This episode was definitely a step up—-thanks to Frank, of all people!—-but it's neither a great episode on its own nor good enough to redeem the meandering mess of the front half of the season. I haven't cared so little about a main character's death since Jimmy "To the Lost" Darmody got got (and about the plot hole…

Your comment reminds me that one of my dearest wishes for Fuller 's take on The Red Dragon is that he finds a way to incorporate the very end of the book, with Will at Shiloh.

Well, the fact that he's a something like a demigod (or semi-devil), in the show especially, vitiates that response for me. But I've certainly git a strong sense of respect for the way we real humans, as well as our fictive cousins, are at the mercy of the brute facts of our wiring.

I don't much agree with your take on SotL (though it does show its age in spots), but I couldn't agree more about the crass psychology of the existing canon, film and text. I'm hoping the show will avoid falling into that pit with Dolarhyde.

I certainly found the book version pitiable; I don't think that's far from Harris's intent. Why else spend so much time on his background?

The family talk really worked for me, both because it's been a theme almost from the beginning, and because Hannibal used it to get deep under Will 's skin about his new wife & step-kid.

Some homegrown tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper. An Italian roast pork sandwich (the thing Philly people eat while we fob off cheesesteaks on the tourists). A Belgian-style dark ale with dinner, and a Manhattan or two for dessert.

I don't see many acts live, so this isn't necessarily saying a lot, but: seeing them on their first tour in front of a couple hundred people in Nashville was the most amazing thing. I was utterly unprepared for how awesome they were live. They closed with Yeah, and it was ecstatic.

Yeah, sounds like we stalled around the same place.

Man, I did not care for The Goldfinch; or, I thought it was ok, but that seemed like disliking compared to others' reactions. The praise for it seemed all out of proportion to its merits.

It took me two or three tries to get through GR, and I stalled at the same spot every time. The first time I made it through, I just accepted that a lot of words were going to slide off my brain without making an impression, and to carry on anyway.

Oh, yeah, no doubt.

I just kind of assumed that's where we were heading, re: Ani & the Molesting Hippie. The predilection for kinky sex? The 'trust issues'? Being raised on a commune?

It was all a gritty crime show, a gritty crime show on premium cable, a gritty crime show about being a terrible person. And like a lot of gritty crime shows, there's a pedophile at the end of it.

That … makes total and complete sense, actually.

This season is the one that's grown on you? That's a little surprising, considering how it seems like it's tried a lot of fans' patience, even outright alienated some of them.

I think Alana & Chilton could end up figuring heavily in wherever this season ends up, vis-a-vis Lecter. It's established that they're responsible for Hannibal being classified as legally insane, that they lied, and that Hannibal is preparing to publish a thorough and, from Alana's perspective, effective rebuttal of…

It has definitely been an explicit topic of analysis within the show, to be sure, but I don't think that's been to the exclusion, or even detriment, of showing.

Yeah. I liked everything about it, and the silent treatment on the Dolarhyde shots was super effective for the reasons the reviewer mentions.

Yes, and he was right. The trial episode made it seem like no one in that writers room had ever seen a work of legal drama before. Hard to fault them for steering clear of such a clear weakness.