Hannibal: Contorno Recap

Synopsis for 3×05: Pazzi makes poor life choices. Hannibal gets the crap kicked out of him. Will gets thrown off a moving train. All in all, this is the kind of television I’ve been looking for.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Chiyo and Will took off toward Florence together, determined to find Hannibal Lecter after killing a guy and turning him into some sort of firefly tableau. The timeline was sort of cleared up regarding how Chiyo knew Hannibal, as she was his Aunt’s attendant when she was young and it appeared to be that they were of an age (her younger than him, probably). It made sense, if Chiyo’s parents sent her as a child to learn from Hannibal’s aunt. Though she’s young, I guess it provided some much needed light shed on conundrum of how a young Chiyo could have grown up with Hannibal.

Hannibal, meanwhile, enjoyed some post-coital snails with the ever lovely Bedelia who has continued to vex me the entire season. Obviously he is cultivating codependency, but her part in his story line has been a bit unclear since the beginning. Nonetheless, they ate snails and talked about their favorite topic of conversation: Will Graham. They spoke about transformation and fireflies and all that symbolism nonsense.

In an extremely sad scene, Jack said his final goodbye to Bella in Italy. With ashes in hand, he released them into a river and then tossed his ring in after it. Thus her story line truly ended right where their relationship had began: Italy. Bella, Bella, Bella.

Of course, that was not his only purpose in Italy as we delved back into how Inspector Pazzi’s story line has been weaved into the hunt for Hannibal. Jack, having made a connection with the handsome inspector, joined Pazzi and Pazzi’s wife for dinner. Anytime she was out of the room they discussed the infamous cannibal they were both seeking. Jack called him out on the fact his investigation wasn’t exactly sanction, and Pazzi sort of shrugged it off. He wanted to catch the monster of Florence and nothing was going to stand in his way.

Back in the United States, Alana shared her findings with Mason. She had been tracking purchases that could be associated with Hannibal and had found Bedelia, in a way. Mason appeared to be impressed with her sleuthing, even though he felt the need to make a blow job joke, and they were slightly closer to finding Hannibal.

Pazzi decided to approach Hannibal in broad daylight while he was working. He introduced himself, and Hannibal no doubt knew exactly what their interactions were about even though Pazzi attempted to hide his true intent beneath a different investigation. Hannibal brought up Pazzi’s family history, which wasn’t a pretty one. The content was straight out of the books as it was revealed that Pazzi’s family name came with a great deal of shame and shady history. His ancestors had been killed in a number of unfortunate ways and he no doubt continued to carry the shame of his family as a Pazzi living in Florence.

After their conversation, the inspector stepped outside and found the nearest payphone which was his first mistake. He then called a mysterious line and tried to report the fact he’d made contact with Hannibal. Naturally, the phone number was one Mason Verger had set up in order to gather information about the infamous Hannibal. Pazzi intended to claim the bounty and began to make arrangements.

Hannibal isn’t even bothered as he delicately plays piano and has a chat with Bedelia, his only friend in the world right now because he keeps hurting and maiming everyone else. He pointed out what had happened and Bedelia reflects back his own thoughts. Then he came to the determination he had to kill the man, and Pazzi’s fate was unfortunately sealed at that point. It was something all book or movie fans knew was going to come, but the rapid pace of Pazzi’s story line was a bit mind blowing.

On the train toward Florence, Will had a terrible nightmare of a very dead Chiyo hanging above him. When he woke up he realized she was no longer in her bunk and went to find her. They have a short conversation about everyone’s favorite cannibal and she admitted that she knew all along where Hannibal would be. Right after pulling Will Graham in for a kiss, she shoved him over the railing of the moving train and continued on toward Florence, leaving him on the tracks to be visited by the nightmare stag.

Pazzi chatted with Mason over Skype and sealed the deal. Mason wanted to see a recent fingerprint from Hannibal and in return he’d give Pazzi a one-hundred thousand dollar advance on a three million dollar bounty. Stupidly, Pazzi headed straight for Hannibal who knew exactly what he was angling to do. Taken by surprise, Hannibal tied Pazzi to a chair and prepared to hang him out a window. Bye bye, Pazzi. In a scene that I hated as much in the show as I did in the movie, because bowels freak me out, Pazzi was shoved out the window and hanged with his stomach slashed open so his bowels fell out. Awesome.

Moments before he fell to his death, Alana Bloom called Pazzi in an attempt to warn him. Instead, Hannibal answered and in a classic scene from the movie Hannibal, he dismissed her because she caught him at an “awkward moment.” In my opinion, the only thing that was awkward was that he had been wearing a suit jacket that made him look like he should be dancing with a hat and cane.

Jack, who had been with Pazzi’s wife, had become suspicious of Pazzi’s long absence. He went to investigate and arrived just in time to see Pazzi hanging out the window. There was a long look between he and Hannibal who stood above in the window sill before Jack went after him. Like a ninja, Jack sneaked up on Hannibal and took him by surprise. The best fight scene ever ensued and Hannibal got the ever loving crap kicked out of him. It was a dance, a very aggressive and violent dance, that ended with Hannibal crawling to the same window sill he’d pushed Pazzi out of moments before.

He got shoved out the window and finally landed on the ground, but not without some wounds as he limped away, no doubt back to Bedelia with his pride anything but in tact.