You’re only good until you’re not / You’re only certain until you’re not

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” – Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight (2008)

            On the internet it’s very likely that not even dying could stop you from becoming a villain these days. “Call-out culture” is now a part of that digital ecosystem and, in essence, “refers to the tendency among progressives, radicals, activists, and community organizers to publically name instances or patterns of oppressive behaviour and language use by others. People can be called out for statements and actions that are sexist, racist, abeliest, and [etc.]”[1] There is potential in calling out truly dangerous actions—such as abuse and assault; “like confronting a rapist, for example”—to hold the perpetrators accountable and to publically call attention to their behavior in such a way so as other potential victims know to avoid them; nevertheless, there are serious problems with call-out culture as a form of “political critique.”[2] Because calling someone out is a highly public event thanks to the social media platforms that enable the culture, the act is never private and is tantamount to “a public performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure their politics are.”[3] There are definitely problems with even a seemingly justified call-out, but the issue of a “statute of limitations,” say, on statements of a political nature previously made by a person raises its own questions. 

            As the second article quoted above suggests, calling attention to harmful behaviors and actionable acts of violence is one thing, and making something potentially hurtful, insensitive, or uninformed someone said years ago the evidence in a trial of that person’s current politics is another altogether. Oftentimes, however, this latter type of squabble seems to be the focus of call-out culture. This is the reason why it can be difficult to answer the question “Who do we actually like and trust?” (or, “Who is really good?”) when browsing the tweets or blogs of socially- and politically-conscious people. It seems everyone has some dirt in their past that eventually gets called out, forcing us to decide if that person was ever really as “good” as they appeared. It’s a difficult matter to parse generally. For example, I use the term “good” here as a last resort. What other, better descriptor is there for the something about that person that shifts the minute an old tweet or blog post or reblog emerges from their past? Especially when the material is years old, how much weight should it carry with regard to our current perceptions of that person? How much does it actually speak to who that person is now and what they believe? Is it out of line to expect the person in question to apologize years after the fact for something they said or thought before? I don’t have an answer—nor, I suspect, does anyone else. What I do know is that The Dark Knight was more or less right: You’re only good/a hero until you’re not.

            Ultimately, call-out culture is only related to the topic I actually want to address in this post. I want to talk about the supposed “controversy” surrounding the news that some incoming freshmen at Duke University refused to read Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (as a common reading experience book) on moral grounds. My immediate reaction to this news item was to post to Facebook and mock the fact that it was a news item at all: “‘Extre extre! Incoming college freshmen tend to bring conservative views with them!’ (Since when is this news and/or surprising to anyone?)” After posting that initial response, however, I started to think about how this non-news could be used to address larger issues of personal and political expression, knowledge, and certainty. I still think that this individual story is a virtual non-issue—“some” students objected to the book; “several” declined to read it; even the sites running a story seem to suspect that there’s nothing remarkable here given that people object to things like this all the time, and a student not doing the reading? That’s not breaking news.

            What I do think is interesting and noteworthy about this story is how it lends itself to a larger discussion—namely, whether any of the names attached to the story who objected to Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel/memoir Fun Home for its open discussion and depiction of sexuality (and especially homosexuality) will one day find the things they said now with such certainty coming back to bite them in a call-out. Let me say upfront that this isn’t me suggesting that that might be comeuppance of some kind. My natural inclination to mock aside, I take the issues surrounding this news story seriously. It raises the important question of at what point anyone ought to make their personal and/or political views public in any way. 

            I was already thinking about this topic because I recently got a new job and in the process of completing my required training came across the statement that no one should ever post anything to a social media platform that they wouldn’t want displayed on a banner. That sounds good and seems to make a lot of sense, but it also ignores the fact that sometimes what you would want held high on a standard one day does not inspire the same confidence days, weeks, months, and especially years later. We are often very certain about things at various points in our lives only to find that certainty challenged down the road. Part of being human is learning, growing, and changing. If we generally agree that our progress is forward toward a fully-developed human being, then the old ideas or certainties we leave in our wake may no longer apply to the new model. The problem is that internet culture preserves (and sometimes resurrects) these old ideas down the road, and what can we do? It’s true that what we post to the internet stays on the internet indefinitely somewhere, but, again, what’s one to do about that? At what point is anyone (college freshman or otherwise) allowed near a computer? We want our ideals on a banner, and we want the community that comes with rallying under shared ideals.

            To return to the specific case of the Duke students, however, I think that the college seems to have taken the proper, educational track with the “controversy.” At least, that seems to be the case based on what a member of the summer reading book selection committee had to say on the issue: “I would encourage them [students who disagree with the book] to talk about why they chose to read it or not.”[4] Although I did see comments on the story to the effect that the students should be indirectly punished in some way with a quiz or that they should more or less gut it out, it’s much more effective to make this a teachable moment rather than mete out some form of punishment to force them into broadening their perspective whether they like it or not. Specifically, I think that this is an opportunity to foster critical thinking. It’s easy to see student responses that accuse Duke of indirectly peer pressuring people into reading the book, or that suggest the university simply does not know that students with conservative views exist, as worthy of scorn; in fact, in a national culture that is becoming increasingly (though only gradually) more progressive-minded, it’s easy to look at the shock—“I thought to myself, ‘What kind of school am I going to?’”—and perform something akin to a call-out where all sorts of liberal and educated minds tee off of these kids in particular and off the very concept of a sexuality-averse conservative Christian faith at large by wittily, scornfully suggesting that they need perspective or to wake up and realize their squeamishness is the result of religious dogma and a doctrine that’s becoming obsolete even in the religious community.[5] It’s easy to do that, but it’s also wrong, and that kind of aggressive response tends to only make people of any creed retreat and go on the defensive rather than feel like voicing and further exploring their ideas is safe. 

            While I certainly don’t agree with people who claim that Christians are oppressed in the United States, I do think we don’t do much to not support such claims when our response to those familiar-sounding words of Biblical censure is to mock or insist that they are completely, utterly wrong. Is religion a crutch? Does it serve only to keep people docile to institutions by suggesting that the rewards are coming not in this world (that belongs to the institutions) but in the next for all those who are appropriately penitent? It suffices for the purposes of this argument simply to acknowledge that religion means a lot to people. For many people (myself included), it played a key, foundational role in their lives. They’ve defined themselves by it and shaped their worldviews through it. Demanding that they just give that up and learn better isn’t a productive use of time—particularly in an educational setting. 

            There are certainly folks to the right and left of center politically who would argue that the purpose of college is to “liberalize” students (though they would say as much with very different intentions and intonation). It’s simply true that many freshmen come to college with a more conservative outlook that doesn’t last all four years. Christian films like God’s Not Dead make the case for the right that the left (namely liberal atheists) are out to tempt or coerce their children away from the Truth. That’s simply not the case, though. At least, in my experience, that’s not the case, nor is the purpose of college to “liberalize.” Colleges don’t churn out little Judith Butlers and Friedrich Nietzsches. To my mind the purpose of college is to teach critical thinking and to task students with answering questions more thoroughly while also asking more questions of things they take as certainties (of which religion is only one). Now, uncertainty itself can be a kind of mistaken certainty, but that’s not really the matter at hand. What is is that it’s not all that surprising for the new Duke students who object to Bechdel’s work to do so because it “[conflicts] with their personal and religious beliefs.”[6] It’s also not the college’s job to take those beliefs away from them, strictly speaking, but it is its job to suggest that this is only one of many perspectives on the text and to ask that the concerned parties get beyond knee-jerk reactions of disgust or outrage that they were even presented with this particular work to a point where they can find its literary merits and to understand why someone else might not object to it or might, in fact, object to their objection. 

            In all likelihood, a number of these objecting students will leave college very different from when they entered it. I speak from personal experience, and lest anyone so inclined think that I am a godless, postmodern heathen, I will interject only one personal note here: I definitely came out of college questioning things that I went in believing, but I have a greater appreciation for my own conservative Christian background than I did before because I questioned it and continue to grapple with and try to reconcile a spiritualism that’s very personal and dear to me with other ideas. Sometimes Christianity as a religion seems determined to avoid questions, whereas a belief system like Judaism may embrace them by “wrestling” with texts and ideas and prizing “the ability to question freely and without inhibition [and] the valuing of difficult questions.”[7] At any rate, the ability to question the certainty or least staying power of what one believes may help prevent one from stitching any banners preemptively.

            Case in point: Perhaps you’ve heard of Lexi Kozhevsky, the nineteen year-old who stood in front of police officers in Ferguson and (in)famously said she “would rather get hit by something than let it hit them.”[8] If you haven’t heard of Lexi herself, you’ve probably seen her photoshopped into various other scenarios where she defends everyone from Voldemort’s Death Eaters to the entire cast of villainous characters from Dragonball Z. I’m trying to avoid particular partialities of my own here (that Black Lives Matter, for instance), but I offer up Lexi as so many others have done, albeit with less derision, as an example of the same sort of certainty on display in the Duke case. Although I cannot speak for Lexi’s personal experiences or her background, this is a college-aged kid (someone who would just be starting college), and her casual certainty—“Look guys, discrimination is a thing and I get it, but we need to say with the people who protect us and that’s what I’m doing”—seems like the sort that changes with time and questioning.[9] Or maybe she won’t change. All I know is that I was once a freshman in a class of freshmen who argued with a professor that there was nothing racist about The Lion King, and today I would tell you that The Lion King is a very “problematic” piece—that it represents an extension of a cultural association of evil with darker colors; that the “bad” lions live in the impoverished area of the wilds; etc. People change and grow (and should change and grow), and whether they radically alter what they believe or not in college, chances are they will be better equipped to parse those beliefs on the other side and to at least offer a more nuanced argument than “I’m certain about this and am shocked that you aren’t.” The problem is that sometimes those certainties, when publically aired with confidence, come back to haunt you down the road. 

            Ultimately, it’s simply impractical to say that no one should express themselves or their views until they’re of an arbitrary age or ambiguous level of experience—though there is an argument to be made that entering a new discourse community requires first acquainting yourself with what the pervading trends in that community are before making yourself heard (God gave us two ears but only one mouth, after all). The solution to the particular problem of things people may have once been certain about being brought up as evidence against them in the future likely lies with reworking the toxicity of call-out culture and in questioning at every stage of one’s personal growth the propriety of posting everything you think at a given time in a place where it can be found and returned to you when you are older, wiser, and perhaps justifiably embarrassed to once again see that old, dirty banner you thought you buried years ago.              

Notes:

[1] Ahmad, Asam. “A Note on Call-Out Culture.” Briarpatch Magazine. Briarpatch Magazine, 2 Mar. 2015. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. <http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-note-on-call-out-culture>  

[2] ourcatastrophe. “On ‘Call-Out Culture’ And Why I’m Not Into It.” browcatastrophe. Tumblr, n.d. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. <http://mewmewfoucault.tumblr.com/post/7909863121/on-call-out-culture-and-why-im-not-into-it>   

[3] Ahmad

[4] Ballentine, Claire. “Freshmen Skipping ‘Fun Home’ For Moral Reasons.” The Chronicle. Duke Student Publishing Company, 21 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. <http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2015/08/freshmen-skipping-fun-home-for-moral-reasons>

[5] Ibid.

[6] TWC News. “Duke University Summer Reading Sparks Controversy.” Time Warner Cable News. Time Warner Cable Enterprises, 24 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. <http://www.twcnews.com/nc/triangle-sandhills/news/2015/08/24/summer-reading-sparks-controversy.html>

[7] Horowitz, Bethamie. “A Tradition of Questioning Tradition.” Forward. The Forward Association, 27 May 2005. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. <http://forward.com/opinion/3565/a-tradition-of-questioning-tradition/>

[8] “Powerful Photo: College Student ‘Protects’ Police from Ferguson Protestors.” Fox News Insider. FOX News Network, 11 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 24 Aug. 2015. Web. <http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/08/11/college-student-protects-police-ferguson-protesters-powerful-photo>

[9] Ibid.    

Tell me a Story

*In the interest of pushing more content to this blog given the glacial rate at which I am developing some longer, more formalized pieces, I am going to go ahead and offer some reflection on each week’s episode of Bryan Fuller’s beautiful Hannibal TV series on NBC.

"Hannibal Title Card." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Mar. 2014.

“Secondo” (aired 6/18/2015)

            Of the three episodes of Hannibal that have aired thus far this year, “Secondo” feels the most focused. Where “Antipasto” and “Primavera” were generally centered on Hannibal and Will, respectively, and bringing the audience up to date on their activities while positioning the two against one another and setting the tone for the nature of this relationship this season, “Secondo” is largely concerned with a single question. Two-thirds of the plotting this time around is devoted to addressing the question of Hannibal’s past and the issue of his sister Mischa’s death and the role it has played in his development. While Jack Crawford finally arrives this episode and spends some time conferring with Pazzi in the same cathedral where Hannibal previously left his broken heart—and while their conversation further drives home the theme of forgiveness the show is pursuing while also insinuating that Hannibal is Will’s god—both Hannibal and Will’s stories circle the aforementioned singular question/issue. Molly Eichel of the A.V. Club makes some good points about how the events of the Hannibal and Will plots even parallel and mirror one another here.[1]

“Secondo” is still visually stunning, but it feels altogether more grounded than the previous two installments. The colors are still vibrant, dark, and lush, and I love the series’ devotion to color when many other thrillers strip it away to make themselves look “gritty.” The imagery of the ruinous, fog-shrouded grounds of the Lecter family estate and of the snails living in an old fountain and wine cellar remains strikingly dreamlike; however, while there are still visually experimental moments like a transition from Hannibal’s face to Chiyo’s in a cup of tea and the way that the show plays with uncertainty by giving us what looks like Chiyo’s murder at the hands of her former prisoner only to literally rewind time and show her killing him (an effect made all the more potent thanks to the tension built over a commercial break), “Secondo” feels much more clear-headed and focused overall. The dialogue is still stage play serious and art film pretentious, but it is also good to see that Hannibal can double down on a key piece of plot when it wants to, though its focus need not be confused or an absence of ambiguity at the end of the day.

I think it is safe to say that the addition of Mischa Lecter to Hannibal’s back-story (first in Hannibal and then in Hannibal Rising) has been a divisive one. The major thrust of “Secondo” seems to be to establish the TV series’ stance on her and what her death means to Hannibal. Mischa and the tragedy of Hannibal’s past in Lithuania first comes up in the novel and film Hannibal but is further expanded upon in Hannibal Rising. This is not the first we are hearing of Mischa in the series either, but for those who have not read the books or seen the films, she likely remains a figure very much on the periphery of the story. “Secondo” does not take the easy way out by offering flashbacks of young Hannibal and Mischa. Nor does it allow any one character to sit down and explain things via a handy exposition dump. The rest of the cast is as dodgy on the subject of Mischa as is Hannibal himself. How “Secondo” ultimately leaves things will likely resonate most strongly with those viewers who have some knowledge of the larger Hannibal mythos, while those who only know of Mischa through the series are likely to feel a bit more confusion.

As I suggested before, Mischa is a problematic part of the Hannibal lore—largely because the childhood trauma of her death and cannibalization by Soviet soldiers weathering a harsh winter near the Lecter holdings during World War II makes Hannibal himself less of a mystery. The character that had previously been established in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs as too complicated and devilishly smart to diagnose was suddenly reduced to a convenient childhood trauma. It was too much and too easy for fans to swallow (so to speak). Additionally, some critics of Hannibal Rising also take issue with the supposed logic of Mischa’s violent death and consumption by evil men (a scarring experience for Hannibal certainly) leading to her brother’s decision to cannibalize his own enemies. It seems like the mere thought of doing what was done to his sister to others would evoke those memories that he prefers to keep locked away in unvisited parts of his memory palace. Since Hannibal Rising suggests that Hannibal was, by all account, normal prior to the incident, Mischa’s death becomes the sole cause of his own madness and cannibalistic behavior. It is both too convenient and too simple of an explanation. As Eichel suggests in her review, one could justify staying away from Hannibal Rising on the grounds that its explanations ultimately do more harm to the legacy and mystique of the character of Hannibal than they do good.

It may also be worth noting here that Thomas Harris was semi-coerced into writing Hannibal Rising in the first place. Apparently the Hannibal prequel story would have happened with or without him, and cranking out the book (the leanest of the series) was the only way he could maintain some kind of creative control over the way that the story was handled. Hannibal Rising is Harris’s best written book, though. Like many thriller writers, though I say as much at the risk of generalizing heavily, Harris’s writing in his first novel Black Sunday and in the Hannibal books was serviceable (and understandable) but fairly barebones, with the occasional odd turn of phrase or awkward bit of poeticism creeping in here and there. His writing improved noticeably with each book, however, and Hannibal Rising, while perhaps the weakest in terms of story, is capably written. It is also a fairly straightforward revenge story. Hannibal’s sister is murdered and eaten by a group of men who escape justice because of the chaos of the war and because Hannibal is only a child when they first meet. He grows up and he seeks revenge. He kills all of the men.

“Secondo” departs noticeably from the plot of Hannibal Rising by having Mischa’s ostensible killer and consumer kept alive and as a prisoner by Hannibal. The episode further deviates from the version of the story in the novel and film by strongly suggesting that this man is innocent (at least of killing and eating Mischa). Hannibal’s story about the shattering of the teacup of his former life—of Mischa’s death—may be just that: a story, which, as the newly introduced Chiyo suggests, is simply a coping device. Hannibal’s version of the Mischa story which is implied to be similar to the one from Hannibal Rising is his way of dealing with the pain of events “only he experienced.” Who knows what really happened? Only Hannibal knows for certain, but Will has his doubts and guides Chiyo to a similar place of uncertainty when he makes her realize that she only knows the man she is keeping isolated in the basement is guilty of his supposed crimes because Hannibal told her (a story).

Meanwhile, Bedelia asks Hannibal outright how his sister tasted. She sees Hannibal well enough to suspect what the readers of Harris’s novels always knew: that the Mischa story is a bunch of bull and that a man like Hannibal, who roots for the Devil rather than Faust and can easily snap a man’s neck or stab someone in the head with an ice pick (someone without any lingering moral concerns), could never have been created by mere trauma. Will likewise tells Chiyo that there is no way Mischa can account for all that Hannibal is or be responsible for making him what he is. He has always been the way that he is. Hannibal confirms everyone’s suspicions by telling Bedelia, “Nothing happened to me. I happened.” Nothing happens to Hannibal. He is the one who orchestrates events. The phrase “I happened” gives him the quality of a force of nature, a force which is impossible to stop for anyone, including the force itself. Hannibal is inevitable. He can no more change who he is than someone else can render a change in him. Rather than fight his fated nature, he accepts it calmly and with great poise. “Secondo” reveals the Hannibal of the series to be everything the Hannibal of the novels and films ought to have remained. He is impossible to understand because there is no cause of his behavior. He simply is and always has been.

The moment between Bedelia and Hannibal at the end of the episode is still a poignant one, however. First, we do finally get the line in-episode that NBC’s promos spoiled weeks ago—that is to say that we learn Hannibal can only forgive Will if he eats him as he did Mischa. Second, though, while Hannibal is revealed here to be no more and no less than his own nature (“I happened” and continue to happen), there is something affecting about what Bedelia suggests to be the root of his cannibalistic behavior—a cause if there ever was one. It seems that Hannibal ate Mischa because he felt for her in ways that he could not express otherwise. If we do still conceive of Hannibal not necessarily as Satan incarnate but as a man with an illness or disorder, then this may very well be it. Hannibal seems to feel things like Will does: without a filter. He is unable to contain his love or hatred of someone else and express it as words. Does he eat the rude simply because they are rude or because his reaction to uncivilized behavior is so strong that he cannot do anything else with it? Is the seemingly emotionless Hannibal such a slave to emotion that he can only ever eat his feelings (in more ways than one)? We know that Hannibal feels for Will what he felt for Mischa, and even though he told Will at the end of season two that he could forgive him his betrayal, we now get the sense that Hannibal will not (or cannot) forgive an offense without eating the offender.

Speaking of Will’s offense in season two: I have to wonder what Hannibal had planned for Will and Abigail if they had all left together. He eats the people he hates and the people he loves. If he was not planning to eat Will or Abigail at the time, then it suggests that the implacable force of Hannibal can conceivably change, or possibly even that he wanted to change for Will and Abigail, making Will’s betrayal of him all the more painful and perhaps suggesting why Hannibal is now killing openly. Ostensibly he wants to draw his victims to him (again); however, it may also be possible that this is his grieving process. The man who can never change may have thought that he could (or at least make an exception for two people he loved). He has had his heart broken and responds by dispensing with pretense and lashing out.

That being said, I am not sure what to make of Hannibal’s suggestion that “betrayal presupposes forgiveness.” I am not sure that it actually means anything. It may suggest that all traitors act assuming that they can be forgiven down the road, which is highly suggestive if Hannibal is the Devil/Satan/Lucifer on the show, but I do not think that is exactly the case. Not every traitor wants or even expects forgiveness. This is also only one of several problems I had with “Secondo.” The biggest was with the part of the story where Will releases Hannibal’s prisoner. Given the fact that he is still a stranger to Chiyo, I could not imagine how or why she would leave him alone long enough to spring the man and take him into the woods. Second, I felt that Jack’s introduction, walking toward the camera in the cathedral and slowly coming into focus, is composed like it is meant to be a major reveal; however, given that Fishburne’s name has been in the credits for two weeks now and that NBC’s promos already spoiled his character’s return, the moment ends up feeling like an anticlimax. Maybe that scene is meant to evoke some other feeling or serve a different purpose.

Third (and finally), I am not sure how I feel about Will’s characterization in “Secondo.” I am referring, of course, to the way that he sets Hannibal’s prisoner loose even knowing that he will likely attack Chiyo and the way that he later creates a human insect (probably a firefly) from the man’s corpse. Chiyo suggests that Will’s decision to release the man and see if she will kill him is similar to what Hannibal would have done, and as I noted last week in my analysis of the stag/wendigo motifs of the show, there is definitely an argument to be made that Hannibal’s nature is corrupting Will. Jack continues to insist that he broke Will, but he has been saying that since season one, and, frankly, I am a little tired of hearing it. Both of the prior seasons have had their fun with the uncertainty regarding Will’s nature. Will he or won’t he/did he or didn’t he become a killer like Hannibal? The fake-out with Freddie last season seemed to put a capper on this particular idea. Will might be taking on some Hannibal-like tendencies, but he is ultimately still concerned with justice. Freeing the prisoner and allowing him to attack Chiyo is extreme, but it is within the realm of what is plausible or acceptable with Will. The ready mutilation of the corpse is another thing altogether. It reopens the will he or won’t he/did he or didn’t he argument again, and I find it hard to believe that Will will or should walk away from all this unscathed.

It is increasingly difficult to see this Will becoming the family man from Red Dragon, which is not a problem in and of itself; however, I question whether even Hannibal has the gumption to follow this character development to its natural conclusion. Will considers himself already among the dead. Jack asks Pazzi how Will could put his imagination back together after returning from the dead like he (Jack) has, and the rather obvious answer is that Will has not. He has not recovered or really returned. He continues to live in a dreamlike state. His mistreatment of the dead prisoner’s corpse sends him further down the path of no return, and sooner or later Hannibal has to acknowledge this fact once and for all. If it continues to dance around the issue of will he or won’t he/did he or didn’t he then it will seem to lack conviction. Killing off such a major character would be surprising given how shows like this are typically so fond of their main cast that they refuse to part with them (case in point: the fact that everyone except for Abigail survived the kitchen incident last season), but I do not think the Will we are seeing now can return home as if nothing happened. Since we are approaching the events of Red Dragon anyway—the only book in which Will actually appears—the introduction to Clarice that I speculated about last week might come to pass. Maybe.

Although the fact that Will is no longer trying to woo Hannibal and win his confidence as he did in season two gives him zero excuse for making art of the prisoner’s body, there are still pieces of the story we are missing. In “Primavera,” Will seemingly goes from hospitalized to abroad in Europe in a matter of minutes. We do not know what transpired in between the scene with “Abigail” in his room and their entering the cathedral. We suspect based on what Jack tells Pazzi in this episode that Will is here without any kind of official backing and that Jack has come to retrieve him. Still, we do not know what passed between Will and Jack back in the states. We do not know if either of them have spoken with Alana. In short, there may be some plan here that we are not seeing yet. Jack certainly could be lying to Pazzi, a stranger who, though he has his own seemingly professional reasons for wanting Hannibal caught, remains an unknown element. I am excited to get Alana’s story next week and to see more Margot and Mason Verger… and possibly Chilton? (God, that guy is some kind of survivor at this point if it is him and he really did survive being shot in the head last season.)

Note:

[1] http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/hannibal-secondo-221094 (Molly Eichel’s review of “Secondo” for the A.V. Club)