In
which I don’t know if I can save myself. Maybe that’s just fine.
“...
for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”(Nietzsche)
How
in the world can I wish for this?
Never
to be torn apart till the last beat
Till
the last fleeting beat of my heart
(“The
Last Beat of My Heart”/Siouxsie and the Banshees)
It was always about falling, wasn’t
it? If there was one recurring image that haunted the run of Bryan Fuller’s
radical reinvention of Thomas Harris’s Lecterverse, even above the nightmare
stag, even above the elaborate death tableau, it was that of characters in
freefall. From the beginning, in those first grotesque strains of this symphony
of gothic horror that echoed through “Apertif”, it was there in Will’s dream
vision of Elise Nichols’s floating corpse, which would fall into impalement by
those ever-present stag horns. Bedelia’s attempts to escape from her life as
Lydia Fell took the form of visions of unfettered descent into an ocean of
black liquid. Will found the most concrete view of his mental destruction
through imagining himself as a falling teacup, shattering on some far away
floor. And after all, what was Will’s grand plot to ingratiate himself into
Hannibal’s world in order to capture him but a prolonged plunge into the abyss…one
from which he never really emerged.
So it only makes sense that the
final image of the NBC run of Hannibal
(or, at least, the final pre-credits image) would be Will and Hannibal plummeting
over the edge of a cliff, star-crossed soulmates freefalling to their potential
annihilation. This phantasmagoric fugue state of a show, which so expertly
traced the glories and horrors of giving oneself over to the darkest recesses
of the heart, could really find no better resolution for the psychological long
game in which its players participated. Or one that was more honest to its
grand intent.
Because, as became so apparent
early on in that maiden season, Bryan Fuller’s focus was never on the
limitations of the procedural format against which the show often strained. And
it was never about merely perpetuating the pop culture boogeyman trappings that
Hannibal Lecter so stylishly wore in the hands of Anthony Hopkins. What he and
his collaborators would form over three seasons was, instead, one of the most
complex, mature, avant-garde narratives in television history (and, it could be
argued, in cinematic history.) In its NBC run, it wielded the freedom bestowed
upon it by its foreign financing with great aplomb, relentlessly subverting the
conventions of the major network drama format. And along the way, it displayed an
uncompromising willingness and determination to let its freak flag fly, to
explore the outer reaches of the form. To not only gaze deeply into the abyss,
but to dive right into it.
It’s been difficult for me to
find a proper way to write about what could be the final episode of Hannibal. Watching it provided none of
the traditional signifiers associated with a series finale, which is
appropriate considering Fuller’s proclivity for making each season’s ultimate
act both a potential final statement and a bridge to another chapter of the
story. As the story marched toward its bloody climax, I constantly felt that
duality; it all just seemed like another step in a narrative that could never
really achieve finite resolution. Over the last few months, my epic Hannibal writing project often skewed
toward the academic and the analytical. Unlike my journey into Mad Men’s first season, there was only
minimal personal narrative from which to draw when metaphors and motifs carried
only limited weight. But for all the symbolic weight that Fuller and company
attached to the show, for all the flights of stylistic fancy on which they took
the narrative, in the end Hannibal ended up being a very personal depiction of
its main players.
And so, Jack Crawford takes part,
maybe for one last time, in a scheme that backfired in glorious and tragic
fashion. I’ve lauded him here before, but Lawrence Fishburne has brought such
gravitas, but also such complexity to this role. Alternately a stoic crusader
for justice and an obsessive, irresponsible father figure, he has been a
sterling exemplar of how realistically the show has portrayed the ambiguities
of the human moral and ethical landscape. If, indeed, this is his final turn as
Crawford, it ends as it so often did throughout the series: with the taciturn
FBI boss arriving at the scene of the crime too late to stop the carnage that
occurred, in part, at his directive. His face is once again a bas-relief of
emotional scar tissue. He remains a man driven by justice, but haunted by the
cost of that effort.
And so, the seemingly
indestructible Frederick Chilton, who gained such richness and life in the able
hands of the sublime Raul Esparza, becomes a voice of ethical repudiation,
chiding Alana Bloom for serving as the roper for Hannibal’s Machiavellian plot.
As I’ve detailed in previous essays (particularly in last week’s entry), the
development of Chilton beyond Anthony Heald’s entertaining, yet limited,
interpretation in the Hopkins films has been one of my favorite parts of the
show. Alana may have served as the idealistic voice of moral concern in the
first few seasons, but the psychological damage that she’s suffered since then
has hardened her into the would-be guardian of Hannibal’s cage. It’s
fascinating to ponder where these two characters, whose arcs have converged at
several points, might go if this version of the story ever continues. (Fuller
has hinted that a prospective fourth season would feature Alana and Margot
looking to right the Verger family’s legacy of brutality. Could Chilton take
over Mason’s mantle as deformed pursuer of his cannibal tormentor?)
And so, the Red Dragon saga comes
to a fitting conclusion, with Francis Dolarhyde’s raging bull of a man-beast
laying siege to Hannibal’s hideaway, only to be taken down by the twin forces
of a driven hyper-empath and his mirror image empathy vacuum. All credit again
to Richard Armitage for his powerful portrayal of Dolarhyde, which, even in these
final gore-soaked moments, elicits a strong sense of sympathy. As he lies
bleeding to death on Hannibal’s patio, his life leaking out of him in one final
dragon wing pattern, the look on his face is both pained and mildly ecstatic.
For this has been a truly tragic final chapter of one man’s life in which,
stricken by the sudden accumulation of a lifetime of pain and the realization
of his own mortality, he sought to transcend the mundanity of his life, of our
life. To become something greater than the human form allowed. As murderous and
deranged as that becoming would be, it was still the last resort of a man who
felt totally helpless. We’re all fed a steady diet of bromides telling us to
rise above our humble means, the Horatio Alger myth still riding strong in the
social strata. Francis Dolarhyde followed that philosophy to its logical
conclusion. In death, he manages some form of transcendence, as he passes into
legend once and for all. As Hannibal tells him “You were seized by a fantasy
world, with the brilliance and freshness of childhood. It took you a step
beyond alone.” His total embrace of self-annihilation, his abdication of his
physical signifiers through burning his house, his absolute commitment to going
that one step beyond…it all adds up to the definitive statement on the
character.
And so, Will Graham and Hannibal
Lecter reunite in each other’s arms. Their final exchange (Hannibal: “See, this
is all I ever wanted for you Will. For both of us.” Will: “That’s beautiful”)
could be an epitaph for the show as a whole. For in the end, Will seemingly
comes to terms with his true self, the one that (as he reveals midway through
the episode) manipulated Hannibal into turning himself in by giving him a false
sense of passive power, the one that joined his cannibal partner in acts of
carnage that went beyond mere undercover work. The one that was never quite
made for the normal domestic life, as much as he so yearned for it with Molly
and Walter. The one who was only fully understood by a serial killing cannibal.
Previous film incarnations of
Will clearly portrayed him as a man troubled by his empathic powers, yet also
one with firm connections to the straight world which he inhabited. There can
be some debate about his psychological state at the end of those narratives,
but he is still resolutely a warrior for the maintenance of the status quo. But
Hugh Dancy’s Will only shows fleeting connections to society’s definition of
normalcy. It’s what’s likely made him such a tricky character for a mainstream
audience, but it’s also what’s made him so compelling. Fuller was willing to
suggest that the traditional moral arc of a hero can be as oblique and
troublesome as that of his antagonist, and that the definition of those two
roles could mix in ways that turned their relationship into a metaphor for friendship
and love. The most obvious corollary is Thomas Harris’s Clarice Starling, who
eventually abandons her FBI existence to join Hannibal as his lover and fellow
cannibal on the lam (a wild, subversive ending that was significantly altered
for the film version of that story.) But Fuller maintains the very ambiguous nature
of Will’s desires to the end. He may realize the validity of his connection
with Hannibal, but he’s still the Lamb of God, the one who must make the
sacrifice, the one who realizes that they can’t exist like this, for their own
good and for that of the world around them. True, the post-credits sequence,
with Bedelia seated at a table with two other place settings, her cooked left
leg ready for a feast, suggests that the next chapter of this story might
continue Will and Hannibal’s partnership. But in the moment, as Will notes in
the quote that begins this essay, he’s willing to accept that there’s no real
saving himself. And that the only recourse is to take one final plunge into an
abyss both literal and figurative. To give himself up to the freefall with
which he’s flirted for so long.
And so, this stunning dreamscape
of a show proves, in the end, to be quite the personal story for me after all.
Because I form such an emotional connection with the lives of these emotional
ciphers. Because I realize that form is often as spiritually enthralling as
content. Because the repeated suggestions by a friend to give Hannibal a try leads to it forming
another in a long series of deep connections between us, including a
stimulating back and forth about this series of essays and their philosophical
implications. Such profound effects for
a mere television show to have, especially one that I marginalized for almost a
year as being standard network fare. But this is why I watch the show. Because
much like Hannibal itself, sometimes
the most confounding, strange, challenging, unpredictable, non-traditional
things in life are the most rewarding.
For one final time…at least for
now…the leftovers:
*These guys! Brian Zeller and
Jimmy Price have been a staple of the show since the beginning, and the expert
acting chops and comic timing of Aaron Abrams and Scott Thompson have helped to
raise them above their roots as ministers of exposition. If this is the last
that we see of them, their brief dissection of Francis’s faked suicide is a
proper sendoff indeed.
*Also worth mentioning one last
time is Rutina Wesley, who brought such grace and toughness to the role of
Reba. Her interactions with Richard Armitage were always beguiling, and quit
often surprising in their complexity.
*During Francis’s sneak attack of
the police van that carries Will and Hannibal, Will has a brief subliminal
flashback to his first eye to eye meeting with the would be Red Dragon in the
museum elevator. It’s easy to miss, but it once again drives home the shock
that moment carried, and the power its held over Will ever since.
*“You righteous, wreckless,
twitchy little man!” (Bedelia, to Will. Ftw.)
*“I believe that’s what they call
a mic drop. You dropped the mic, Will.” (Hannibal, to…well, you know.)
*“You died in my kitchen, Alana,
when you chose to be brave. Every moment since is borrowed. Your wife, your
child…they belong to me. We made a bargain for Will’s life, and then I spun you
gold.” (Hannibal, to Alana. One last chilling moment to remind us that,
charming as he may be, this is still a profoundly dangerous man.)
*“There is no advantage. It’s all
degrees of disadvantage.” (Will, to Bedelia, in what could be the final word on
the world that Hannibal portrayed.)
*And one last hats off to James
Hawkinson, Brian Reitzell, Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, and, of course, Bryan
Fuller, for collectively being the heart and soul of this enterprise. I’ve
heard other pundits say that we’ll look back one day, far in the future, and
say that we were there when the great Hannibal took its too often unheralded
bow. So many actors and technicians made Hannibal
what it was during its run on NBC, but these primary five helped to reconfigure
what we might think about what not just a network television show, but a work
of cinematic narrative could be. Truly, this was their design.
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