I just finished watching it off the NBC website, and squeed with Amy backchannel, but really need to squee here with the actual community.

Random notes:

Will is cat-and-mousing Hannibal right back, after that season of being batted around and emotionally mutilated. This makes me utterly, unreasonably happy. No, reasonably happy. There's no amount of happy in this that exceeds reason; it just perfectly fulfills it.

"Hello! ... I love your work." Oh, fuck, SHOW. "There is no God." "Certainly not with that attitude." Oh, come on, show. Stop! No, don't.

A commenter on the AV Club said a while ago in a discussion of sources for the show and for the showrunner's sensibilities: "It's clear by now that Bryan Fuller's parents must have been murdered by an installation artist." I take this episode as conclusive proof.

Oh, that poor last victim, the utter bone-deep horror of his last minutes in the world. And yet... he died, he died horribly and in pain and despair, but in his death he accomplished some amazing things. He escaped from the killer's design, disrupted his art, and ultimately led to the killer's discovery and the complete dismantling of his terrible work. All those other victims, no longer anonymous brush-strokes, returned to their names and histories and, eventually, to the people who will mourn and remember them. And all because of his past frailty - it was his history of drug dependence that gave him the power to tear himself out of the killer's design.

I love Bedelia, so much (and was just flooded with relief when the camera peeked around the corner of that archway into her living room and we caught a glimpse of the first sheet on the first piece of furniture). The writing for her dialogues, not just with Hannibal but with Jack and now Will, is so spare; the writers clearly have great trust in their cast to take a few words that say nearly nothing and use their voices, faces, minds and bodies to beautifully convey all the weight of everything unspoken. I'm pretty sure that if you looked at these scenes on paper, the lines themselves would look like nearly nothing.

"There is no God." "Certainly not with that attitude."

Oh yeah. HANNIBAL. In his plastic suit.

I heart everything about JZ's post.

I also loved all the parallels and foreshadowing with Silence of the Lambs in this episode. This is such a great show. I can't understand the ratings.

And it can't be a cheap show to make, either. Are the ratings bad? I thought the S2 renewal came pretty early.

They're not great, and they dropped last night from the premiere. link I really want this show to get 7 seasons so the writers can do everything they have planned.

Did not care for last nights Mentalist. Some of the same flaws as the Red John episodes. Part of the problem is the new team is not as amusing an ensemble as the old team. (Even with Lisbon and Cho on it.) Rigby and Van Pelt are not as fun without Jane and Cho to give them shit. And not enough screen time to Jane being an asshole. Some other problem - I'd say that the stakes were too high, but we've had good eps where the stakes were high before. OK the way he built the relationships with the suspects in this episodes. Normally he builds a relationship with and torments a small number of people. In this he built a relationship with one among a large group of suspects, while dealing with the rest only as a mob. And he did not really torment either the one person or the group until the very end. The Mentalist is best either in intimate settings, or where Jane creates a small group intimate relationship from among a large group, then subjects that small group to emotional abuse. [Yeah does not say anything nice about me as a person that this is what makes a good Mentalist episode for me, but I suspect it is not just me. It is a show where we laugh at the main character subjecting his team and strangers to emotional abuse while charming them and delivering good enough results that they tolerate it. Now and again he gets some consequences for his behavior which is also funny..]

Yeah does not say anything nice about me as a person that this is what makes a good Mentalist episode for me, but I suspect it is not just me.

How many Mentalist viewers wish we could be just that good at something that everyone else would have to take crap from us, and to feel so little pressure from other people's expectations that we don't worry about giving out said crap.

You are right - the being an asshole is wrapped in competence porn.

The Hawkeye and Trapper John syndrome.

So good and indispensable, they can get away with sh*t.

Oh GOD, I just caught up on Hannibal.

I heart everything about JZ's post.

Oh, yes. Absolutely.

Oh yeah. HANNIBAL. In his plastic suit.

Oh, the plastic suit. Damn.

When he showed up at Bedelia's home I was muttering, "She's gone, she ran, she can't be there..." and when the covered furniture was revealed I threw my hands in the air and exclamed, "Good girl!" That's some powerful fear to cause a virtual shut in to flee.

I find myself watching each episode twice. Once for the story and again to study all the design elements. I am somewhat randomly fascinated by a painting in Bedelia's place that I don't think has ever been fully in focus.