Like many people, I have a terrible habit of making assumptions about things before I experience them personally. When I heard back in 2012/2013 that Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon was being adapted to a TV Series – let alone a broadcast TV series – I was dubious, to say the least. I decided to give it a shot because Bryan Fuller was involved and I was, and still am, a fan of his work. I’ll admit that the pilot episode didn’t thrill me at the time – but pilots aren’t always great, either. Despite that, I continued to watch and quickly found myself drawn into this elegant and gory world that Fuller and his team had woven from the novels. I am very glad that I kept watching, because it’s one of my favorite shows, perhaps of all time.

Hannibal unnerves the viewer and makes them unsure of what is real and what is not. It plays with this dark, almost Victorian aesthetic of death: it is ever-present and many of Lecter’s and his shocking amount of serial killer contemporaries’ victims are displayed as tableaux for the FBI to discover.  Those who haven’t seen the show may recognize Will Graham’s repeated line (“This is my design”) that found its way into memes. As a spectator, you are never on steady ground with the series and find yourself wondering just what the hell you saw in an episode. The show never waters itself down or simplifies its stories in order to make them easy to follow, you just have to strap yourself in for the whole grotesque ride and try to figure it out.

Fuller made a point to create more female roles either by changing male characters in the source material to female or by creating them exclusively for the series. He did a great job of making them complex, interesting, and not always well-intentioned or even sympathetic, just like he did their male counterparts. Of course, casting Gillian Anderson as Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier only made it that much more enjoyable for me.

Perhaps one of the things I will miss the most about this show being over is its social media presence. It connected the showrunners with the fans in a unique and largely positive way that I’ve rarely seen within the various and sundry online fandoms I’ve known. If you’re familiar with their Twitter account, it’s gleefully macabre and full of twisted fun. This black humor includes, but is not limited to: reworking Taylor Swift lyrics (“You belong with bee-e-ees”), talking about Murder Husbands (AKA, Hannibal/Will), and posting/retweeting other hilariously inappropriate jokes or awesome behind the scenes tidbits during the episode livetweets.

Back in high school English, I had a project where I took lines from a book and turned them into a “found poem,” and this series really reminds me of that. Hannibal took elements from the original novels and spun them into something distinctly its own while still maintaining the spirit of the books. I cannot speak more highly of its lushly dark cinematography, twisted storylines, and outstanding cast. I will truly miss this remarkable series.

Photos courtesy of NBC, Screencapped.net, and Twitter.