Hannibal is the best show that I would not recommend that anyone watch because it is as warped as its characters, and you’ll find yourself cheering for the wrong people. Hannibal’s third and final (?) season was more twisted fairy tale meets anti-Christ romantic fantasy than crime procedure. Hannibal left logic and reality behind in its second season. None of the characters act wisely or sufficiently protect themselves from the obvious dangers. Hannibal took well known works of literature and film, especially Michael Mann’s Red Dragon, and twisted them on their head to become a story about how two people finally found someone to love, BUT either couldn’t accept himself or the other person for who he really is so couldn’t be together. Hannibal is visually stunning, viscerally shocking and inherently puzzling.
SPOILERS
Hannibal was the spurned lover whose friends tell him, “If he can’t accept you for who you really are, you need to move on,” but he just can’t, goes on an eating and art binge in a failed attempt to move on, strikes out to stop his ex’s happiness and starts singing, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” when he is spurned by his intended. Hannibal becomes wilder and rougher, capricious and petty and jubilant and petty as the season unfolds.
Will really does his best to dump Hannibal and move on. Even though Hannibal was in numerous predicaments, only Will could effectively wound him by spurning him. He knows that Hannibal is nothing but trouble and has physical scar upon physical scar to prove it (shot, scalped, hurled off a train, nearly skinned alive, stabbed), but he really can’t move on. He does his best to dump the bad boy, but the lady doth protest too much and always “needs” to see Hannibal. In the first two seasons, Will was cast as the good guy whom everyone thinks is the bad guy and is weirder than weird. Will finally surrenders to all of Hannibal’s psychological manipulations and becomes a pretty sinister puppeteer with good intentions. Will becomes a killer, virtual and actual, to protect others, but the problem is that he enjoys it, and he is very bad at protecting himself. He wants to be with Hannibal, but can’t accept what he’ll become if he spends more time with Hannibal. Unfortunately Will’s friends suck and do nothing to help him quit his addiction, but actually encourage it (Jack) or are blissfully unaware of how slippery the slope actually is (Dr. Bloom).
Hannibal’s final episode is like a poetic episode of Nature with two different species of wild animals teaming up to tear up the physically superior predator. They finally got to run away together, but now that Will knows who he is, and Hannibal is finally at peace, what is next? I want more, but the end is perfect: oblivion.
Honorable mentions go to Richard Ermitage, Raul Esparza, Gillian Anderson, Rutina Wesley, Gina Torres, Joe Anderson (who is incidentally way better than Michael Pitt) for really impressive supporting roles.
