I love the artistry and poetry and sense of style of the show, but there are times where I wonder how long the episodes would actually last if you removed all the flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences, gruesome corpse art, long serious stares, poetic monologuing, and oily ManDeerPig shots. It would probably be about twenty minutes of actual stuff happening.
Normally that wouldn't bother me, because it's all part of the creepy yet simultaneously refined atmosphere of the show, but in the case of the finale, I would have liked to see more time devoted to a better set up for the final confrontation than just having everyone suddenly become incompetent again to put them in Hannibal's house without backup when they all knew what was going to happen.
I absolutely love the show, but I totally agree with this.
As I was watching the finale, I was getting fed up with the dream-like imagery and all of the artful visuals. I understand the show's visual nature is a hallmark of the show, and I would never want the showrunners to homogenize the program, but in the case of the finale, I was waiting impatiently for things to happen.
I think Fuller and the writers might have shot themselves in the foot with the prologue fight sequence that began the first episode of the second season. Once I knew we would return to that in the finale, I was just bidding time waiting for the show to return to that point. Normally, I'm a big fan of the imagery, the hallucinations, the artful visual metaphors and all of that jazz, but here I wanted the show to just get to the point. As I was talking to my boyfriend about it, I don't think the episode actually got interesting until the final 20-30 minutes - everything leading up to that, while interesting, seemed to deliberately weigh down the pacing when the exact opposite should have been the case.
Regardless, I did enjoy season 2 as a whole very much. I think the Verger sub-plot was my favorite part of the season. In particular, Michael Pitt as Mason Verger stole the show and I hope we see him again soon. However, I did like Will and Hannibal's cat and mouse game - at least from a certain perspective - and how Will was constantly trying to deceive Hannibal into believing he was "his man". That made for some compelling drama and honestly I'd take that over the "killer of the week" storylines we saw in season 1 and for some of season 2. Season 3 will be interesting from what I've heard via Bryan Fuller. Taking the storylines from
Hannibal (the novel) and
Hannibal Rising and meshing them into one season will be interesting to say the least. Especially since Fuller said they don't intend to adapt the books in sequential order. He seemed to confirm we'd see Francis Dolarhyde next season, which makes me think the second half of Season 3 will be a loose adaptation of
Red Dragon.
I'm just happy the show is
actually coming back for Season 3. In a strange way, I could totally see the Season 2 finale acting as a series finale for the show. It would be immensely frustrating, but I could have seen it working. Apparently, according to Fuller, the Season 3 premiere will almost act as a pilot for a brand-new show. While that worries me a tad, it also excites me. As much as I love the show, the "formula" was getting a little old. So I'm intrigued to see how Fuller shakes things up for the next season.