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Hannibal – Tome-Wan – S02E12

So we’re now just one episode away from the season finale of Hannibal and things took a grizzly and unexpected turn. Not only are Hannibal and Will playing a dangerous game, but we see hints that Jack may be pulling the strings and intends to risk everything to get what we wants. Dr Du Maurier has resurfaced and offers some shocking insight into both Will and Hannibal. And there is more to the attack on her from a patient than we previously knew. While Hannibal may be sympathetic to the incident, there are a few more details.

Hannibal has also grown tired of Mason Verger and feels that it would be in everyone’s best interest if he and Will took care of the problem. Hannibal thinks Mason’s behavior toward Margot is quite terrible, but the way Mason treats his desk and furniture simply can’t be tolerated. The physical torture and abuse is one thing, but putting your feet on a desk is taking things too damn far.

Of course everything is spiraling out of control as to who gets caught first, Hannibal or Will. Which murder is each one guilty of? Is Will a protégé of Hannibal or simply being manipulated? What the devil is going on around here? I can already tell that the last episode is going to make me throw things at the TV. I damn glad there is a Season 3 to explain all this.

I will also say this is by far the most graphics and violent episode in the series. I thought sewing a bird into a man’s chest and then sewing that man into the cavity of a horse was over the top, but the scrimshaw to the face was pretty brutal. The team at NBC is dreaming up some pretty wild and scary plot lines these days.

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Hannibal makes it to Season 3, Dracula gets a stake through the heart

I have to say, NBC is quick to cancel shows. In the 11th hour they renewed Hannibal, but decided Dracula wasn’t worth keeping around. I’m truly excited over Hannibal coming back, although I have my doubts we’ll see a 4th season and thus the retelling of the Hannibal series of movies. The shows seems to be struggling, at least according to NBC. I personally think the show is an enormous hit and a bit of a cult classic. It just not as big as the Reality Show dreck that so many people are used to watching. Here’s to hoping we see more of the Hannibal story past his getting caught in Season 3. No, that’s not a spoiler, he would have to get caught in order to make it fit with Red Dragon.

I’m little disappointed we won’t see any more Dracula. I think they had an interesting take on the story and things were just starting to pick up steam. It takes more than 2 episodes to generate a following and I feel Dracula was just starting to build and audience. You have to remember the original story is over 400 pages so there is a lot of ground to cover. Rewriting that story and tossing it out in one season is a hard sell. You have to build that audience over time. Maybe some of these shows will resurface on cable somewhere. You know, not everything has to be a remake of True Blood – a series I never developed a fondness for. This is now part of the series of vampire shows that failed for me. We have Dracula, True Blood and Moonlight (from many years ago).

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows

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Bates Motel – Season 2 Finale

I was anxious to see the season finale of this one and wow, did things go all over the place in this one. We start things right where we left off. Dylan is making a mad dash from the house of Nick Ford who’s laying dead on the floor and who should he run into but Sheriff Romero. Romero is unfazed by Dylan’s admission. Instead, he heads over to the house to see who can extract information out of in order to find Norman. Good thing one of the henchmen stayed behind to loot the place.

Norman is pulled from the iron coffin and the family is reunited again. But there is still trouble in paradise as Norman admits he has memories of killing Miss Watson. This is not going to bode well as Romero still insists Norman take the polygraph test.

But that will have to wait as the Sheriff and Dylan hatch a plan to get Zane under control. It wasn’t the best laid plan thusly unravels pretty quick. But the end result is what Romero wanted which is the heads of the drug families out of the way so he can install a man who "understands the rules" so "they can all live and work together". In fell swoon, Dylan is in charge! He’s on the hook for one murder and is seriously in deep on the cover up of two more. Damn, this kid is a magnet for trouble! And quite possibly a kingpin now.

Now that the Sheriff is coming for him, Norman sets the wheels in motion to protect himself. He’s scared of who he is and what he does and feels the best way to control that is to end his life. But he’s not as sneaky as he thinks and mom is hot on his trail. The tables are turned as Norman points the gun at his mom and demands to know what’s wrong with him. Norman’s blackouts do indeed lead to death for other people and as he admits, he blacked out the day his dad died.

Norma plans a flight from prosecution and even buys a ticket for Dylan. There’s nothing like fleeing the country to bring a family together. It’s the first time Dylan has actually felt close to Norma and the fact he even thought of her chips away at his cold heart.

Fleeing will only get them so far. Dylan convinces them to face the music and have Norman take the test. It looks grim, but Norman has a vision that relieves him of his burden. Mother says she will take care of him and she is responsible for what happened to Miss Watson. All the guilt leaves Norman and Sheriff Romero is satisfied he sent the right man to prison.

In that final shot we see Norman sitting in the chair with that classic smirk pulled straight from the Psycho movie itself. Creepy stuff my friends.

A pretty impressive season and who knows where this is going to take us. Dylan is set to take over the drug trade and Norman got a pass on all his transgressions. Who knows if it will last but we have an inkling of a mother-son relationship between Dylan and Norma.

But alas, Emma is still on the outside looking in. She desperately wants to be a part of the family and even though she has been in the thick of the soup with the Bates family, she still gets the cold shoulder. Norman offers the olive branch and asks her to reconsider and lets her in on Dylan’s checkered past. But will that be enough for her to stick around? And if she does, will she end up victim? Norman’s track record with the ladies isn’t that good.

I’m sure there will be plenty of mischief and mayhem in season 3. I guess we’ll have to take bets on who’s the first victim of the new season. And, will any of the previous characters come back? Is this the last of Cody? Can Bradley stay in hiding? Will Caleb (if he’s still alive) come to explain or face the music of what he’s done? How will Sheriff Romero position Dylan and what does he plan to do about all the next rival? And since he still doesn’t have a house how long will he be at the hotel?

And one final question, with Nick Ford out of the way what will happen to Norma’s seat on the council? This of course comes after she’s pissed off Christine who not only befriended her but tried to set Norma up with her brother. And wasn’t the mayor coming for dinner? Oh dear…

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Bates Motel – Kicking and Screaming to the Season Finale

image So here we are on the eve of the final episode of Bates Motel and it’s been a long and dangerous road. The season started off with a bang when Bradley, after suspecting Gil was behind her father’s murder, blows his head clean off. A murder that no one seems to want to investigate by the way. Desperate and in need of help, Bradley turns to Norman, who turns to Dylan who fakes Bradley’s death and sends her out of town. He’s such a helpful juvenile delinquent.

With Gil dead, Dylan and his rag tag band of weed whackers get a new boss in the form of Zane. A hot tempered chap who feels that disputes like this should be settled at the end of a gun. As you may expect, this leads to a few problems and some shootouts at the I’m Not OK Corral.

Meanwhile, after being coerced into trying out for a musical with his mom (creepy) Norman meets the hot and naughty Cody, a girl with a troubled home life that ultimately finds Norman intriguing. She leads him down a decadent road that oddly leads to her secret treehouse where she takes advantage of the young Norman. They make an interesting couple, by my goodness they have some turbulent times.

Sadly, Norma is rejected from the musical and her trouble compounds when her brother Caleb comes rolling into town. A brother she accuses of doing some very unsavory things to her; the result being Dylan. This of course sends Dylan into a bit of tail spin and he moves out of the house. In order to defend his mom’s honor, Norman goes to confront Caleb, wherein Norman channels the feelings and emotions of his mother getting abused – a scene that will surely leave you feeling woefully uncomfortable. Utterly confused, Caleb knocks Norman out of the way and adds a few kicks in for good measure. When we next see Norman he is catatonic in a diner with Cody coming to get him. It was of course Cody’s plan for Norman to confront Caleb to send him packing. So far, we haven’t seen Caleb again.

Norma meets some rich and strange new friends and gets introduced to Nick Ford. After making a deal with the devil she’s elected to the city council and is magically handed an environmental report that stops construction of the bypass. Norma seems to be in the middle of Stepford Wives and has a new love interest. A love interest that will run panty-dropping hot, then frostbite cold. Norma doesn’t do well in relationships.

On the drug cartel front, things escalate out of control and Zane goes in guns blazing. Dylan repeatedly tries to talk him out of it, since he obviously knows the truth about Gil’s death, but it falls on deaf ears. Zane barely escapes with his life, but not before killing multiple men from Nick Ford’s side of the house. This will not go unpunished and heads on a pike will be demanded.

Sheriff Romero, or rather his new Deputy is hot on the trail for the murderer of Emma Watson and finds a match to the DNA they took off Norman when they investigated him for the murder of Cody’s father. Norman put a damper on their relationship when dad got hostile with his lady friend and thusly Norman sent dad tumbling down the stairs to the sound of crunching bones. But this proves that Norman did indeed sleep with his teacher the night she was killed.

Nick Ford feels the best way to settle the dispute between the rival drug families is to meet with Dylan. He goes through Norma to set up the meeting and demonstrates his power and influence over her. Nick wants Zane out of the way and wants Dylan to handle it. Dylan isn’t quite on board so Nick uses a power play of kidnapping Norman to sweeten the deal. Norman spends a night in the box and when the henchman come to feed and water him they discover the newspaper clipping of Emma Watson’s death and the string of pearls.

With the new motivation, Dylan does what he can to get rid of Zane, but Zane is too heavily armed and Dylan can’t get the job done. He explains the situation to Nick who no longer feels Dylan has any use to him. With gun drawn, Nick looks to dispatch Dylan who feels he has to defend himself and uses the power of the fireplace poker as his weapon of choice. Dylan ends up dealing a fatal blow to the head and quickly realizing the sack full of shite he’s found himself in, makes a very hasty retreat out the side door.

Finally, we have Norman, locked in a box in parts unknown coming to terms with his situation. The night of Miss Watson’s murder begins to play out in his mind and at least according to Norman’s interpretation of events, we see her seduce him. She wears quite a fetching outfit and in a slow, seductive style she lures him to bed. The moment is intermixed with Norma telling Norman to stop and that it’s wrong and Miss Watson is a bad person for doing this. It ultimately ends with Norman, a knife and Miss Watson’s throat. And this right after he’s finished himself off inside her leaving a dastardly trail of evidence. What a mess on multiple levels!

Norman leaves the bloody scene, but not before taking a strand of pearls from Miss Watson’s nightstand. Souvenir of the night? Either way, we fade out as Norman is left to rot in the box, in the rain, without his family knowing where he is. Dylan didn’t quite get that written down before cracking Nick in the skull.

So we have Dylan on the run because he just killed he head of the rival drug cartel, Norman locked in a box, in the woods without anyone knowing where he is and perhaps coming to the realization he killed his teach, Norma in a fit of hysterics because she doesn’t know where Norman is, Emma is on the outs because no one will put their trust in her, and let’s not forget that Sheriff Romero wants Norman for questioning in the murder of Emma Watson. He’s pretty sure he just sent an innocent man to prison.

Things are unravelling quite badly for the Bates family. Seems the whole family has gotten themselves in quite a bind. Where oh where do we go from here?

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