HANNIBAL (NBC) IS DOING GREAT THINGS

Everyone who's had the distinct pleasure of talking to me within the last two months has heard me talk about Hannibal (and had to answer the question, "Are you watching Hannibal?" and usually the follow-up question, "Why aren't you watching Hannibal??"). I think Hannibal is one of the best shows on television right now - definitely the best on network TV and rivaling shows on premium channels.

on this week's episode Will plays a nice game of Jenga

It feels like every single week the show gets better, but Ep. 9 "Trou Normand" blew me away on Thursday (and during my rewatch tonight). (Each Hannibal ep gets at least one rewatch.) There are four things that jumped out at me that I need to talk about:

1. The only flaw with the episode was that the crime really took a backseat to the continuing characters' stories. There's usually a much nicer balance between character story and weekly-crime-to-be-solved story, and they generally tie in nicely making the procedural cop element of the show feel less prominent. There was a definite disconnect this week. Despite this, the denouement of that storyline was very nicely written, if not crafted (I would've liked more difficulty in locating the killer). The revelation that the killer's son had unintentionally been one of his victims was really satisfying, and continued the trend of this show to not glorify the acts of the serial killers depicted. The viewers are always confronted with the horror of the crimes and they all have importance and weight. As a final note, Lance Henrikson's two thumps on the arm of the chair after the oops-I-murdered-my-son revelation deserve some kind of an award.
2. In the Hannibal/Will storyline things got interesting!!!! The most revelatory line for me was after Hannibal tells Will that he helped Abigail hide Nicholas Boyle's body. Will responds with unexpected anger, "Evidently. Not. Well. Enough." WHOA. I think there have been some red flags waving in Will's head for a while now about Hannibal that he's been ignoring, and this should've got them waving again. But Will isn't surprised that Hannibal is caught up in such an unsavory business. Instead he's angry that Hannibal has put himself in a position where he (and Abigail) might get caught. I tried to understand Will's thought process by asking myself what I would do if someone I really loved had killed someone. I wouldn't want them to go to prison, I would want them to do their best at evading suspicion of the police. This is where Will is at regarding Hannibal and Abigail: he's identified Hannibal as a friend and Abigail as family (and Hannibal as family as well by extension because they've both taken responsibility of being a father to Abigail). Really really interesting development.
3. Brilliant stroke making Freddie Lounds a vegetarian. Everyone loves Hannibal and sees him in a positive light; they gobble up his food, including the meat we are led to believe is human, and love every bit of it. Even the suspicious and protective Alana Bloom has seduced by him. Freddie, though, can't eat the meat he serves because she's vegetarian. She's also the one person in the show who suspects (or at least has the capacity to at this moment) that there is something off about Hannibal. She is the only one who's not drinking the kool-aid.
4. The last thing I feel compelled to mention is the fourth wall. With "Trou Normand" I've now found two instances of Hannibal gazing directly into the camera. The first was in the pilot episode, as we're introduced to Hannibal Lecter and he's taking a bite of human liver:

this lighting is doing insane things for Mads' bone structure

The second is at the end of the episode as Hannibal is comforting Abigail after she reveals she helped her father with all the murders:

Hannibal has a fascinating element wherein the audience knows more than most of the characters right form the get go because we're familiar with Hannibal Lecter from the previous books and movies. But everyone in the show thinks Hannibal's a great guy! He makes yummy food and has impeccable taste in furnishings! But Hannibal is constantly dropping all these cannibal inside jokes. For the benefit of whom? Himself certainly. But also the audience. I see Hannibal breaking the fourth wall as an expression of his power. The only people who are capable of appreciating his full strength right now are the audience. These little looks are Hannibal telling us that he knows exactly what he is doing and he is not afraid of our judgement. He is completely in control.

I, for one, can't wait until that control starts slipping. That's when Hannibal will really get interesting.

I saw Oblivion (feat. Tom Cruise). It was infuriating!

the movie did not live up to the promise of the cool poster :(

My favorite way to go into a film is with as little prior knowledge as possible. I knew nothing about Oblivion before I saw it. Scratch that - I think I had seen one trailer and it vaguely reminded me of I Am Legend, so I was expecting zombies. (Spoiler alert: there are no zombies in Oblivion.) 

Anyway, I walked into that theatre tabula rasa and came out REALLY MAD. CAPSLOCK MAD. I don't really know what happened plotwise in Oblivion. What I understood was basically that there were some aliens (possibly just one big robo-alien with a glowing red HAL eye?) in a triangle spaceship who needed to suck water up from planets to convert it into energy for a reason that was never disclosed to the audience aaaaand there were a lot of Tom Cruise clones running around. 

It was a mess, but the fact that that didn't bother me is indicative of a much larger problem. And here is where the feminist critique of Oblivion begins. None of the women in the film had any agency whatsoever! Their entire lives revolved around Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), or were otherwise Not Their Own. There are three women with speaking roles in the film: Victoria (Jack's teammate/lover/sharer-of-really-sweet-house-in-the-sky), Julia (an astronaut and Jack's wife pre-invasion/pre-memory wipe), and Sally (Jack and Victoria's mission controller stationed on the Triangle Spaceship). 

Here are the fates of all the women!:

Victoria: Jack realizes Julia was his wife before he had his mind wiped. Jack and Julia share an intimate moment, which Victoria accidentally witnesses. Victoria apparently cannot function with another woman in the picture so she becomes homicidal! She tries to kill Jack but mistakenly gets killed instead, and that's her miserable whole story arc. I guess we're not supposed to feel bad for her because she was a rule-adhering wet blanket throughout the rest of the movie. And the inexplicable naked swimming pool scene didn't do much to convince me of her and Jack's chemistry, so it's probably okay she was unceremoniously killed off, right? Nope. 0/10. Try again.

Julia: If we compare the writing process to baking cookies, the recipe for Julia was there, but it's like someone read "flour" on the ingredient list and instead thought, "OH I'LL JUST THROW IN CRIPPLING POWERLESSNESS INSTEAD." That was a rough comparison. But Julia could have been a badass! She was a NASA astronaut, for God's sake! But for half the movie she's either stuck in a sleep pod or mortally injured or sitting in Jack's little ship waiting for him to come back. At the end of the film, Julia suggests that they both go up to the Triangle Spaceship to blow it up together in a fiery symbol of martyrdom and everlasting love, probably. And we're led to believe that Jack takes her up with him (in the sleep pod, obvs), but it's revealed that Jack has instead brought up rebel leader Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman) to exact his revenge on the Evil Triangle Spaceship. Jack's actually dumped Julia-pod off in the woods to, conveniently, wake up after she can do anything about it. The thing that really took the cake, though, was the moment when Julia finally got a gun in her hands and was pointing it at a drone that was about to take out everyone in the room. Picture it: Julia's been coddled by Jack the entire film and she finally finally gets 1) a Big Gun, and 2) the opportunity to do something really cool and save a bunch of helpless people. What happens? She gets scared and drops the weapon! Luckily, though, A Man comes to the rescue!!! Sykes (a zero-dimensional character played by Nicolaj Coster-Waldau who is capable of so much better shame on you) shoots that drone dead, and Julia retains her utterly useless character status. 

And Sally ends up being the adopted persona of the sentient Triangle Spaceship, her true form having assumedly been killed off years earlier.

This film repeatedly and unrelentingly denies women agency. The men decide what is best for them, and they are never allowed an opportunity to stand up for themselves or have a moment of glory or strength. Heroism is reserved for the men. The men fly the ships, the men hold the guns, the men destroy the Evil Triangle Spaceship. The women are relegated to sleep pods or a control desk, while Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman get to fly around and do all the cool stuff. Victoria watching Jack go off on his drone repair missions every morning felt like a 50s housewife waving goodbye to her businessman husband from the front porch of a ticky-tacky house. This is sci-fi - and I know I keep going on about this - but we have an Evil Sentient Triangle Spaceship and the writers, with all their wonderful imagination, could not fathom a woman who could shoot a gun or decide her own fate.

This is 2013, y'all. Women do not need Tom Cruise to take care of them.