Hannibal

Every episode looks like it belongs in a gallery. That is the simplest way to describe this show. The cinematography is unlike anything on network television. It is dark, elegant, and poetic. Crime scenes are sculptural, arranged with the position of oil paintings. There is a reason why this is the only TV show I’ve genuinely watched in my entire life. I first watched this because Mads Mikkelsen was in it and I very very obviously thought he was one fine, handsome dude. This took me about half a year to watch the entire thing because I didn’t want it to end but tonight I finally stuck up the courage to finally watch the last episode in season three. The show is drenched in a dream The show is drenched in a dreamlike, nightmarish imaginary, slipping in and out of reality through hallucinations and visuals that are expertly conceived to make you feel deeply deeply uneasy. but the real masterpiece of the show is the relationship at its center. Hannibal and Will are not just adversaries. They are doubles of one another. Two sides of the same coin, bound together by a connection that is as intimate as it is toxic. Hannibal, the elegant, controlled psychiatrist who is used to being in control; and Will, the ragile profiler who can emphasize with killers so deeply that he loses himself. Theirs is a relationship that transcends friendship and enmity— they are each other’s worst enemies yet they care about each other. It’s a relationship built on manipulation, violence, and a twisted, almost romantic, devotion. This show is one of the most genuine and gut-wrenching representations of love ever put on screen that I’ve seen. Hannibal loves Will the way a god loves his own creation: unwavering, with pride and tenderness. Every conversation between them is a chest match. No one is just talking. Every word has weight, every silence has meaning. They are trying to understand each other, or manipulate each other, or both at the same time. The show is slow, deliberate, and unsettling, but it rewards the patience of anyone willing to look beneath the surface and see the twisted beautiful romance at its core.