Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Hannibal Rewatch: 1x11

Season 1, Episode 11: “Rôti”
or, SHIT HAS GONE FULL CRAY

**Warning: rewatch blogging, written with knowledge of the full series

“Rôti” changed me.

I remember staring into the dark after I watched this episode, heart pounding from having just leaped onto my bed from halfway across my room in case I was about to be face-attacked by someone hiding underneath it, and feeling like I was going mad. How did this happen to me?? I wondered, overwhelmed, and I would try to pinpoint it and I couldn’t and then another wave of delirium would sweep over me. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, I considered how the sea that Will was in was where I was as well. I screamed silently into my pillow.

The fourth wall was gone, eaten up some time before. The madness was mine too, and frankly: I loved it.

FEVERISH LIVE-BLOG 4 U

So I’m very dreading and desperate rewatching this one, but HELLO CHILTS. Figuring out rn why it was that I hadn’t cared about Dr. Chilton’s fate in this episode, and it’s because this is only the second time we’d seen him! Felt like more, actually — nicely done, as always, Mr. Esparza.

“If only I’d been more curious about the common mind.”

Oh my god, delivered with all the tragic irony of the hero stating his fatal flaw, gazing ~majestically~ out into the snow like “ah yes, my tragedy: being Too Attuned to the Rarified” — beautiful. I have never before seen a side character who more visibly believes himself to be the central protagonist.

Hannibal: “You were trying too hard, Frederick.” Chilton is a canonical try-hard, #txt it

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[brightwalldarkroom]

“The Mad Max films are a kind of modern myth-making, a notion that is present even in the way they treat continuity. If you sat down and tried to piece together a timeline for Max or his world over the course of the four movies, it wouldn’t add up. Instead, each movie functions like a different story someone is telling about Mad Max, the Road Warrior. He is an archetypal figure within a new mythos. It doesn’t matter if it’s the same sawed off shotgun that sparks and fails the first time Max tries to use it—what matters is that there is a gun like that, because Max has a gun like that. Just like Max has a leather jacket carried down from his days in the Main Force Patrol, and at some point he or someone near him will wind a tiny music box. In each Max story, there are certain symbols that are constant, like Orpheus’ lyre.”

—Tarra Martin, “Ride Eternal” (Bright Wall/Dark Room, Dec. 2015)

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Hannibal Rewatch: 1x10

Season 1, Episode 10: “Buffet Froid”
or, I’M BACK, NERDS

**Warning: rewatch blogging, written with knowledge of the full series.

The first time I watched “Buffet Froid” I was streaming it with Jen, and our internet connection was pretty wonky. We kept getting hung up on buffering because we were Too Eager and weren’t just pausing and letting it load for long enough. Finally, keyed up & little frantic right in the middle of the über tense sequence in which Will GOES BACK TO THE HORROR HOUSE AT NIGHT, we just paused the fucker for about ten minutes with the dual goal of a) letting it buffer all the way, and b) gathering our wits together.

Predictably, when we hit play again Georgia IMMEDIATELY flipped the bed onto Will and we SCREECHED and dove away from the laptop. So that worked out well.

Anyway I feel like my rewatch posting is kinda like that? In that we paused for a significant amount of time while I moved across the country and holidayed with my family, and now not only are we back, we are back and maybe screaming? This episode. Oh boy, oh wow, we’re in the thick of it.

LONG-ASS LIVE-BLOG AHOY

Oh I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot I’m an idiot. Why am I watching “Buffet Froid” again. [crawls behind couch]

Ok but if your bed is that far off the ground what do you expect to happen. TERRORS WILL GO UNDER THERE THAT IS JUST KNOWLEDGE.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Hannibal Rewatch: 1x09

Season 1, Episode 9: “Trou Normand”
or, ICONIC, TBH

**Warning: rewatch blogging, written with knowledge of the full series

Got some pre-liveblogging ~over-arcing thoughts~ for you again this time, thanks to some nice timing with which episode I had coming up right after Mads Mikkelsen spent a week being ADORABLE and ASTUTE all over my dash. Most relevant to “Trou Normand” I think is a bit from an interview where he talked about how Hannibal rarely lies, he just shows different sides of himself to different people, which @theglintoftherail highlighted. What I actually want to quote though is not Mads, but her:

“And the most amazing thing about this is: the show works either way. It works when you think he’s only a scheming, lying monster, and it works when you know he’s also a lovesick idiot. It’s so layered.”

The realest, and “Trou Normand” is such a testament to that, as it turns out!

“Trou Normand” is another one of my favorite episodes — we are really in a stretch of my favorites right now, dang. One of my most dearly beloved MINDFUCKS is in this ep (more on that later), along with some incredible imagery and some equally incredible plot development. Honestly this episode totally messed me up the first time I watched it, and I…. was into it. Hannibal comes across as an aaAAbsolute monster, for me the most dangerous he has been yet this season, but also the most entrancing. Enticing, almost. It’s a delicious devilry, he’s SO manipulative and so elegantly EVIL.

Well, on one level. Unfreakinbelievably, there’s a whole other dimension to this that I didn’t see the first time around, and frankly I don’t think I was even meant to. It’s not hidden, but it’s not on plain view for an initial watch, and I think that’s intentional. So, soooo much of the joy of this show for me is the way things dawn on you, and I’m obsessed with all the different ways that manifests throughout its run. Hannibal’s genuine affection & fondness for Will needs to be something that bleeds back into your memory, because that’s going to match the way it will work on Will in S2. His love needs to well up under your skin like a bruise you don’t remember getting, and hurt just the same.

So here, Hannibal begins working some of his most blatantly cruelties right in front of our eyes, but — he also tells Will that he cares about him for the first time. I watched this episode doing dual screaming: at Hannibal slash @me for ever forgiving this abusive dick for his UTTER TERRIBLENESS, and again at the discovery that for all his abusive dickery, he was much more conflicted & vulnerable in this episode than I eeever saw before.

These Post-S3 lenses we’re wearing really are something.

Alright, Live-Blaahgadgdsjff after the cut — it’s long as hell again but clearly you all don’t seem to mind, so like, ONWARD.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Weird timing maybe, or maybe this thought is just rolling around everywhere lately, but after touching a bit on Will & Hannibal’s alikeness in my “Fromage” rewatch, now I’ve these two oddly similar asks! OR ARE THEY DIFFERENT?? Hehe, meta (meta) jokes.

Ok now that everyone serious has bounced off because of that pun, let me attempt to organize some of my feelings about the central relationship of this show! Oh god. *shakes head*

So, Hannibal’s line to Bedelia in 1x08 again, because I still think this is noteworthy:

Now, this stuck out to me on my rewatch, because by the time we’re in S3, Will & Hannibal are just forever murmuring about how they’re blurring into each other and whatever. Will says he’s worried he’s going to Become Hannibal somehow, their faces blend in camera multiple times, it’s like a whole deal. And yet, in the midst of all this focus on merging, we have this line from Jack to Chiyoh in 3x07:

I totally loved this line the first time it happened, and then ended up getting one of my first ever meta-asks about it — like it was fate.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Hannibal Rewatch: 1x08

Season 1, Episode 8: “Fromage”
Or, THERE’S NO TURNING BACK NOW, INCLUDING ON MY LOVE FOR THIS FRAJSKLFD SHOW

**Warning: rewatch blogging, written with knowledge of the full series

This is just gonna be a straight live-blog this time, with pauses for longer thoughts on occasion. There are… a lot of occasions. This is a lot of live-blog. SETTLE IN, FRIENDS. It’s “Fromage” time.

GAHH WHAT IS THIS FIELD & STREAM CENTERFOLD, oh my god warn me next time I almost choked on my Vert Chaud. He is literally stretched out in front of a bed with two buttons undone working on a boat motor surrounded by fluffsome dogs, I just…. *sips drink while cocking an eyebrow* Bryan….

Will you actually live in an Andrew Wyeth painting. I adore Wyeth’s beige bleakness so it’s like this is finely designed to rend my heart apart, and I sincerely appreciate it. Also the fact that Will is hallucinating animals in pain is bringing me a lot of pain. It’s almost like the animal’s voices are his own cries, but he has to frame it as others he can help, because god knows he’s not gonna help himself.

Cello Kid: “I should learn to play the easier strings first, then the harder ones.”
Tobias: “No you shouldn’t.”
Me: “Damn straight, that’s why you’re not allowed a saddle when you’re learning to ride.” *sips drink again, Westernly*

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Anonymous asked:

ooh, please talk about Empathy: Not Really!

*chalks hands* You are all about to learn why I have always subtly refrained from using the word “empathy” when I talk about Will’s ~special skills~, get ready.

SO. This all started back in S3 when I realized I was having this thought sometimes that went something like: “Will, love, my clueless cocklebur — where did your empathy go.” But then I thought about it, and it dawned on me that actually, maybe Will has never really been that empathetic. I felt like I had just jostled the Pillars of Order. I felt powerful.

Alright, so: empathy. “Pure empathy,” is how Hannibal describes what’s up with our local overwhelmed feels weirdo, Will Graham. Now, what Will has is not a real thing so I can’t take Hanners to task too hard for choosing the wrong word here, but wrong I do think it is. Because empathy, the way we tend to use it in English, is virtually interchangeable with sympathy, and it conveys the idea that because you can understand and commiserate with how another person feels, you will then be more gentle with them, or more respectful or attentive or firm or whatever it is that you understand they would most want in this moment. Basically, someone who is very empathetic is also very compassionate.

It’s this heightened compassion that we seem to expect from Will. But the problem is, he doesn’t really have the fucks to spare for this, and actually never has. In S1, supposedly the peak of Empathetic Will, setting Abigail aside as a far more complex & guilty bundle of feelings, the only victim he actually portrays any above-average compassion for is Georgia, notable for being a) someone whose struggle with their own mind he strongly identifies with, because b) he’s deep in the throes of encephalitis and behaving out of even his already-weird ordinary. Otherwise, he does try to be compassionate, sometimes, maybe, when he can (or when there’s a dog), but the vast majority of the time he simply doesn’t have the cognitive bandwidth to behave with sensitivity toward people when blood blooms behind his eyes whenever he closes them and he can’t remember why there’s a stag in this kitchen.

What Will actually is, is fluid. He’s borderless. His ability to take on the mindset of a killer comes not from some sort of ““pathological empathy”” but from his lack of walls between him and the entire world. Not having effective barriers isn’t empathy. Vulnerability is also not empathy. To be truly empathetic actually requires a fair deal of stability — some forts in your skull, you could say — so that you have a bit of solid ground to stand on while you channel all these feelings somewhere helpful. Will, unstable, fortless, is just swamped by everything all of the time. Constantly half-drowning, he’s mostly focused on just trying to keep his head above water.

And so he ends up being not the considerate, socially insightful empath that we’ve found ourselves expecting through some trick of connotation, but just the Will we’ve always had: emotionally woozy, and more than a little rude.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Hannibal Rewatch: 1x07

Season 1, Episode 7: “Sorbet”
or, THIS IS IIIIIITTT, HERE IS OUR SHOOOOWWW, IT IS HERE

**Warning: rewatch blogging, written with knowledge of the full series

After the first season of Hannibal aired, Bryan Fuller had a long conversation with TV critic & professional Fannibal Todd VanDerWerff, in which he shared what I consider to be the most important thing ever said about the production of this show. Yes, ever. Yes, even more than that one.

The quote is:

Fuller: “Also, keep in mind, we were a direct-to-series show, so that means the day you finish shooting the pilot, the very next day is when you start shooting episode two. … When I saw the first cut of the pilot, it was one of the most terrifying days of the production for me, because there is an arrogance to a direct-to-series order that negates the contributions of your cast and your director, because you’re thinking, like, ‘Oh, they’re going to do what they’re going to do, and we’re just going to lay the plan out ahead of them, and they’ll fall into place.’ But with this cast and with a director like David Slade, they elevated the material so significantly that I was looking at the scripts that were coming down the pike, and I just thought, ‘We are writing the wroooong show.’ [Laughs.] So it was a matter of grabbing the wheel, jerking it, and trying to turn the ship. It was acknowledging what the cast and the director had brought to the table and evolving it from that point.

There were pressures along the way, where it’s like, ‘Just stay the course. Do the scripts that you’ve written,’ and I just couldn’t do that. It was going to be a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous amount of effort to re-break and rewrite the 10 scripts that we had ready to go, but the fact was, in my gut, I knew that they were the wrong version of this show. And a change had to be made quickly and efficiently. I begged for us to do a shutdown, so I could apply what I’d learned from seeing the pilot, and it was just not in our budget. All of that had to be done on the fly. So we essentially threw out 10 scripts and were writing them on the fly as production was going and trying to keep ahead and trying to feed the machine.”  - The AV Club, July 2013

So, this is insane for a couple reasons. One of them is covered clearly here, namely that to rewrite a direct-to-series show while in production is SO DIFFICULT, no one does that, no one does that, Bryan. But Bryan Fuller did. Because he saw something in the footage. Something *more* that his actors were doing with their director, something in a space just beyond his script. And so much did he want to see where that was going, that he cajoled his crew into re-breaking the rest of the season.

Like, listen — I’m not saying Bryan Fuller rewrote the first season of Hannibal on the fly because he saw Hannigram flare up between Mads Mikkelsen & Hugh Dancy. Haha, that would be crazy.

I’m saying that was part of the reason.

HERE’S MORE EVIDENCE TO BACK UP WHAT YOUR HEART TELLS YOU TO BE TRUE:

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

22 - Cooking Stuff with Jen & Tarra: Night Vale #78

[repodcap]

The Podcast Recap Podcast: The show where two best buddies talk about radio plays.

Episode 22 - Cooking Stuff with Jen & Tarra: Welcome to Night Vale #78

Struggling to prepare the perfect meal this Thanksgiving? How about struggling to raise a child you didn’t know you had? Jen and Tarra share some tips for at least one of these problems in their recap of Night Vale’s “Cooking Stuff: Thanksgiving Special.”

Available to listen right here, or for download/subscription on iTunes!

[wellntruly]

Oh hey followers. So all this time I’ve been quasi-secretly running a radio play recap podcast with my friend Jen. If you happen to listen to Welcome to Night Vale (or the Thrilling Adventure Hour, though that is more unlikely) and you want to listen to me & my best friend chat for half an hour, then have I got the show for you!

In this one we honestly talk about recipes for one third of the running time. HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Anonymous asked:

Does Will copy people's accent/speech patterns and stuff? In the book, it said Will does that, but I'm lousy at recognizing that kind of stuff. Will seemed to consistantly use creepy metaphors no matter who he's around. Have you noticed Will copying someone who isn't Hannibal?

Yeah, I have! It’s not like he turns into a magic mirror with every new person that walks in, but there are certain tics and tones he’ll begin to reflect. It’s probably stronger with some characters too, for whatever reason.

Just off the top of my head, I’d say in S1 Will tends to fall into Alana’s gentle-voiced honesty pretty easily, and it’s largely a camera focus but I usually feel like I’m drowning in big luminous searching eyes in any scene where he’s talking with Abigail. In S2 I get a kick out of Will (intentionally) lobbing all of Chilton’s smarmy italics right back at him, and then later that season I fully died over the (unintentional) transfer of Peter Bernadone’s broken-bird flinching. Oh god and then in S3 there’s the Bedelia Games — both of them all cool cutting remarks with that hilarious near-camp ~tremulous remove~.

And then Will & Hannibal are of course just out to sea in an endless game of Questions*, save the scenes where they communicate primarily through like, blood and clutching.

*In my Aperitif post I called this “weird intimacy tennis,” and it’s just occurring to me that Stoppard staged the Questions portion of the R&G movie on a tennis court. Point = me. Or maybe that’s a point scored on me….