Ron Does Stuff

After this episode, there’s only three more episodes left until I venture into uncharted territory. Excited to see where it goes!

Hannibal started his murder family agenda in the previous episode but before we get back to that we delve into this episode’s monster of the week, someone who’s snuck into a woman’s house and killed her under the bed. I have a faint idea who the killer is, but I may be misremembering so I’m not gonna share!

While that killing’s happening, Will is at a therapy session with Hannibal, where Hannibal is telling him that he’s grieving for the life he’s lost ever since he started doing what he’s doing now with the FBI. I also now remember this episode as being the source of all those clock face memes from so long ago. So long ago. I’m so old.

We then get this absolutely horrifying sequence of Will cutting open a fish, losing track of himself, and then coming to on top of the girl that was brutalized earlier on in the episode. If you can’t imagine the horror of blacking out and then coming to on top of a dead body then I am afraid of you and please step away from me thank you.

Of course, Jack isn’t happy about what’s happened. Will’s contaminated evidence! It’s also where the seeds are planted for what Hannibal does to Will at the end of the season, if I’m remembering correctly. Hannibal, you sneaky monster. It doesn’t help that after that incident, it’s Hannibal that Will goes to to confide in, giving him even more material to work with.

It’s also at this point that Will begins to realize that he may be sick — as in physically sick and not just psychologically. He suggest seizures, a tumor, a blood clot, but Hannibal is laying the groundwork for Will to think that he’s suffering from a mental illness that is pushing him to kill.

Hannibal takes Will to a doctor that I just know is beholden to Hannibal in some way, I just can’t remember how as I watch this now. Hannibal already knows that Will is suffering from encephalitis, having smelled it in episode five, and while any ethical doctor would have started treating Will for it, Hannibal convinces the doctor to let the sickness fester so that both of them can study how it affects Will. The horror of it all.

Hannibal is also working on Jack, making him think that Will has a mental illness. While that is happening, Will revisits the crime scene he contaminated earlier and that’s where we get another horrifying sequence where the actual killer emerges from underneath the bed and her “skin” slips off her arm. Will blacks out in the middle of it and has to call Katz to help him figure out what the hell happened. Katz is starting to suspect something and also doesn’t hesitate to tell Will what people at the FBI think about him.

After that trip to the crime scene, Will talks to Hannibal again, once again drawing that clock face and once again Hannibal is hiding the truth of his condition from him. He also suggests to Will that maybe the killer of the week is suffering from Cotard’s syndrome but of course he’s also planting the idea that that’s what Will is also suffering from, which is reinforced by the interview that Jack and Will does with the killer’s mother. There is an overlap of symptoms between Cotard’s syndrome as it is depicted in the show with what Will is suffering. It’s just that Will doesn’t know that he’s undergoing an entirely different thing than the killer.

Jack is also feeling very protective of Will and tries to assuage his fear and make him realize that he’s there for him, but I think their relationship is already too adversarial for that assurance to really work on Will. Especially when Hannibal already has his claws deep in there and has another doctor working with him to cover up Will’s encephalitis. Although that cover up isn’t lasting for very long now that almost half of the doctor’s face has been cut off! I know that Hannibal was the one that did this but I can’t remember why he did it.

Before this episode ends we see Will and Georgia Madchen, the killer in this episode, share a bittersweet moment where they connect and try to establish that yes, they do exist in the world. That existence, however, is in peril because Hannibal isn’t about to let Georgia rat him out for killing the doctor.