The odd thing about ratings is that (in the trailer, at least — I have not seen the film) World War Z, with its nonstop images of swarms of humans dying in mass numbers like so many rats, makes human life seem altogether disposable and meaningless.

That was my thought as well. Turning humans into art-object corpses strikes me as so much more perverse and affecting because of the dizzying slingshot from "hey, that's a striking art piece" to "wait a minute, that's a human body!"

@avclub-97d6c074b974838257db17a02f8784c4:disqus For me, Walter is worse, because Jesse is such a naive, trusting soul, basically a kid, for whom Walter is a father figure. So his manipulation of Jesse feels almost obscene because of how Walter betrays that trust and the relationship they have. Whereas Hannibal and…

I wish NBC would make an exception on those pop-up ad things for this show. Not only do they clash ridiculously with the ultra-grim tone, but I don't know if they really want to associate whatever they're pushing with what's happening onscreen at any given moment.

I hate to admit it, but as someone who has trouble processing spoken language, this show really taxes my comprehension abilities. It's not even Lecter's accent — I often have trouble following Will, too. (Oddly, these are the only two characters I have trouble understanding.) I think it might be because the writing,…

@avclub-126ad03316db7675164e3f0c8be270e9:disqus I agree…I actually did think it was going to be a lighthearted sex farce. I was…mistaken.

Interesting observation about doomsday predictions. I wonder how much of their appeal is rooted in anxiety about the knowledge that you die, your story ends, and the world just rolls on without you. Most of us aren't prominent enough to be remembered beyond our small circles of loved ones, and even then, we're…

How about when Guy MacKendrick got his foot shredded by the John Deere lawnmower in season 3? The Following has nothing on this show!

Perhaps it's an overcompensating reaction to the fact that nothing much happens for at least 10 of each season's 13 episodes. I mean, Mad Men meanders more entertainingly than most shows at their most action-packed, but there are runs of so little story movement that you feel like this has to be a slow burn leading up…

Only if it co-starred Megan Mullally!

Good point. Also, may I just say that it's equally hilarious and deeply disturbing that this is a conversation that this show inspires.

I figured they'd just update the backstory…I don't know if his nationality has been stated explicitly on this show, but I'm assuming he's Eastern European, and the atrocity he was subjected to as a child would be moved up to the Cold War era. Maybe Romania under Ceausescu?

@avclub-484e57c24167c2c591fc8ceda82726aa:disqus With the Great Lakes, I can understand using the term "beach," since my image of a beach requires a body of water that you can't see the other side of.

Hey, it didn't occur to me before, but episodes of shows made for streaming services can be whatever length they want, can't they? They don't even have to be uniform from episode to episode. (If they get repackaged for some other media they can be edited as needed.) I guess if Hannibal ends up on Amazon or Netflix or…

I can't wait for the episode where everyone finds out Hannibal's been feeding them human flesh for years. I'm envisioning something akin to the finale of "The Pie Eating Contest" from Stand By Me

Memo circulating at NBC: Do not open any packages with return address "Miggs"

Didn't she already have human flesh when Hannibal made her sausages for "breakfast for dinner"? Although of course that might have just been regular, non-human sausage.

I'd like to see it end up on AMC and shown in a block with Mad Men and Breaking Bad as "Despair Night."

I could be mistaken, but I thought the reason for the three-name convention was to help distinguish them in the public mind from innocent people with the same first/last name. So someone named "John Gacy" would be less likely to be stigmatized.

Given John Waters and The Wire, I sort of imagine Baltimore as basically a company town for the mental health industry.