What did you dislike about them?

 

Then I'd say give it time before making a complete judgement on their characters?

 

A goofball? That's just another way to say "I don't like them" and just as vague.

But if stuff like Hannibal's accent is a deal-breaker then yeah...not for you. Plenty of shit wrong with this show. If you can't get past that...

 

Blasphemy!

Casting Fishburne as Crawford was a masterstroke. While Graham is Hannibal's intellectual adversary, Crawford is ultimately the one who poses a threat to him. It is important that Crawford projects that sense of moral conviction and unassailable physical presence. Fishburne does that.

It makes it all the more poignant and terrifying when Hannibal overcomes even him. It wouldn't have half the emotional impact if all Hannibal had to do was beat up a sickly old man (c.f. Scott Glenn's Crawford in Silence of the Lambs).

 

Yeah it sucks that you can't get past the accent. Mad Mikkelson is honestly in my opinion the best portrayal of Hannibal.

You're missing out on a great show, maybe one day you'll grit your teeth through it until you get used to it.

 

Season 3 of Hannibal

Gotta say the first episode of the third season of Hannibal was a mixed bag of good, and slightly disappointing moments. I can't say that I was floored with all the flashbacks we had to enjoy just to recap and remind everybody how brilliant Hannibal is. The kind of mind games he likes to play with his victims. Or how freaky a cook he is. Seriously, the slugs, and a human arm marinated in red wine gave me the heebie-jeebies.

In other words that part of flashbacks, involving the crippled criminal we saw in season 2 was a bit weak and I won't say boring, but certainly a bit over the top and did little but pander to the 'look how kitchen savvy and cannibalistic I am' vibe.

Though, I'll give the props for the line where Hannibal tells his victim that it isn't cannibalism because they aren't equal, equaling the dude to little more than herd animal.

Spoiler

The other flashbacks were much, much better. The one where Dr Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson) comes back home only to find Lecter taking a shower after the massacre he designed at the end of season 2 is quite awesome.

The scene were she just sits on her bed, sipping a drink and holding a gun in the other and waiting for Hannibal to come out of the shower simply oozes the kind of calm arrogance and class that gets me all tingly and puts a smile on my face.

The other flashback involving Maurier is where we see a scene from her past when she killed one of her patients. And it just so happens that Lecter shows up seconds after the deed.

And to top it all we get to see some prime acting from Anderson when we return to proper current timeline. The creeping fear she shows while trying to maintain a cool mask of professionalism and the farce of life together with Hannibal really gets to you, especially when we get to see how throughly Hannibal dominated her psychologically.

The dichotomy between the scene from the flashback where she is all cool and collected. Dressed finely and chilling out with a drink and holding a naked Hannibal at a gun point is simply jarring when we switch to the current events and observe as one of the guests she and Hannibal host informs her that what she eats was used in the past to give pork a more refined taste. Her discomfiture is pretty chilling at hearing this.

So we have some good and some not so good. And that's the main problem of the episode which feels like a mishmash of supposedly very important scenes and some bland ones where only the background shots were truly impressive.

Spoiler

The bait and switch they tried to play in this episode is poorly executed. They dangle two potential victims. Three if you count Maurier in. Leaving us with one confrontational asshole, a scared companion and finally the new friend - though the line about potential threesome was pretty lulzy.

They dangle all those people in front of Hannibal and try to build suspense but as with the rest of the show it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Season 3 promo

 

Everyone seems so focused on this line, when the dude arguably beat Hannibal at his own game. Even Hannibal admits that Gideon was super-sharp.

He seemingly plays the game of gracious guest, eating himself, while subtly ticking off Hannibal (by banging his fork) in a way that it would seem petty to respond to, and pointing out the psychological weaknesses in the man by goading him about Will Graham and even going so far as to ask the psychopath "why do you think I'm allowing this" and Hannibal has no answer.

Gideon is a fucking badass, and Hannibal can take his life (and his liver,with a nice Chianti) but he can never take that away.