoscope sex was a way to include a sex scene without falling foul of the censors. I can also imagine the network wanting a titillating lesbian sex scene but also insisting that it not show "too much."