(S P O I L E R S)
In
which we're maintaining our position on the event horizon of chaos.
"The
road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
–William
Blake/The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
…and in these two episodes, Bryan
Fuller manages to redefine excess in the televisual context like no one has
before him. I made great hay out of the
subversive nature of “Naka-Choko”’s ending, but the build up to what lies at
the end of “Tome-Wan” manages to up the ante for shock in this setting. For as decadent and excessive as Hannibal
Lecter can be, his is a mostly refined sense of these traits. Mason Verger has no such limits or
restraints.
In my previous essay, I discussed
the career of Michael Pitt, and of his premature departure from Hannibal following Season 2. Knowing about his impending absence while
rewatching these final two episodes in which he appears adds a touch of
melancholy to the proceedings. Which is
a weird thing to say about a closing act that includes heavy implications of
child molestation and incest, while also dabbling in tear-stealing, man-eating
pigs, and face-shredding. But Pitt is
obviously having such a blast playing Mason, taking great delight in the
melodramatic excesses of this warped man-child (his baby face is a great and
creepy complement to this.) There are
larger than life characters aplenty in this show, but up to this point they’ve
all been generally tethered to some semblance of cohesion and linear
logic. Mason shatters that mold as a man
completely consumed by his own privilege and excesses, his insane wealth
carrying with it the curse of youth, while allowing him to take on a persona
that represents the id unleashed. So
much of this run of Season 2 episodes has focused on Hannibal and Will debating
man’s true nature, and of reconciling the beastly with the mannered. But Mason is the bombastic end game for such
a philosophy, an avatar of carnage amidst a legion of defenders of the norm.
And so logically that end game
must lead to total consumption via excess.
Which brings us to the scene that tops even Hannibal and Will dining on
what is ostensibly Freddie Lounds while debating the nature of God. Hannibal’s
core fanbase was aware of Mason’s gruesome origin story from the book and film
of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal, but even
in the context of this show’s grand guignol tradition, nothing can quite
prepare the viewer for the sight of Michael Pitt slicing off his own face and
feeding it to Will’s dogs. And then,
prompted by Hannibal, eating his own nose.
It’s the culmination of a Lecter-infused drug trip gone bad, but it’s also
the penance for his sins: after a lifetime of feeding on others, he’s only left
to devour himself.
What’s really interesting about
Mason’s fate is how, much like other parts of Hannibal, it combines aspects of future storylines in the
Lecterverse canon with this prequel setting.
Hence, Mason captures Hannibal with the intention of throwing him to the
carnivorous pigs, which serves as the climax of Harris’s book of Hannibal. And it’s not the only example of this tricky
chronology on display here. In “Ko No Mo”,
what appears to be Freddie Lounds’s flaming corpse in a wheelchair is rolled
down the ramp of an indoor parking garage.
Longtime Lecter fans know this image intimately: it’s the ultimate fate
of the original, male Freddie at the hands of Francis Dolarhyde. But with the revelation that this incarnation
of Freddie is still alive, and in on Jack and Will’s plot to catch Hannibal,
the possibility of that well-known death is muddled considerably. Fuller has shown a strong willingness to toy
with the preconceived Lecterverse, so there’s every reason to believe that this
Freddie will last well into the Tooth Fairy storyline. But as with the other references to previous
Lecter films, it also simultaneously lends the proceedings an eerie sense of déjà
vu and foreshadowing. Which is perfect
for a series that deals so heavily in the rupturing of time, in all its
permutations.
That rupture mirrors Will’s
fractured psyche, but it also loops back into the viral influence of Hannibal
Lecter on the very fabric of the show.
Lest the audience forget this, the return of Bedelia DuMaurier is
presented as a firm reminder. Drawn back
into an FBI interview with Will and Jack, she’s willing to implicate her former
patient (or is it psychiatrist) in many things, but even she admits that his
main crime is persuasion, not coercion.
And even as she advises that he “can get lost in self-congratulation”,
she also offers a stinging rebuke to Jack about his chances of conquering over
him (“If you think you're about to catch Hannibal, that's because he wants you
to think that. Don't fool yourself into
thinking he's not in control of what's happening.”) Once again, Gillian Anderson is a treat in the
role of Bedelia. Her coy, enigmatic
demeanor gives the lie to even her most sincere moments, especially when
retroactively considering her eventual season-ending flight to Europe with the
fugitive cannibal. It’ll be interesting
to see how Season 3 further explores her motivations in this arena. Part of me would like to think that her
growing sense of contempt for Jack Crawford’s efforts leads her into Hannibal’s
arms. But she also tells him that “Nothing
makes us more vulnerable than loneliness”, so perhaps she’s laying out her
cards without us knowing about it.
Many a viewer will sympathize
with this “It’s Hannibal’s world; we’re just living in it” sentiment. From a Manichean standpoint, the series can
be seriously frustrating at times, as Lecter has an answer for almost every
attempt to stop him. It’s also entirely
organic to a narrative that trades in surrealism and a hallucinatory
psychogeography. Indeed, by this point it’s
probably a mistake to think of Hannibal
as a serial killer thriller with outre tendencies. It’s more like the ethereal materialization
of Bacon and Bosch’s hellscapes, with slight touches of the normal grafted on. Just as Will flirts with madness in his
pursuit of Hannibal, so too does the viewer flirt with the outer reaches of standard
moral and ethical boundaries in devouring the show. And just as Hannibal himself debates the true
meaning of God in a seemingly blank universe, so too does the audience consider
the potentially nihilistic concept of no guiding force to re-establish right
and wrong in the Lecterverse. Giving
yourself over to the demented pleasures of that form is an integral part of
fully appreciating this thriller/philosophy lesson/voyage to the inner
abyss. And as Hannibal has proven so far, doing so can be an utterly thrilling
endeavor.
Some penultimate leftovers:
*I’ve said it before, but for all
her poor romantic choices, it can never be debated that Alan Bloom is
potentially the moral center of the show.
Her earnest sense of justice and fairness in a world that seems to scoff
at those concepts is so moving, especially in the climactic scene of “Ko No Mo”,
in which she rails at Jack for the web of lies he’s spun, only to have her
world doubly upended by the reveal of Freddie’s survival.
*“Tome-Wan”’s standoff between
Hannibal and Will features some of James Hawkinson’s most daring
cinematography, as he frames both men as being almost completely overwhelmed by
the shadow the other in the foreground.
It seems like a fairly small part of the episode’s visual scheme, but
even in micro form it’s a bold gambit for a show of this format.
*Unless I’m forgetting someone,
Mason is the first of Hannibal’s patients that we see lying on the couch in his
office. Which obviously makes him very
uncomfortable, as he motions the trust fund maniac back to the chair facing
him. And for as much as Hannibal
considers Mason to be a gauche menace, he’s also one of the only characters to
make him crack an authentic grin.
*During Margot’s hysterectomy,
was I the only one who saw Mason and company’s red scrubs as a nod to David
Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers?
*“I’m full of myself!” (Mason,
post-nose dinner.)
*“What game of chicken are you
and the sperm donor playing, Dr. Lecter? (Mason, to Hannibal)
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