6A — Tuesday, September 8, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘Hannibal’ stuns
By CHLOE GILKE
Managing Arts Editor
Writing a series finale might be
the hardest job in the world. Those
unlucky
writ-
ers must follow
a stringent set of
guidelines if their
ending is to join
the likes of “Six
Feet Under” in
the Great Finale
Hall
of
Fame
and avoid being
tossed into the Garbage Can of Gar-
bage Finales with “How I Met Your
Mother” and “Dexter.” First, series
finales have to wrap up lingering
plot threads from previous episodes;
series finales are also season finales,
after all. However, the writer can’t
be satisfied with just crafting a pat
chapter ending. Viewers expect
that the show end up going some-
where, which means that the writer
had better start tying things up in
a beautiful bow or blowing shit up.
But most importantly, the writer has
to craft ten perfect minutes to end
the show. Those last few scenes are
what people remember about the
finale; everything else is incidental.
The series finale of “Hanni-
bal” was, admittedly, not perfect.
Because of the season’s split struc-
ture, mid-season time jump and
the introduction of new characters,
“Hannibal” relied more heavily
on exposition and table-setting to
advance the story to its endpoint.
With better plotting (or a higher
episode count), Francis Dolarhyde’s
(Richard Armitage, “Strike Back”)
fake-out death could have occurred
in a different episode, so Will (Hugh
Dancy, “Martha Marcy May Mar-
lene”) and Jack’s (Laurence Fish-
burne, “The Matrix”) scheming
could have been more developed.
The final appearances of beloved
supporting characters could be
more organically mixed into the
drama, and Alana Bloom (Caroline
Dhavernas, “Wonderfalls”) could
have a better reason to visit Hanni-
bal than, well, convenience. But I’ll
cut the finale a bit of slack — series
creator Bryan Fuller imagined seven
seasons to tell his story, and “The
Wrath of the Lamb” is only the final
installment because of a cruel strike
from the TV Gods. Some things
don’t end the way they should.
Francis Dolarhyde (alias “The
Red Dragon”) served as an effec-
tive villain for the second half of
the season, but his stories were
regretfully isolated. As the clock
counted down to “Hannibal” ’s final
episode, I was acutely aware of how
little Dolarhyde interacted with the
show’s main characters apart from
close calls and near-threats. The
character existed in his own world,
drawn to art, films and literature
because of the distance and they
afforded him. From the beginning,
Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen,
“The Hunt”) made such an effec-
tive villain because of his proximity
to investigator Will. The infamous
Chesapeake Ripper was right there
the whole time. Dolarhyde’s silence,
while a cool change of pace from
Hannibal’s omnipresence, was not
the best choice for a final battle.
But when it comes down to it, The
Red Dragon didn’t really matter. He
was a catalyst, the bait that would
draw Hannibal and Will together
again. Dolarhyde’s crimes ripped
Will from his “maddeningly polite”
life with his wife, stepson and dozen
adopted dogs. The mirrors that Dol-
arhyde placed on his victim’s naked
bodies forced Will to confront the
fact that he’d never be able to escape
this life. His empathy would always
extend to The Ripper and The Drag-
on and sick fuckers of the world, and
he was cursed to see himself in the
atrocities they created.
From the beginning of the sea-
son, “Hannibal” has made it clear
that Will would never be able to
escape Hannibal’s influence. Will
could bide his time, but Hannibal
would always be waiting, knife in
hand, ready to enjoy his long-await-
ed meal of the only man who ever
challenged him. The finale received
a jolt of energy as soon as Hannibal
brought Will to the cliffside house
where he brought Miriam Lass and
Abigail Hobbs so long ago. Hannibal
lamented the erosion of the cliff and
the passage of time; the cliff would
continue edging back and engulf-
ing land, and someday it’d overtake
them all. With one gorgeous meta-
phor, “Hannibal” predicted the
ending that would come just a few
minutes later.
After Dolarhyde was vanquished
and lay a bloody husk on the
ground, a wounded Will reached
to embrace Hannibal. He clutched
him like a savior, as Hannibal reas-
suringly said that “this is all (he)
ever wanted … for both of us.” So
Will gave in, and the two of them
fell gracefully off the cliff. The
two were shot like a Renaissance
painting, all Caravaggian lights
and shadows and Biblical-pained
expressions. “Hannibal” is con-
sistently praised for its gorgeous
cinematography, but director of
photography James Hawkinson
(“Community”) deserves one final
shout-out for framing such iconic
final images. Just like Hannibal
remarked, his and Will’s ending
was truly beautiful.
When considered as a whole,
“The Wrath of the Lamb” may not
be “Hannibal” ’s finest episode.
The season had to work overtime to
finish up the arcs of two major vil-
lains — since he was only featured
in a few episodes, The Red Dragon
wasn’t as formidable as he could
have been. But I truly think that
ten years from now (or whenever
that inevitable “Hannibal” reboot
ends up happening), nobody will
remember season three as the
season when Reba tried to grab
a key from Dolarhyde’s neck and
Alana wore pantsuits. The job of a
finale is to provide a poetic end to a
show, a dreamy final note to close a
years-long symphony. Ultimately,
the last chapter of “Hannibal” was
all about that jump off the cliff. It
wasn’t perfect, but it was all I ever
wanted.
B+
Hannibal
Series Finale
NBC
‘Girl’ breaks norms
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Don’t be fooled by the con-
ventionally beautiful, glamorous
woman on the cover. Constance
Kopp was an intimidating person,
made
much
more so by the
fact
that
she
never let general
rules of woman-
ly etiquette stop
her from slam-
ming rude men
against walls.
“Girl
Waits
with Gun” by
Amy
Stewart,
the best-selling author of “The
Drunken Botanist,” is based on the
true story of one of America’s first
female sheriffs in 1914. In delving
into the lives of Constance and her
younger sisters, Norma and Fleu-
rette, Amy Stewart tells a tale as
captivating as it is genuinely funny
in its portrayal of three bewildered
sisters who find themselves in a
war with one of the most powerful
men in their hometown.
The story begins when an auto-
mobile collides with the carriage
that the three sisters are riding
in. As the dust settles around
the crash and a crowd gathers to
watch the spectacle, Constance
insists to Henry Kaufman — the
cocky driver and a rich silk fac-
tory owner — and his grinning
posse that they pay for the dam-
ages. Kaufman and his henchmen
laugh it off and drive away, but
Constance refuses to let it go. Thus
begins the battle for justice.
The sisters, who are accus-
tomed to a quiet life on a farm
away from gossipy townsfolk,
are unprepared for Kaufman’s
vile scare tactics, as he begins to
terrorize them in an attempt to
have them drop the charges. Con-
stance finds herself working with
the town sheriff to help some of
Kaufman’s other victims, solving
a mysterious crime in the process.
Set in the early 20th century
the novel captures the strug-
gles that women — particularly
unmarried women — had to face,
especially concerning the ancient
conundrum of not “having a man
around the place.” Francis Kopp,
their brother, is constantly try-
ing to force them into moving in
with his family, unaware of the
fact that every time he interferes
he complicates life for everyone.
The personalities of the three
sisters complement and coun-
teract each other so perfectly, it
feels slightly self-indulgent — but
their back-and-forth sibling ban-
ter is so recognizable and natural
that it doesn’t matter. Stewart
has an ear for dialogue, and Con-
stance’s role as the narrator is so
unobtrusive that her pragmatic
personality shines through the
lines.
The most intriguing relation-
ship is between Constance and
the sheriff, who can never be sure
how Constance will surprise
him next — especially after she
turns out to be a sharpshooter
and unafraid to manhandle men.
Stewart captures the hesitancy
shown on both sides as the origi-
nal protector/protected relation-
ship between the two evolves
into a partnership.
I could almost feel Stewart’s
knowing smile behind my shoul-
der as I kept turning the pages,
expecting that in a story of three
young women — one of whom is
still in her teens and professed
to be a great beauty — there’d be
some romance, somewhere.
But there isn’t, and it’s great —
not because of the lack of roman-
tic storylines, or in spite of it.
There’s no romance, period. The
book is awesome, period. Holly-
wood could learn a thing or two.
One of the funniest and most
well-written scenes is toward the
end, when Constance answers an
advertisement in the paper for
female detectives in a shop; she
can’t think of any job for which
she is more suited, and is con-
fident in her ability to win over
her interviewer as she makes her
way to the back of the store. The
manager is polite to Constance,
but asks her to please step aside
as she is expecting a prospective
employee. The manager looks
around for a petite, girlish fig-
ure as Constance stands in front
of her, nonplussed. When Con-
stance informs the woman that
she is the one that came for the
job, the woman laughs. She needs
someone unobtrusive, she tells
Constance; someone of whom
potential thieves wouldn’t be
suspicious.
Though Constance knows that
she is tall, strong and the oldest of
a quirky family that mainly keeps
to themselves, she never fails to
underestimate how intimidated
others are by her. She makes the
court howl with laughter at her
impatient, staccato answers to
reporters’ stupid questions, as she
is baffled by the people question-
ing her intellect because of her
gender. Constance is unfailingly
funny when she doesn’t mean to
be, and is constantly confused
when people find her so.
Stewart’s understanding of
the zeitgeist of the early 20th
century and her ability to convey
the humor even in grim situa-
tions is seen in how Constance
poses a literally physical threat
to Kaufman, and no one quite
knows how to deal with it, mak-
ing for several funny encounters
and several sulky men. At one
point, Constance has Kaufman
pinned to the wall, and one of
the men watching shouts, “Take
your hands off of her!” Every-
one laughs at how ridiculous
it sounds. Except Kaufman, of
course, who tries very hard to
look nonchalant rather than
scared shitless (and fails).
“Girl Waits with Gun” left me
wanting a sequel badly — but, like
its heroine, it stands quite sturdi-
ly on its own two feet.
Girl Waits
with Gun
Amy Stewart
Houghton Mif-
flin Harcourt
Sept. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
TV REVIEW