Ron Does Stuff

It’s been a hectic past few days for me so I haven’t been able to blog for the past three days. Truth be told, my ancient and decrepit body still hasn’t recovered, but I am pushing through it!

We dealt with Stammets in the previous episode, but it’s Hobbs who we come back to in this episode. Father and daughter talk about fully honoring a deer they hunted by utilizing every part of its body, and not to get put on some watch list or something but it makes sense. No to senseless waste! But that flashback jolts Abigail Hobbs back to consciousness.

Of course, Jack Crawford wants Will to talk to Abigail because Jack thinks Abigail had a part in her father’s crimes, but Alana is looking out for Will. I really like this genderswapping because it gives the Alana and Will relationship more layers than it did in the book. Granted, the new layers introduced in the show wouldn’t have a place in the book, but that’s how you make a good adaptation, I think. Introduce new layers to the original work.

The direction they’re taking with Abigail is also a great decision on the part of the production. It’s a much more complicated relationship than it is in the book and as shown by the “murder dads” fandom(?), worked well for the show.

This is also the episode where Hannibal really falls in love — in his own fashion — with Will. During that lecture at the FBI Academy, Will really sees Hannibal for what he is and I feel like that is really what sets Hannibal on a path to bringing the two of them together. Something hinted at in the book but never really explored!

Freddie Lounds is back again in this episode and this character’s genderswapping is another great decision. Freddy Lounds was a sleazy journalist I recognized in the book, but turning the character into a woman and dressing her up in animal print and silhouettes that are — for lack of a better word since I’m not really a fashion gay — cunty? She’s so much more fascinating than the book Lounds.

I don’t know if they introduce Will’s family in further seasons, but if they do, I wonder how they’re going to do it, especially since they’ve taken the conversation Will had with his stepson and given it to Will and Abigail.

Thanks to Hannibal’s subtle manipulation and Jack Crawford’s willingness to be cutthroat to get his suspects, Abigail and Will, Hannibal, and Alana go back to the Hobbs home, where Hannibal is basically quivering at seeing the possibility of having his own murder family. The look on his face when Will and Abigail have that conversation about being in a killers mind? I know Hannibal had a chub going. His smile when Abigail covers for him?

And then when Abigail lets him know that she knows? Delicious.

Kacey Rohl as Abigail Hobbs also puts in a really great performance here, especially when they finally get to the cabin and she realizes that she and her mother have been eating the girls that her father has been killing. And when she discovers the hair in the throw pillows?

Also, watching this now knowing Hannibal’s plans, it’s hilarious how Hannibal objects to Crawford suggesting that Abigail may be manipulating Will? Of course, she’s not manipulating Will. You are! And you’re manipulating Abigail too! A manipulation that leads to a conspiracy? Agreement? Between the two at the end of the episode. Both of them are going to keep each other’s secrets.