Hannibal: Fromage Recap

It looks like this week on Hannibal we’re adding auditory hallucinations to Will’s growing list of psychological problems. Not to mention the effect it’s going to have on any possible relationship/personal problems he’s already got. The episode starts with Will hearing what sounds like animals fight with one another outside on his property while he’s chilling with his pack of dogs fixing boat motors. It doesn’t seem like Will has a boat so I don’t know where he keeps getting all these motors or what he does with them. It’s a strange hobby. Anyway, none of the dogs react to the sound which should be the first clue that he’s going crazy.

He later then invites Alana over to go looking for this potentially injured animal with him. Because in Will’s mind that’s probably romantic or something. They talk about relationships and neither of them is dating. Will is in no way subtle here. Of course, Alana starts to potentially pick up on the crazy when Will admits he doesn’t see any tracks out there except their own footsteps.

When we shift back to Tobias from last episode we find him at work where he apparently runs a string instrument business and teaches music. He’s in with a student who asks him if the authentic gut-made strings he is using are really made from catgut. Which leads us into an actually very cool, very artistic series of short clips of Tobias cutting into some man on a table and making bow strings form his intestines. The music they use for this scene is fantastic – it helps to show just how proud of his work Tobias is and how it seems to be almost therapeutic in a way. He honestly enjoys it. It’s always nice to see people take pride in their work. Even if that work is making string out of human organs.

Still a bit obsessed with Hannibal, Franklin is back in the man’s office playing detective himself. He says that Tobias had been talking ‘crazy’ about doing some pretty dark things. Hannibal listens on and what not and Franklin starts wondering if Tobias is a psychopath. Or if maybe he’s a psychopath. To which Hannibal responds: “You’re not a psychopath. But you may be attracted to them.” Oh, Hannibal. You’re killing me.

Someone else, however, is killing someone.

In particular, a musician at a Baltimore orchestral hall. A man’s throat was cut and then his vocal cords were played like a violin with the neck of a violin shoved into his own neck. Will is left alone to try to reconstruct the scene and he figures out how the man did what he did pretty easily. But when he imagines himself playing the cords himself he sees Garrett Jacob Hobbs in the theatre clapping for him. For a character that gets killed in the first episode this actor has gotten to be in a good number of episodes. Good for him! It’s got to be hard getting into that creepy dead guy make up all the time, though.

Back at the lab the lab techs are explaining how the man hardened the vocal cords and how he prepared them to play. Will seems really shaken by seeing Garrett Jacob Hobbs and at one point just blurts out: “Had to open you up to get a decent sound out of you.” To which everyone is just like, “Uhmmmmmmmmm.” I mean, it’s pretty evident from the get go that Will was out of it. He was popping pills at the crime scene, Jack had to ask him if he was all right, he basically shrugged it all off and got angry when Jack asked if it had gotten “easier to look.” No, Jack. No. It hasn’t. How do you not recognize that this guy is cracking? If you want him to catch the Baltimore Ripper it’s probably best not to use him up on every other murderer you come across then. Will does have the insight still to realize that their murderer has killed before but that this is something special. This is a serenade, a performance. He’s putting his work on display for someone else.

Who happens to be Hannibal. Obviously. And I think he realizes that. He goes to talk to his own psychiatrist about Franklin and how he’s worried that he’s not good for the man, that his obsession with Hannibal will effect his own progress. Apparently Gillian Anderson once had a patient who was obsessed with her and attacked her which is why she left practice. Hannibal, however, did not let her leave him because he felt that she understood him. Also, like all psychopaths, he felt ‘protective’ of her. Which is another way of saying possessive.

Much like he probably feels about Will who comes in to talk his way through the case with Hannibal. He doesn’t tell Hannibal that he saw Garrett Jacob Hobbs in the theatre and actually lies about what he sees. Which Hannibal probably picked up on. I’d wonder about the whole rationality about letting one of your lead investigators run around telling someone unrelated to the FBI all the agency’s secrets about their investigations but hey. They let Will into the organization in the first place. I just feel like doctor-patient confidentiality (like the client-attorney confidentiality rules) is not as stringent as people think it is. Especially not when Hannibal doesn’t consider Will an actual patient and he talks to Jack about him. Anyway.

He does have real clients. Like Franklin. Who his how genuinely freaked out because apparently Tobias once said he wanted to cut a man’s throat and play him like a violin. And then what happened? Someone had their throat cut open and played like a violin. Franklin is kind of freaked out. Understandably so. He asks if he should go to the police and then sort of back pedals because Franklin says he’s always wrong anyway so he probably shouldn’t.

So Hannibal goes to play Scooby Doo. He goes to Tobias’s shop and they do a lot of posturing. Talk about strings. Talk about how both play instruments that play between the conventional notes (Hannibal – a theremin, Tobias – the violin, and the victim – a trombone). It’s pretty obvious what’s going on here and Hannibal invites him over to restring his harpsichord.

Before that happens, though, we go back to Will. Who his now making flies for fly fishing when he hears something in his chimney. Or thinks he hears something in his chimney. The dogs once again don’t react to it at all but Will does. He goes so far as to break a hole through the damn thing to try and find this animal that’s not there. Alana decided to stop by on her way home because the two of them both sort of seem to think that something is there. Will even notes that she’s been avoiding being alone with him until now.

The problem is that Alana realizes what Will doesn’t want to admit – that so much of this is in his head. They kiss and I mean like. They kiss. But then Alana stops, says she’s confused. Will tells her to stop thinking but the problem she has is that she just doesn’t think it would work. She would always have a professional curiosity in him and either way neither of them would likely be good for the other. Not that either of them wants to accept that no matter how obvious it is to them both but Alana leaves and Will is left in a very odd place.

So while Will is sort of freaking out about Alana, Hannibal is having Tobias over for dinner. They talk a bit about stuff and being serial killers. Tobias was ‘playing’ for Hannibal because he knows what Hannibal is even though he didn’t know about that. It turns out that last episode when Hannibal was posing the guy in the school bus sitting across from himself Tobias was following him and watching him. He was actually going to kill Hannibal – because he really wants to kill Franklin, too – but then he saw what Hannibal did. He was pretty pleased to see his work.

Tobias basically breaks down his plan – pose body, let the police investigate him, kill the cops they send, find Franklin, kill Franklin, flee. Poor Franklin. Even Hannibal is like, “Oh, don’t kill Franklin.” Even Hannibal wants this guy to be safe. He’s annoying but c’mon. He’s not a bad guy. Anyway Tobias wants to be Hannibal’s friend. But the fact that Tobias knows about Hannibal makes him a liability and so Hannibal obviously intends to kill him and he tells Tobias that’s why he really had him over – not just to restring his harpsichord. He also makes very certain to tell him that he didn’t poison him. Hannibal, as he said, would never do that to the food.

We’re about to have this awesome showdown when the doorbell rings. Tobias escapes and Will bursts into Hannibal’s house and just straight up is like, “I killed Alana Bloom.” He kisses Alana and then drives an hour to Baltimore to gossip like a teenage girl. They have desert. They talk about their feelings. Hannibal agrees that the two probably wouldn’t be good for one another. And they agree that Alana would never be able to stop psychoanalyzing him and that he would ultimately resent her for it. Will admits he always wanted to kiss her but that he never did and that this kiss was generally related to the fact that he’s really starting to lose it and it was some sort of cry for help or stability. Then Hannibal gives him desert and then for whatever reason decides to tell Will about Tobias and encourage him to go after the man.

While Will has his issues, Hannibal has his as well. (Like, lots of them.) He goes to talk to Gillian Anderson (whose character’s name I never do remember) about friendship. He tells her that he wants to be friends with Will because he thinks he might have finally found someone who can understand him. Like, Hannibal keeps smiling throughout. Thenhen why did you send him after Tobias, Hannibal? You keep trying to get the poor boy killed.

Because based on Hannibal’s recommendation Will takes a couple cops to Tobias’s shop and they do intend to interview him. Except Will starts hearing things again and runs out of the house thinking a dog got hit in the street. It didn’t. He needs to stop hearing things. It makes me sad. When he goes back into the shop no one appears to be there. Will finds one cop dead in the foyer. Another cop is dead downstairs. Will goes through the basement and gets to see all of Tobias’s string making equipment and jarred organs before Tobias comes after him with Violin strings and tries to cut his face into pieces like he did the second cop. But Will blocks it and as he’s cutting into Will’s arms Will gets a shot off that grazes Tobias’s face and basically makes Will nearly go deaf temporarily.

Tobias escapes and takes off to Hannibal’s office to kill Franklin. He tells them both that he “just killed two men” after the cops came and how he’s about to take off. Hannibal tries to get Franklin to leave but Tobias tells him to stay and Franklin tries to talk him down. But just as Tobias is about to tell Franklin about what Hannibal is Hannibal goes up and breaks poor Franklin’s neck. He tried to save him.

And then afterward there is this bitchin’ serial killer showdown. Which if Will wasn’t such a gossipy girl could have happened much earlier. I can’t really do it justice in words so you really do need to watch it. The take away is that a.) violin strings make awesome weapons and b.) Hannibal defeats Tobias and then calls the cops because he can’t really make this go away.

But he’s so sad. Like, dejected looking. Which may be for show but it doesn’t quite seem like it was because his next reaction betrays any and all emotion. Hannibal looks up, sees Jack in the doorway, and is sad. But then Will walks in behind him and he’s so happy and he smiles. It’s adorable. Will x Hannibal shippers everywhere rejoice. Will goes to talk to him and Hannibal is like, “I was worried you were dead.” Heartstrings tugged.

Regardless of the fact that the only reason Will was in that situation was because Hannibal put him there. Jack actually seems a bit suspicious – though of Hannibal or of Franklin’s involvement (or Will and Hannibal’s relationship) I have no idea. Maybe Jack is just like that. I mean, we know he’s just like that. But still.

In the next episode, I feel like there are going to be some tears.

Mostly mine.

Will sort of realizes that he is batshit crazy and that he’s past that point where it’s okay to pretend that he’s not crazy. I think the “I had to open you up to get a decent sound out of you” little outburst probably gave that away. He loses like… a lot of time. Alana will once again tell Will they can’t be together. And I just feel like I’m going to have a lot of #feels after this episode. So much so that I kind of want to leave Phoenix Comicon early next Thursdsay just to go watch it. No, seriously. Hannibal > everything else in my life right now.

Anyway.

Here’s the trailer for next week.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcu8GcVhe0o]

And a bonus video from either next week or maybe a couple weeks a head.

I don’t know, if you don’t want spoilers then don’t watch this. But if you want Gillian Anderson feels and Will/Hannibal feels you can. I did. I feel like I should regret it but… I don’t. At all.