Ron Does Stuff

We’re back at it again with the would-be murder family!

At the end of the previous episode, Hannibal has successfully convinced Abigail into a conspiracy of silence. They’re both going to be keeping each other’s secrets, but the question is for how long?

That’s something we’ll have to think about another day, because this episode opens with Will talking with Hannibal. Is this psychotherapy? Will has expressed his distaste before. But the two of them are certainly having a conversation and Will is quoting directly from Red Dragon, I think, when he talks about his house being in the middle of a sea of fog.

Hannibal continues to be intrigued by Will, especially when Will shares that he and Hobbs were “doing the same things”, even after Hobbs’ death.

After that opening, we finally get to the monster of the week — Molly Shannon. I remember this episode very much not just because I love Molly Shannon but also because of how this wasn’t aired on television in the States because of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. More than a decade later it’s “hilarious” that there are now even worse shootings than Sandy Hook.

While Will is at Molly Shannon’s crime scene, Hannibal is at Will’s home, feeding Will’s dogs and just rifling through his underwear drawer. I feel like any second now he’s going to take one of Will’s boxers and put it over his head like Timothee Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name. Of course, more observant viewers than me at the time know that Hannibal is setting Will up for a fall later on in the season.

Another thing about this show that I’m liking on this rewatch is that they’ve managed to turn what is essentially an office-locked team into field agents, thereby fitting in nicely to the tropes left behind by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation but doing it in a much better way than the other would-be CSI successors.

Meanwhile, Alana is the one doing the psychotherapy on Abigail, who is feeling confined in the hospital that she’s staying in as well as by her “celebrity victimhood”. Alana de-stresses later with Hannibal, and Hannibal slyly recommends that Abigail be let out into the world to “find her footing”, by which he means leave her to his care. Sly, sly, sly. Alana’s not a fool though and insists that Abigail stay in a clinical environment. This respect between the two certainly comes from the book.

Hannibal continues to implant the idea of the murder family in Will’s head by talking about Abigail during their regular therapy sessions, but while that is something that I know will come to play in the future, what I enjoyed in this episode was Hannibal feeding poor Jack Crawford yet another human being. I especially liked the quick cut to the man being hunted when Crawford remarked that the “rabbit” being served on the table should have hopped faster. Dark and hilarious!

We finally get introduced to the monster of the week, Molly Shannon, and I love how she’s treading that thin line of her character either being unsettling or humorous. She’s using some of the same mannerisms of her comedic characters but just by tweaking them a bit she becomes really unsettling.

Back to Hannibal, he gets permission to take Abigail home with her and we get to see him prepare what I believe are psychotropic mushrooms in the tea? I think these were taken from Hannibal the book, which I’m reading right now. Hannibal really, really wants this family.

When it comes to the monster of the week, I gotta admit this was one of the weaker episodes, with the resolution feeling quite meh for me. What’s really more interesting is the seeds being planted for later on in the season with Hannibal, Abigail, and Will. And while it has no connection with that dynamic, I really loved how Alana called out Hannibal’s rudeness, especially when we as an audience knows that something that Hannibal dislikes. Shockingly rude, Hannibal!