mrsdalgliesh

::: insert usual disclaimer acknowledging that I know the show must be taking ridiculous liberties with actual medical procedures::: Love this episode. They certainly gave us several things we've been wanting, like a little self-awareness from Mario and some movement forward in the father-son physician relationship as well as Rorsh actually making a mistake. Of course we're glad it wasn't a mistake on Mama. I'm so gone over Neil, as I have been since Raza was on MI-5/Spooks, that I'd probably faint from that mere fist bump. :-) But now, based on the preview

I do not watch much of this show after America starts to vote, because America is usually stupid and wrong. I check in here to see what's happening and go to YouTube for any striking performance. But last night, I surfed by the show inadvertently and heard Gwen say something like "I just want the people on my team to let America know who they really are, and be themselves, and let that shine." I like Gwen, but WTF? Of the four coaches, she has been the most insistent on changing the look of her contestants. From the pictures I've seen, Korin hasn't looked like herself in any of the live shows. Braiden's hair looks different every week. No one can wear glasses. Etc.

Ok, I knew we'd get the music at the end, but that was a decent reason to have it. Much less objectionable than the alternatives. Still love this show despite its flaws (listed by another poster, above).

edhopper , exactly. I guess the deputy AG has to assume Christine Lahti has never seen it. Anyone here old enough to have been singing the Deliverance theme along with me tonight?

Blast from the past: this episode was written by David Marshall Grant who has been doing a bit of everything in Hollywood and New York for ages, but who will always be David Sommers from the film "American Flyers" to me. Also: this is the second episode in which Gabrielle Cateris has shown up as an unnamed nurse. Looked on IMDb.com and yup, that's how she's billed. (A) Really? These are the jobs she's getting? And (B) we need more nurses in prominence, so why not GC? I thought the ep was way too sappy, but I'm still a fan overall.

I know that actual doctors probably want to take hostages when they see the medicine on this show, and I recognize that there entirely too many Very Special Moments and Big Speeches .... but it doesn't matter. I'm hooked. They are doing a good first season job of telling each lead's story bit by bit, the medicine at least seems complex, compelling, and realistically chaotic, and -- as someone posted last episode, Raza J is smokin' hot. :-). (Now that you've been introduced, go stream his MI-5/Spooks seasons. That's where I met him). Now. The next thing they must do is bring one and preferably two more nurses to the fore. They've established the docs, but as Mama has shown us, none of it is getting done w/o the RNs.

I was unable to process anything in the first half of the episode. Diane's fabulous jacket drove all conscious thought from my brain.

1. Apparently the writers' room this year has a big flow chart on the wall, strictly for Eli's machinations. I'm on board for that. This season has some new life. I know some of the usual players are sidelined for a bit, but it's worth it. (Too bad Christine Baranski doesn't have a reason to be in the Alan/Margo shenanigans. Mroowr! ) 2. Howard's turnaround is preposterous but welcome. Viva Jackie! 3. Of all the fiction on this show , the most irksome -- this season in particular -- is how neat and tidy Alicia's apartment is. There is No Way.

Somebody help me. I'm enjoying this show. I'm not just FFing to Spader, I'm watching the whole thing. I'm in trouble, man.

I'm keeping it on the list for now. I'm sure it's driving actual doctors batshit crazy (I see one or two have already made comments) but I like the sense of claustrophobia in the treatment areas and, frankly, I like seeing Raza Jaffrey and MGH on my screen. Raza was on MI-5/Spooks when I first saw him and I've been waiting for his return to my weekly schedule.* Tonight was worse than the pilot in terms of laying it on thick (the daughter, the "dead kids club," the ovary-rescue, and the intimacy via operating), but I'll give it another chance. It's going to get canceled anyway, right? *No, I do not count "Smash."

Had a great time during this ep. Fitz's energy has ramped everything up. It was the first time I thought, surprisingly, I'm happy I've been watching this show from the beginning. I mean, it was pretty weak then, but it's more fun to see Ward now having seen him blandly "good." It's been good to see CB grow into the Skye/Daisy role. Ditto Fitz. I value Bobbi and Hunter and Mack because the show needed them. I've hung on till now and I feel like it's paying off.

I don't need to watch this show, but I'm glad it exists so (a) JJ stays in play and (b) the recaps exist.

Paul F. Tompkins. It never occurred to me and now -- though I thought Trevor's first show was good for a no-win first show -- I'm a peak disappointment. How did that not happen?

I'm in the group that saw Will pull Hannibal over the cliff. Yes, Will felt the adrenaline and the power of the kill, but his humanity didn't disappear, and in that last moment, you saw him realize what he had to do. As usual, great "eye acting" from both Hugh and Mads. Minimalist. This season's art-fullness made me admire the show more but lessened my personal investment in each character. So I admired the ending but wasn't wrecked as I might have been if I had still been rooting for Will as I was in the past. That's kind of a relief. I can easily imagine that Hannibal escaped (and is off getting the wine for his supper with Bedelia) and that Will is either dead or blessedly off in some remote place with his family and all the dogs, finally ready to never ever again get involved in that insanity. (With a gazillion inner and outer scars to remind him why.) Still, I am in awe of this show and the fact that it ever aired at all, much less on network television. Kudos to Bryan Fuller and the amazing, gifted people who helped him create this work of art. Stunning visuals, sound, makeup, creatures, and culinary displays. Twisted, mythological, balls-out crazytown. Loved it.

FINALLY. I really had hoped that getting gutted would have made Will break up with Hannibal --- and really, wouldn't that do it for most of us? -- but no. He had to get thrown off a train to get a clue and even then, he let Hannibal get the better of him. It was only when Mason mentioned he was going to CUT OFF HIS FACE that he thought, "Yeah, ok, that's enough. This is an abusive relationship. I'm done." If you look up depravity in the dictionary, is reads "see: Muskrat Farms and anything going on there." I haven't read the books (other than SotL) so I don't know how Will is when he's called back to the FBI for Dolarhyde in print -- but in both movies, he was reluctant due to trauma. In both films, however, I thought they didn't make enough of why Will would be so resistant. Now? It makes complete sense. In fact, it will be hard to imagine how Jack ever convinces him to go down that deranged psycho rabbit hole again. And yes, BF: having Hannibal choose to be captured, just to have the chance to see Will again? Brilliant.

That beat-down at the end was so spectacular that no one has yet written about the first scene with shirtless Mads and breathtaking Gillian. Yowza. His hand on her neck -- talk about mixed messages! I didn't care what they were babbling about, I just enjoyed looking and the gorgeousness and listening to their silken voices. All the scenes with Jack were...earthbound in the best way. I love what BF has done with the character of Jack by using Lawrence FIshburne. Tonight, especially, I was imagining Demme and Scott Glenn watching and saying, "ok, yeah, that's another way to go with him...." The physicality yes, but also the warmth. And I'm disappointed in where BF has taken Will -- especially if tonight's train scenes were real and not a dream. I wrote a couple of weeks ago -- after the episode in which the stag became grotesque and Will let go of Abigail -- that I hoped Will was releasing much of his fascination with and vulnerability to Hannibal. Well, that's not happening. Instead we have 2 weeks of nonsensical (yeah,yeah, dreamlike, fairy tale, whatever) scenes with Chiyoh and his admissions to both her and Jack that he wanted Hannibal to get away and perhaps go along. I'm not looking for some straightforward profiling crime story here -- I expect Will to be a mess, emotionally. But Hugh Dancy does a wonderful job of conveying that inner conflict, edge-of-insanity (and over the edge) psyche that's a product of his own brokenness and Hannibal's manipulation. That's enough for me. I'm not enjoying him leaning towards violence (and decorating corpses). Why did we see Mr.Moth again twice anyway? No one's there. Unless Hannibal shows up there next week, what's the point? It's a disturbingly gorgeous tableau, but we've seen it.

I loved this series. It isn't the sum of its incredibly talented cast, but it's good. And I like Sam Waterston in his role -- he seems to be exactly the guy who would have been married to Frankie. I think the problem is Martin Sheen. As much as I admire him as an actor, this just seems to be all the same mannerisms and inflections as JBartlett -- which ends up being quite distracting and detracts from any sense of chemistry between him and SW. Lily and Jane are amazing. That is all.

Sarah Bunting, I love you. And this is just one reason why. LOVE this recap. Every single thing.

I needed that reminder. The show I am devoted to is the one that -- improbably -- has brilliant criminologists hunting psychos with art skills, especially in the area of "still life." In my show, Will is a weirdo and was drugged/manipulated by Hannibal, but he's still highly intuitive, smart, and compassionate. But I can wait for more of that if I remember that an episode like last night's is meant to be dreamlike. :::falls over::: Oh my, did I need that laugh this week. (due to RL, not the show). Bravo!

Amen. As I posted last week, I hoped that the events of that episode represented a cleansing and that now Will would be on the hunt. And I could manage to maaaybe work the dragonfly display into that...but his release of the prisoner and then his blase reaction to finding said prisoner *back* in the dungeon and killed by Chiyo did not fit. Nothing about that had to do with hunting Hannibal and the idea that he "freed" Chiyo by setting her up to kill the guy? Blech. No. Does anyone else feel like that the cutting room has some important moments from that sequence? Jack's appearance was a relief -- not because he was dead, but because he has a clear head. And he's there to help Will.

I didn't notice that! I've saved it for a rewatch, so I'll keep an eye out.

gutette, yes -- that was the first time his fascination with inventions/theories almost overcame the criminal content of the moment. Last night's reaction to Jackson using fingerprinting was hilarious. I love this show much more than Sarah, but (a) she makes good points; and (b) I'm a goner over Adam Rothenberg's Jackson so I can't be rational. Really, the only two things from this season that made me, as Sarah puts it, stabby were the casting of Mathilda and Best's death.

I loved it. As weyrbunny said, it had a bit of everything that we wanted. This show has usually done a masterful job of leading the characters to the edge of despair and then triumphing once they work together. It's a trope, but exquisitely done, as in tonight's episode. The writers wrote a good series finale, in case it was one. Fortunately, it's not! Still, even if the future seasons don't hold up as well, I think S1 and S3 are each jewels.

Susan knows how to provoke a miscarriage -- Reid found the plant/herb she used in the first season episode with the girl who showed up all bloody at the police station. And her turnaround with the doctor regarding providing abortions was the one thing that -- for me -- released the message anvils that the episode was balancing before that. The messages were important enough and informative about the time so that I didn't mind up until that point. Haydn Gwynne was absolutely heartbreaking. (As an aside, it's interesting that we accept the idea of a sci-fi show addressing current issues through its plots, but find it more clumsy when the allegory comes from an historical drama.) pezgirl, thanks for the mention of the cut scene. I'll look forward to seeing it since I'm definitely purchasing this season from Amazon. (I have S1 and I'll just skip right over S2 to this one!) Isn't the seed of her downfall the prints Jackson got off of her at the end of the episode? That's going nowhere but trouble.

This was Will's transition episode. He needed to say goodbye to Abigail, and he did. I thought HD was heartbreaking as he let go of the fantasy on the steps of the altar. The dual "sewing up" scenes were in Will's head: acknowledging that he lived and Abigail died, And I also think that he needed to come to a resolution of his enmeshment with Hannibal so he could truly start hunting him to capture him. That's what "I forgive you" means; it means that Will acknowledges his own complicity in the mutual mind-fuck with Hannibal and his own (lesser) responsibility for that bloodbath of a season finale. And Hannibal is not intriguing or mysterious: he's a monster. The disfigured stag is not the magnificent powerful animal we saw before. He's a nightmare. Now Will can hunt Hannibal down. On another note, NBC? If the ratings for this show are truly as abysmal as we've been told, who are you advertising to when you fill the bottom of the screen with those f*cking promos??? Way to ruin the primary reason this show is admired: its visual beauty. STOP IT.