This is a really wonderfully intelligent article. Rather than picturing death as a moth, I would almost describe it as a flaw in the tapestry— a misweaving, so that you have to trace back and figure out how it happened: how and why the murderer was driven to such damage, and what damage created him or her in turn. In…

Actually it'll be Hannibal season 2, though— season 1 is in this year's batch because the bulk of it aired before the cut-off.

I know this show isn't really on the Emmy radar, but IT SHOULD BE. Breaking Bad is the only other show recently that's managed to pull off something as weird, beautiful, intelligent, and genre-tripping as this episode in particular.

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that last sentiment. Fuller has always been interested in worlds that are stylized to a point where they visually declare themselves to be not part of reality, which I think Hannibal has also done. They're more like extremely realistic fairy tales, in a way, and have to be…

I often feel like these reviews are unfair, in that they seem to misunderstand or ignore a lot of what is going on, structurally and in terms of genre, in the series. (For instance: I think that the surreality or heightened reality of the world full of magical artistic serial killers is part of the genre of the show,…

I think that the lack of sexual tension and out-of-nowhereness is… kind of the point? Like, it's not supposed to seem like the natural progression of a relationship, but rather like the desperate and out-of-whack move of someone who's having a breakdown and isn't great with people to begin with.

I meant the Will-smelling scene. It just seems like there's a lot of weight and emphasis put on it (especially with the way this episode is setting up Hannibal's magical Bloodhound Nose) for it to be an offhand reference to the books. It seems like a hint at something to come— but maybe the "something to come" does…

Am I wrong in thinking we're meant to read more into the "smelling" scene? I.e. that something was responsible for Will's headaches and sleepwalking? My first thought was that Lecter had dosed him somehow— maybe when he was at Will's house, as seen in the webisodes.