Written by: Zoe Loos
I’m going to be honest: whether Hannibal comes back or not, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to watch the Food Network again.
Looking at perfectly decadent meals prepared by Hannibal Lecter with mood lighting that was to die for on Hannibal, might actually have murdered my appetite for good.
Besides tainting the Food Network for me, Hannibal has also made me question what sanity really is. I have only watched the first two seasons and now I’m wondering what my psychologist parents really put in the meatloaf we just had for dinner.
Don’t get me wrong–the show is stunningly beautiful. I didn’t think darkness could be as alluring and entrancing as Hannibal made it.
Seeing a crazed man grow his own mushrooms off diabetic comatose people in order to cope with the lack of interaction he suffered from–after all, fungus is one large interwoven organism–is, at the same time, crazed and completely wonderful. Wonderful not because the crazed man was misusing his pharmaceutical license by inducing diabetic comas on innocent diabetics, but because the show was able to take something so terribly diabolic and force the viewers to believe that it might not be that crazy.
Hannibal caused me more anxiety about fictional people, then I thought possible.
Every time the camera panned over Dr. Lecter’s beautiful kitchen you had the sinking feeling that the pounded tenderloin was not from any farm. While this could be a perfect platform to talk about factory farming and how showing the brutality of butchering humans is similar to that of farm animals, this is about the fact that the cult favorite television show Hannibal is seemingly coming to an end.
While perhaps not popular with a wider audience, Hannibal has a fervent, practically rabid fan base. With great actors in its cast like Mads Mikkelsen, Laurence Fishburne, Hugh Dancy, and Caroline Dhavernas, along with innovative, often disturbing storylines that plumb the depths of psychology, morality and humanity, one wonders why this show is coming to an end. NBC cancelled it, but many thought NetFlix or Amazon would swoop in to save it.
Neither did.
The show’s future looks bleak, but while we wait for the final verdict, here are five serious and not so serious reasons I believe the show is ending:
- The episodes are all named after certain types of food and by the end of watching the season you want to become an all out vegan, which means companies as Hillshire Farms aren’t likely to want their commercials aired in that time-slot.
- Constant breaks are sometimes needed while watching the show, just to act as a reminder that sunshine still exists in this world.
- Mads Mikkelsen is right up there with Javier Bardem in terms of scary villains which means that when you sleep, most likely one of them will want to either blow your brains out or have you for dinner.
- This show has an advised viewing period of viewing before eating any meal. Because most people watch TV while eating, this show was always destined to have a smaller audience.
- Perhaps the most important reason however for Hannibal’s cancellation is due to the fact that prolonged exposure to cannibalism gnaws at the core of humanity. While there are other dark shows out there which deal with equally terrible acts, perhaps there is something truly sinister about consuming something of that which you are. Freud would surely agree. Or would he?
