So? I love "Fear Her." It's a cute, character-based episode that does some important character work right before an absolutely killer two-part finale, with a sci-fi mystery that's silly but otherwise fine at its heart. I never understood why people get so pissy about it. I'd watch "Fear Her" over "In The Forest of the…

L&M is a constantly maligned episode that I never found as offensive as everyone else (bland, dull, but with a good moment here and there), which makes it an easy touchstone to use to compare exactly how much Alasdair is willing to bend over backwards and twist himself into knots to make a terrible episode like ITFOTN…

This is one of those reviews that has, over the course of Steven Moffat's tenure as showrunner and Alasdair's tenure as AV Club reviewer, really called into question whether Alasadair is capable of honestly criticizing this show and not just fanboying all over everything Moffat does.

I have only been able to watch snatches of this episode because my cable and internet have been out all weekend (I…. don't want to talk about it) but I did manage to catch a scene where Clara's hair part switched from right to left to right all in the course of about 5 minutes and it made me irrationally angry. C'mon,…

This show is so goddamn delightful. Every single bit of it.

Of course we television viewers love season-long arcs. But Moffatt can't write them. Not even a little bit. He sort of pulled it off in Season 5 with the cracks in the Universe, likely because he had a full year or two of planning to become the showrunner to come up with it. The meta-arcs of Seasons 6 and 7a and 7b…

Or: Steven Moffat's obsession with the show's growing popularity in America is slowly ruining things.

Boardwalk, shennanigans, lobsterfests, accents, shitty Italian food that rules the town inexplicably? I always assumed they were in Rhode Island.

Did that weird burner account copy/paste my comment and add a weird bitly link? What is happening in AV Club comment land?

Also most important question: Does Hannibal's go-bag include a perfectly tailored plastic murder suit?

I JUST CAN'T DEAL WITH ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, OKAY? I CAN'T.

I always try to tell friends I'm attempting to convert to the show that it is a black-as-midnight black comedy, and it's lines like these that exemplify it, but out of context you just sound like a lunatic.

The show presents a version of Lecter very much in line with the books — exact moments are shuffled around in terms of chronology, or tweaked slightly, but this mask of sanity is the same as that which Lecter presented before his capture in the book.

The casual "Why don't you eat your nose?" was also one of the biggest laughs of the episode for me. Tripped out, self-mutilating Mason was a DELIGHT.

As I said to my friend last night during one of the commercial breaks: I NEED TO TALK TO JACK, PLEASE.

What trial are you talking about? Will's trial? Will's trial was dropped, he was exonerated by the evidence Hannibal left on the fishing lures holding the guard up after Hannibal grabbed Gideon from the hospital and the charges against him vacated. There was no other trial started — Chilton had only been arrested…

"So how do you catch a fish that isn't hungry?"
"You change your tactics, you use live bait that moves and excites them to action. You have to make him bite, even if he's not hungry.
"You have to make him act on instinct. He's always a predator."
"You have to create a reality where only you and the fish exist. Your lure…

They're not stalling the main story, they're laying the trap for Hannibal, luring him into thinking he's fallen out of Jack's suspicion for being the Ripper and that Will has given in to his Hannibal protege training. As Hannibal's guard falls, he'll make the mistake that exposes him as the Ripper, thus bringing about…

…Yes. That would be the trap they're setting. You LURE things into TRAPS.

The psychopath's great blind spot lives in the shadow cast by his epic ego. Watching Will and Jack lay the trap in the shadow of Hannibal's ego is utterly glorious.