Still attempting to process the utter perfection that was the Hannibal finale!

[frelling_tralk]

I'm really not sure what I can say about it at this point, except that it was the perfect ending for me to see Hannibal and Will kill together for the first time, and then fall to their deaths in an embrace. I'm really wondering now what's going on with the show being cancelled and all of the attempts to get a fourth season, because everything came SUCH full circle that I really don't see how the third season wasn't written and filmed with the intention of being the conclusion of their story? I guess you could have it so that they both survived somehow, but that's just not the vibe I got from it, it very much felt like the end to me. That was a huge relief quite honestly after I was dreading a possible cliffhanger along the lines of season 1 or 2 where you can kind of see how it would work as an ending, but it would still leave you frustrated and wondering where the story would have gone next. Whereas this felt like as much closure as we could have ever hoped for. I'm really curious to hear what Bryan Fuller will have to say about it all, and where he saw a fourth season as having gone. This does make me look at a few things differently tbh, like Bryan Fuller not seeming *that* desperate to work to work out a deal with amazon in the time allocated, presumably he was satisfied with season 3 as a conclusion to the story?

It seems that the post-credits is open to interpretation as I know that the most popular theory is that Bedelia has captured by Will and Hannibal, but my immediate assumption was that she was actually cannabilising herself? (Lol how this entry must be coming across to someone who has never watched the show!) I guess that I was already so convinced that Will and Hannibal were both dead, so I saw that scene as Bedelia having completely lost her mind and acting on her own fears of Hannibal coming for her... Idk, that's again something that I would be interested to hear from Bryan Fuller on. I'm wondering about Will's plans now as well, towards the end when he was talking with Hannibal it seemed like he was making it fairly clear that he planned for all three of them to end up dead, but earlier with his warning to Bedelia about the meat being back on the menu it seemed like he was originally planning to let Hannibal escape for real? It makes more sense to me though that his plan was always to take Hannibal out with him in a final gesture of self-sacrifice, it was really only the talk with Bedelia that suggested otherwise?

And wow, am I feeling bad for Chilton! I know the show kind of made a running joke of the injuries that he would walk away from each season, but man what were they going to do for an encore in season 4, gouge his eyes out!! I really felt that it would have been better if they had just killed him, he definitely got the worst fate of any character. At least with Mason there was black comedy to be had in him feeding his face to the dogs, and it's not like he didn't deserve it, but seeing Chilton's lips eaten off his face first of all was the most gruesome thing I have ever seen (forever marvelling at how American networks will allow that, yet give Bryan Fuller a hard time about possibly showing a butt crack), and then being as horrifically burned as he was. Poor Chilton, he really got screwed over and used by everyone :( I did appreciate that they changed the canon for that incident from Freddie to Chilton, IMO that was definitely the right call, but I think it would have been kinder if Chilton hadn't of survived it quite honestly. If there had been a fourth season, I wonder how they would have used his character...

The show did do a great job of having it both ways though, so that you're just as sickened as Will when he's confronted with the video and what he's done, and yet at the same time you can't help smiling at Hannibal's sheer glee and the 'tragedy' putting him in excellent humour. And that was a nice touch to use the line originally used for Will in Red Dragon, with Hannibal instead hoping that Chilton isn't too ugly now. (And my heart almost stopped when Will first got the knife through his face, at first I wasn't sure if they were going to kill him right there and then, but it certainly seemed like the show was going to use some of the RD ending in having his face ripped apart and horrifically scarred. Thank God his face wasn't too messed-up in the end!)

Oh and Will's "mic-drop" moment with Hannibal shines a new light on episode 308, because it seems to suggest that Will calculated that whole speech on not wanting to see or think about Hannibal any more knowing how Hannibal would react, rather than it actually being about him wanting to cut all ties with Hannibal? Although I suppose that interpretation still works as it was about Will wanting to end the chase with Hannibal, but at the time of 308 I didn't realise that Will was manipulating Hannibal and actually wanted him to turn himself in

And finally I have too many favourite moments to mention, but just a few would be Bedelia calling Will a 'twitchy little man' and going off on him, Hannibal's holding the door open for Will with 'going my way' (Awww), Hannibal's face when Will is attacked by ~the red dragon~, and finally their eye contact just before they *ahem* penetrate him and take him out together. My actual favourite moment is of course:






My only wish is that it was easier to find some discussion on the episode! I did attempt to navigate the tumblr tag and found some nice gifs, but I was mostly left utterly baffled at Supernatural fandom making parallels with Dean/Castiel, even though I don't see that they have anything in common at all with how Bryan Fuller saw and developed Will/Hannibal? But oh well, it's a case of YMMV I guess :P

Comments

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Wow, that gif though

There is a ton of Hannigram this season if you're into that! Particularly watch out for episodes 307, 308, and the finale of course :)

Honestly the finale helped me make peace with the show ending because I can't imagine it going out in a more perfect way (The current theory of murder husbands for season 4 sounds like it would be really trippy and fun, but for me idk it would also more of a fanfic version of the show, rather than accurate to Will's characterisation...I just can't picture Will sitting down and eating Bedelia with Hannibal, that's way more of a stretch to me than Bedelia doing some medical ~magic~ in managing to remove her own leg and elaborately prepare it)

I'm just not sure where else they could have taken it, it felt like everything got taken full-circle from the pilot and Hannibal finally got what he had been gunning for with Will all along. I am satisfied, and I think that Hannibal was too :D

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Apparently Fuller was surprised that viewers thought Bedelia had amputated herself and served her own leg! He stated that she did not and was waiting for the person(s) who did it to return...He even said that she was terrified but hid the fork because she was prepared to defend herself.

He pointed out that there was a setting for three at the table, so even though it as ambiguous in terms of "who" might return, it left it open for Hannibal to have survived.

Now I've read a funny (in a dark humour kind of way) interpretation of that coda: it didn't happen after the cliff scene but before. We don't know how much time had passed between the moment Will and Hannibal hit the road and the moment they arrived at the house near the cliff. So the theory is that they got Bedelia and "fixed" her...but then they never got to return to the dinner table, since Will's plan was to kill Hannibal and himself. But Bedelia would be waiting with her fork, incase Will had failed. I like that.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Interesting, do you have a link to that interview? I guess that my mind immediately went there just because Hannibal and Will both seemed so dead to me at the time, so I just assumed that there was no way that Hannibal could be involved, but it being shown out of time would make sense

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Nope I read it on a comment on the AV Club (http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/hannibal-wrath-lamb-224618), but it shouldn't be hard to find it on the Internet. He also tweeted about Bedelia, but the interview was a Q &A thing.

The theory about an "out of time" coda was made by a fan, though, I don't think Fueller intended it that way, he probably just wanted to leave things open for a possible fourth season or tv film...in which case Hannibal (and probably Will) would have survived. Given what he said, I guess that in his mind, the coda worked too if they were dead because it meant that some other people might replace Hannibal and the "kitchen nightmare" wouldn't end!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I found it! It was an interveiw with Alan Sepinwall: http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/hannibal-creator-i-wanted-to-be-sure-we-had-an-ending-for-the-story

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Oh and to ramble on for a bit more (cause why not *g*), I'm not sure that I agree with Bryan Fuller's reasoning on cutting out the "lips lingering on lips". I don't think that a kiss would have felt unauthentic for that particular scene, so I understand Hugh and Mad's impulse to take it to that place. In the final footage you can even sort of see the moment where it looks like Hannibal is thinking of kissing Will, before Will collapses and rests his head on Hannibal's chest.

I mean the scene works for me just as well without the kiss certainly (although I am going to need to see those alternative takes :P ), but I disagree with Bryan Fuller's fears that a kiss would have just been serving the audience and not played with the story that they were telling. I don't think that Hannibal's interest in Will was sexual, but his blood was racing after the killing and feeling so close to Will, I think that a kiss could have very easily fit the intimacy of the scene without being all "Brokeback Mountain" and just about them wanting to screw. In a scene where Hannibal and Will were as intimate as two people could be, then yeah I can see Hannibal giving in to that impulse and Will responding in the moment. I don't necessarily view Hannigram as a sexual ship, but it certainly came across as the writers and actors wanting to portray a gothic romance (Hannibal carrying Will in his arms in 308, their embrace by the cliff etc), so I don't see why it's a kiss in particular that would have been the moment when the show took it too far into the realms of fan fiction. A passionate make-out would have felt like fan-service maybe, but a lingering kiss would have worked with that scene IMO

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.

As much as I didn't need to see them being physical with one another, I don't think it would have been OCC or would have not made sense, especially after that fight against the Red Drafon. The Eros/thanatos vibe was so strong there!
Actually, it would have made much more sense than Alana falling into bed with Margot, since we had never been shown any strong bond or attraction between them before the infamous sex scene.

Methinks that Fuller is struggling with his desire and his fears and prejudice here. He played with the idea of a romantic love story between thos two men but shied away from the logical outcome eventually.

The way he insisted on saying that Will was straight is significant. As if only non-straight people should have homsexual sex! The fact that Will isn't attracted to men in general doesn't mean he can't be physically attracted to THAT man with whom he already has the most intimate relationship.

It isn't as if the characters were asexual beings who never had sexual intimacy with anyone.

That said, the lack of kiss worked too.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm fine with the scene playing out as it did, but I did find Bryan Fuller's words interesting there in that he saw a kiss as giving the hardcore audience " a homosexual relationship between these two men" when "it's not "Brokeback Mountain." Mads isn't gonna be spitting on his hand and getting to work". I'm sure that Mads and Darcy weren't playing the scene along those lines, and a kiss doesn't necessarily need to come across as a really sexual and physical act as he was suggesting (if anything lips lingering on lips sounds like a chaste kiss to me), so it's strange to me that their lips touching is the deal breaker in a way on what makes Hannigram a relationship

But then it's also interesting to think about how Will being heterosexual would work with his attraction to Hannibal, I read a very good post-finale fic along those lines...