This Is My Design (Or: Why You Should All Watch Hannibal)

I’ll be the first to admit: I’ve never seen The Silence of the Lambs. Okay, I kind of have. I’ve watched about half of it, but it was a terrible stream and it was online and there were about 12 pixels, and I got so far into it and it started to buffer so I just gave up. I’m going to watch it at some point, though, mark my words – but the only reason I even considered watching it in the first place was because of Hannibal.


Hannibal is a TV series created by Bryan Fuller (we’ll get on to why he is just an absolutely fantastic man in a moment), starring Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy and Laurence Fishburne amongst others. It’s a prequel of sorts to The Silence of the Lambs, based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It follows Will Graham, a Special Agent working for the FBI, who has the ability to empathise with serial killers. Obviously, that empathy comes at a price, and his ‘boss’ Jack Crawford enlists the help of psychiatrist-slash-cooking-extraordinaire-with-a-big-secret Dr Hannibal Lecter to make sure Will doesn’t go off the deep end. That’s the gist of it.


*takes a deep breath*


Will is an empath. He is also sassy and lonely, and he collects stray dogs and brings them to his house and makes fishing lures and fixes boat motors and wears flannel shirts. He is adorable. He is the mongoose under the house when the snake slithers by. He enjoys saving lives, wearing slacks, saying ‘this is my design’, and Alana Bloom. He actively dislikes serial killers, tabloid journalists, and being psychoanalysed. His face is also Hugh Dancy’s face.


Hannibal is a cannibal (I mean, what else could he be with a name like that?). He is also a fan of haute cuisine, throwing dinner parties, being manipulative and making cannibal puns. If he’s not wearing a suit of some kind he’s wearing a silk robe. He feeds people human food and sniggers about it. Things he does not like can be summarised under the umbrella term of rudeness. He borrows the visage of Mads Mikkelsen, the Sexiest Dane in all of Denmark (his official title).


Jack Crawford is an FBI agent. But he is also a man who is single-mindedly determined to get what he wants. To save lives. And what’s the mental stability of one stray-loving empath compared to that? Really, though, he’s complex. And that’s why he’s a great character. Not necessarily a good character, but absolutely a great one. He shares the face of Laurence Fishburne.


Alana Bloom is a woman. She is a strong independent woman. She is a psychiatrist, but she refuses to psychoanalyse Will because she is his friend. She is beautiful and smart and conscientious and she cares about people and she wants to go on record as saying that this is a very bad idea. She’s the voice of reason, and probably the sanest person in the entire program. Credits for her face go to Caroline Dhavernas.


Abigail is a girl. She is a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong father. She’s a teenager who wants to have a normal life, but she won’t, especially when her closest father figures are a closeted cannibal and a guy who thinks about killing people for a living. Even if you don’t like her character (guilty as charged), you can’t deny that she’s interesting. Also, her face is copyright Kacey Rohl.


Freddie is a tabloid journalist. She is the tactless, sleazy bitch you love to hate. And that’s cool. We need that. She’s a strong woman, but she’s not the most incredible, amazing woman you’ve ever seen with no irredeemable faults (cough, Steven Moffat please take notes, cough). She’s a vegetarian, an opportunist and someone stupid enough to talk back to Jack Crawford but intelligent enough to get away with it. And that hair, oh man. The hair and face are aspects of Lara Jean Chorostecki’s appearance.


Team Sassy Science is: Beverly Katz (my spirit animal), Brian Zeller (the sassiest of them all) and Jimmy Price (who has been yearning for a return to the fundamentals of investigation). They provide comic relief, sometimes, but a lot of the time they’re more than that. They’re intelligent and down-to-earth and Beverly is brilliant because she doesn’t skirt the issue. She tells people the truth even if it’s going to hurt. They are made up of Hettienne Park, Aaron Abrams and Scott Thompson.


All I can really, honestly say about Staggsy Malone (and I’m sorry about being so cryptic but really he deserves it) is this: you will see.

ALSO, because I cannot be bothered to search for gifs, we also have Bella Crawford (one of the strongest female characters on the program, played by none other than Gina Torres) and Bedelia Du Maurier (also known as Gillian Anderson, light of my life, fire of my loins). They are really kind of awesome and important to the plot in various ways and I don’t want to say much about them here because 1) they work better if you’re introduced to them as they come and 2) I am lazy.

ALSO ALSO, Eddie Izzard guest starred. This is a thing I think everyone should know because, c’mon, Eddie Izzard.


There are three core reasons you should watch it and these are they:

1) The cinematography. Honestly, Hannibal is a beautiful show. The colours, the angles of shots, the lighting (and the actors, shh), everything. It’s all there, in that place, in that shot, because it’s meant to be there, because it has a purpose, and also because it’s beautiful. Even the murders are beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. Like, for example, one of my favourite things they do is whenever Will is at an appointment with Hannibal, they show them sitting opposite in their chairs, mirroring each other almost exactly, and it’s like the show is screaming at you look at these two guys. Sure, one of them is prim and proper with his legs crossed wearing a suit and the other one is slouched in his seat wearing stuff you’d probably go fishing in – but they’re not really that different, and that’s scary.

2) Mads Mikkelsen. Okay, so, Anthony Hopkins is Hannibal Lecter. But Mads (pronounced Mass, for anyone who wants to know) can be Lecter too. He’s different to Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal because he stands out, where the creepy thing with Hopkins’ Hannibal was that if you take him out of his prison jumpsuit he blends right into the crowd. Mads’ Hannibal is distinguished, tall and handsome in a really off-putting sort of way, and his face kind of unsettles you if you see it in the right light. It’s interesting to know that David Tennant also auditioned for the role of Hannibal, and it was literally between him and Mads, and although I think David would have made a brilliant Hannibal, I can’t imagine Hannibal in this show as anyone but Mads.

3) Bryan Fuller. I told you we’d get to him eventually. Bryan Fuller is a really fucking amazing guy. He’s friendly (go check his Twitter, I’d say a solid 75% of his tweets are him replying to fans) and funny (I don’t think we’ll ever forget that when a fan gave him a flower crown at SDCC he actually wore it on the panel), and he genuinely cares about the people who like his show. I think my favourite thing about him is that, when asked about the line they didn’t want to cross, he replied, “The line that we established early on is that we don’t want to rape women.” And that says it all, really.


I’m going to have to cut myself short here, because if I start talking about the actual fandom and the amazing fanfics people write (let me just take a moment to link you guys to Hyacinth House, Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean and The Borderland State just in case anyone around here ships Will/Hannibal), the art people do and the edits they make, I’ll be here for forever.

Really, all I have to say now is if you like serial killers, gore, brilliant characters and cannibal puns, you should definitely go watch Hannibal.