When I started watching Hannibal I didn’t really get just how depressing this show was going to be. I mean it’s about a serial killer eating people. I was prepared for death and murder and cannibalism. I’d seen Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. I kind of knew where we were going there. I did not, however, sign up for the emotional roller coaster that has become Will Graham’s life and relationship with Hannibal Lecter. I was expecting some #feels. I was not expecting this particular level of #feels.
Also, I guess to be fair, this episode at least starts out with Will looking much better than he did in the last episode.
I mean he’s still sick. Will has been in the hospital receiving some manner of healthcare. Not very decent health care because no one has considered redoing his MRI at any point. I mean, he was having it rerun for a reason when his doctor was killed and I think we’re all sure as shit Will never got the results back on that one. Because that would have showed encephalitis and he could have been treated. But whatever.
Also, because there is only one hospital in the Greater Washington, DC and/or Baltimore area, he’s also been admitted to the same hosital as Georgia Madchen from a few episodes ago. She, too, is actually looking a bit better. The arm that she shed all the skin on looks pretty good and she actually looks like Ellen Muth now. Will comes and visits her pretty regularly because that’s what he does. He collects strays. She sort of brings him down by telling him that they’ll never figure out what’s wrong with him because that’s just how doctors are. Then she says she’s started remembering some things and keeps having dreams that Will killed Dr. Sutcliffe. Uh-oh. That could be bad for Will. Or for Hannibal.
Who, by the way, makes Will a fantastic ancient Chinese stew with medicinal properties and Will calls it chicken soup. Will. C’mon. At least appreciate the efforts he goes to. I mean, obviously it’s not chicken soup. It’s people soup. But still. Try to show some gratitude, Will. I mean, you shouldn’t because Hannibal is secretly manipulating you and continuing to make you think you’re crazy when you’re not (okay so maybe you are a little bit). You don’t know that, though. It’s just sad listening to Hannibal continue to tell him that everything that is wrong with him is in his head when we all know that’s not true.
Hannibal asks him about spending time with Georgia and how she’s doing. Because, you know, Hannibal’s face was all kinds of obscured. Of course if she ever saw him in person she might have recognized his hair or something. So, you know. He had to take that chick out. What he does is he drops a plastic comb in her little oxygen tank thing she’s in and she starts brushing her hair. Because Will called her pretty and she doesn’t think anything of it. Unfortunately it builds up static electricity and the oxygen turns to FIRE and Georgia very quickly turns to super crispy charred remains.
Having Georgia die is pretty hard on Will because he was starting to relate to her and he saw himself in her. But having her die also started clue him in on the fact that the copycat wasn’t just some random person. The copycat was someone he knew, someone involved in the investigations, and possibly someone who was trying to set him up. Will checks himself out of the hospital to figure all this out and Jack, of course, thinks he’s mostly crazy. Not entirely, though, because he has the science tech guys start investigating Garrett Jacob Hobbs’s movement during his serial killer days to see if they can’t prove that Abigail was involved. (But without Beverly because she’s apparently in court… OR IS SHE DEAD AND WAS SHE IN WILL’S SOUP? Okay. So. Probably just in court.)
Anyway, see, while Jack might think Will is crazy some of what he’s saying – at least about some of the murders being connected – must make some sense to him. Just not the sort of sense that it needs to be because instead of thinking Hannibal he’s back to seeing this as support for his anti-Abigail vendetta. At the same time, though, he’s also juggling this concern about Will so he talks to Hannibal about Will being out of it and then talks to Hannibal’s psychiatrist to ask her about Hannibal and whether or not he’s lying about or hiding things about Will and his condition… Jack. You just come so close so many times. And yet you never quite seem to get the point of anything anyone is ever telling you.
Like, I feel like Gillian Anderson’s character basically spelled out to Jack that something shady was going on. She was obviously telling “half truths” as she called it. And later when she and Hannibal meet they spell it out entirely that Hannibal stopped/killed/did something to the patient that had attacked her. Granted, he probably sent that patient to her in order to see what would happen. At the same time, though, he’s pretty possessive of Bedelia so… I’m not so sure where he was going with that. When he sent Gideon after Alana he did so knowing that as crazy and sick as Will was he was probably going to be able to manage to save her. But Hannibal saved Bedelia. I don’t know. But the whole ‘swallowed his tongue’ thing has been so obvious ever since they first mentioned it. C’mon. Multiple Migs, anyone? From Silence of the Lambs? Hannibal, what do you do. It’s kinda like Podrick in bed. You never know what he actually does but people bring it up constantly. I do want to know just what Bedelia knows, though, because she now potentially knows a lot more than we might have thought. It also adds a new dimension to her line in her first scene about Hannibal refusing to acknowledge her retirement. Maybe she saw quite a lot of what Hannibal is capable of and he knows it and lets her live. She tells Hannibal that whatever he’s doing with Will Graham he needs to stop, too. Which, again, is potentially her seeing Hannibal’s actions more clearly than we all think.
Of course, Will is entirely oblivious. Even though his own delusions are trying to tell him what’s going on. He’s so wrapped up in this idea that the copy cat has some how made all of this personal and has been on his trail since Minnesota that he can’t see the truth that it’s all been Hannibal. I mean, the raven-feathered stag gores a hallucination of Georgia Madchen – who whispers “See?” just like Garrett Jacob Hobbs had. But no, Georgia. He doesn’t see.
He tries, though. Will tries to get Jack to listen but he won’t. So then he enlists Abigail’s help in trying to figure it all out they plan to go back to Minnesota and start backtracking every move the copycat has ever made. The problem with this being that Will tells Hannibal first. Yeah. He tells Hannibal that he’s starting to think clearer and he’s started to realize that everything is connected. Which means that Hannibal has to figure out a way to make sure none of this comes back to him. Great. Good job Will.
You realize he’s going to do that by setting you up, right? I mean, I think we’ve all seen this coming for a while now. Especially after the whole thing with Dr. Sutcliffe and Will alone in the office with him. Yeah, sure, we can frame up Georgia but really? We knew where Lecter is going with this. Meanwhile Jack is still trying to prove that Abigail was involved in her father’s murders and that she is the copycat killer now. His theory is that she’s still killing in order to impress someone new. God damn it Jack. You’re so close just… you’re so far, too.
When Will takes off with Abigail to Minnesota basically right before the FBI goes to arrest her Jack then goes to Hannibal to ask what is up with Will. And then Hannibal drops the bomb and frames Will for everything. Mads Mikkelsen, I swear. You’re a beautiful man and this scene was done so perfectly. Dropping all the little hints about Will’s instability, bringing in taped recordings of Will admitting that he had felt responsible for Abigail’s friend’s death. Just letting Jack come to his own conclusions and then BAM. “I’m so sorry, Jack.” And the way his expression goes from sad to maniacal plotting as Jack leaves. God. Mads. I mean, the way he says, “And now he has Hobbs’s daughter who he intended to kill.” I mean, shit. I would have believed Will was the copycat.
Considering the way he’s acting I think anyone would. He’s still sick and popping pills. And when he gets to the cabin with Abigail where he friend died and her father butchered all those girls he starts putting two and two together. Abigail asks if Will did any hunting and he says, no, fishing. Which makes him like instantly put two and two together and realizes that – hey – Abigail didn’t hunt with her father but she fished. She was the bait. She helped him lure them in. Which, of course, makes him flip his shit because he does love Abigail and has done so much to protect her and keep things from Jack. Now he’s learning that a.) she is everything Jack thought she was and b.) Hannibal knew that Abigail had helped her father and kept that from him and the FBI. He also starts to question whether or not she is the copy cat and he slams her against a wall in the antler room really hard. Very uncharacteristically.
Then he starts having some sort of episode and wakes up on an airplane at Dulles International Airport.
Honestly Will really ought to get his shit together because Jack is going to be chasing him down. Not that he knows that. I’m sure we’re going to have some moment where he goes to Hannibal or Alanna next episode is like, “One minute I was with Abigail in Minnesota and the next I was here.” Or something. And they’re just going to be like, “Well, shit.”
So while Will was freaking out in the antler room and losing time, Abigail did what any smart person would do and left. She went back home and I assume was going to call Hannibal or something. But he was already there! She’s super relieved and they hug. Except then Abigail tells Hannibal that will knows everything and he goes and ruins such a precious moment by telling her that Jack does, too. Abigail – as Freddie Loundes says in this episode – is a smart girl and there’s something obviously off about Hannibal and the way he’s taking this news. She already knows he called her house and so she says to Hannibal, “Will always said that who ever called the house that day was the copycat.”
Bingo, Abigail. You finally get the prize. A little late though.
Hannibal doesn’t deny anything. When she asks him why he did it he tells her it was simply because he wanted to know what Garrett Jacob Hobbs would do. He killed Abigail’s friend to see what she would do and he told her that he had hoped she would kill Nick Boyle just so he could see how much like her father she really was.
Basically, he breaks it all down for her. It’s such a fantastic scene and emotional, too, because this is the end. Both characters know it. And both characters had genuinely come to care about one another in some way. Abigail saw him as a surrogate father and he saw her as something possibly even more than just a play thing. It’s a lot like his relationship with Will or even Alanna and Bedalia. He feels something there. We’re just not entirely sure what.
There are some great moments of dialogue in this scene, too. Abigail asks Hannibal how many people he’s killed to which he responds, “Much more than your father.” And when she asks him if he is going to kill her, too, he tells her that he’s so sorry and that he just couldn’t protect her in this life. ‘In this life.’
Hannibal, what the hell does that even mean? I mean, maybe it means he’s going to kill her and frame Will for her murder so that people will ultimately think of her as a victim. Since she’ll never have been arrested and tried no one will likely find out about the fact that she was a part of her father’s murders. Freddie Loundes could always speculate because now she gets to write Abigail’s story all on her own. But it’s likely that her story will be skewed towards making Abigail an innocent victim of first her father and then of Will Graham whose psychosis turned him into her father.
Because let’s be real. Freddie knows what sells. And that sells WAY better than a serial killer’s daughter being a serial killer’s assistant and then getting what was coming to her in the end. I mean, that’s how some people would see it. Sweet, innocent Midwestern girl whose father was a serial killer and then she was murdered by her surrogate father figure? Yeah. Best seller. Right there. You go, Freddie.
But, ugh. Can we talk about next episode? I am in tears already.
Let’s do a little speculation here. I know that we can never know what’s going on in these damn trailers because they are always super misleading. But hear me out on this.
I’m feeling pretty much like the season is going to end with Will being committed to the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. I mean, that seems pretty obvious to everyone else, right? The change in jumpsuits makes it’ obvious. In the orange he’s still with the Dept. of Corrections. In the gray he’s been moved into the same attire Dr. Gideon wore. At least part of this episode is going to be Jack and the FBI trying to track down Will. The other part is going to be Will trying to track down Hannibal. They are going to catch him. We know that.
But how long will that take? Between the trailer and the screencaps we’ve seen Will in a number of different settings pre-arrest. (Or maybe post-arrest if he some how escapes custody or something at some point… which would just add to the time requirement for this episode to run itself through to the end.) We’ve only got sixty minutes and sixty minutes is not enough to have Will go after Hannibal, have someone figure out that Will’s not crazy, have someone figure out that Will’s not the copycat, and get him released from prison and all that jazz. It’s not enough time to wrap up everything from this season.
Kids, there will be no resolution at the end of this season. And if we had never gotten our second season Bryan Fuller would have left us hanging with will in prison with no obvious way of how he was going to get out.
This is Bryan Fuller’s design.
That asshole.
EDIT:
Having read the episode description for the next episode I stand by my case.
When Will (Hugh Dancy) returns from Minnesota without Abigail (Kacey Rohl), Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) turns Will in, and Jack (Laurence Fishburne) and the BAU team find strong evidence of Will having killed not only Abigail, but possibly being the Copy Cat Killer. Jack and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) begin to accept that Will is indeed capable of murder. Will is arrested, plans a desperate escape, and takes Hannibal back to Minnesota to clear his name and prove he’s being framed. But before he can, the situation takes another ugly and unexpected turn. Gillian Anderson guest stars.
Welp. I hope Alanna feeds Will’s dogs or at least finds them good homes. Though think how devastated Will would be when he got out of prison if she did rehome them all. (So long as he didn’t like… massacre them all in a fit of rage or something.) I’m just saying I’m really worried about these dogs surviving this season.
And we know the dogs are in this episode.
I just don’t know why I’m so cynical but I don’t see this ending well.
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