Ron Does Stuff

It’s the final episode of the season! Like I said before, I’ve only ever watched the first season of Hannibal, so I’m excited to finish this season and finally get into the rest of the show. Let’s go!

At the end of the previous episode, we saw what seemed to be the end for Abigail Hobbs as Hannibal told her that he was going to kill her. Quite a departure from Red Dragon!

The previous episode, aided by my spotty memory, did a great job of confusing me about what was actually happening but I know that the opening scene of this episode is only happening in Will’s mind because we see him hunting the deer-like creature he sees when Hannibal is around. And this time he sees the creature take on a humanoid shape before he is jolted awake.

But is he really awake? He retches out a human ear in the sink and it leaves him shook enough to call Hannibal over. He tells him that he went to Minnesota with Abigail but he didn’t come back home with her and shows Hannibal the very real ear in his kitchen sink. Looks like he was really awake then. And Hannibal puts in the performance of a lifetime as he acts all shocked and distressed at Will recounting that he hallucinated killing Abigail. He tells Will that they have to call Jack and I am laughing morbidly at how great of an actor Hannibal is. You killed Abigail, not Will!

Jack is very disappointed in Will and brings him in, but the disappointment that probably hit Will the most is Beverly Katz’. She looked out for him and even taught him how to shoot better. During evidence gathering, Katz asks Will point-blank if he knows how the blood under his fingernails got there and he honestly doesn’t know. Poor Will.

Alana hears the news as well and when Crawford lists down all the evidence that pins the death of Abigail Hobbs on Will she is not happy. I am always a fan of any actor who does the whole “eyes brimming with tears” thing and Caroline Dhavernas does it so well here. It’s also a little gut-wrenching when Crawford says that the brain scan on Will revealed nothing when we know that Hannibal hid the fact that Will has encephalitis.

Alana is the one that has to do psychopathology tests on Will and she is immediately put on alert when Will lets slip that Hannibal asked him to draw a clock. Will still doesn’t know that he’s been drawing a crooked clock but now, without Hannibal’s interference, Alana knows and maybe she’s going to do something about it.

Hannibal continues his Oscar campaign as he pretends to grieve the death of Abigail Hobbs in front of Bedelia, knowing full well that he killed her. He also acts like he was solving Will when the audience knows for a fact that Will potentially being sent to prison is all because of him. And we know this because in the scene where the evidence team is checking out Will’s fly-fishing lures, pieces of all of Hannibal’s victims are found. We’ve seen Hannibal go into Will’s home and fiddle with those lures. I can’t remember the episode right now but we have.

After that scene, we get Crawford telling Will that they’re going to look into what is physically wrong with him, because Alana has been able to check on him without Hannibal’s interference. Crawford tells Will about all the evidence they’ve found linking him to the murders Hannibal committed and even with his encephalitis, Will figures out that he’s being set up and that the person setting him up is close to Crawford. However, Crawford believes otherwise and arrests Will and Will does the stupid thing and orchestrates an escape.

Crawford meets up with Alana and Hannibal to discuss Will’s actions and Hannibal is a truly evil fucker as he presents a doctored version of the clock Will drew for him, all to cover his own steps. He’s a little spooked when Alana correctly guesses that Will is suffering from encephalitis but manages to recover quickly enough to tell a false account of the moments before he and Will went to Garrett Jacon Hobbs’ house.

After that meeting, Will shows up at Hannibal’s office and tells him that he started doubting that he killed Abigail Hobbs when all of the copycat’s other murders were also pinned on him. Will knows who he is but Hannibal insists that he doesn’t and this is truly what gaslighting means.

Hannibal tries to pin the other murders on Will by engaging in a mental exercise with him but all it does is make things even clearer for Will. And can I just say the props and the set design for this sequence? Beautiful.

The morbid beauty continues when they get to Minnesota and Will gradually pieces together the events that have happened since episode 1. And the confrontation between him and Hannibal when he finally gets to see who Hannibal is behind the human facade? Great acting from Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen!

Will figures out that it’s Hannibal who’s the copycat killer — the scales have fallen from his eyes — and the horror of what Hannibal’s done to him fully hits him. And as for Hannibal? I think he’s happy! Not because Will is having a breakdown in front of him but because Will sees him. He’s known. And don’t they say that to be loved is to be known?

Crawford arrives just in time to “save” Hannibal from Will and I love how the production has moved things around so it’s now a mirror image of sorts of the first episode. The shot of Will in the hospital bed with Crawford and Hannibal looking at him? Great.

After seeing Will at the hospital, Hannibal brings over veal to Bedelia and tells her that he’s meeting Will tomorrow as a “farewell” and telling her that Will cost Abigail her life. Which is true! If Abigail hadn’t turned to Will Hannibal wouldn’t have killed Abigail. And the way Hannibal looks at Bedelia when she eats the veal? It has me thinking that isn’t veal. But Bedelia isn’t a dumb bitch and I think she knows who Hannibal is as well and just like Hannibal, I think she’s curious about how things are going to turn out.

We then get the final scene of this episode, which mirrors Clarice Starling heading to Hannibal Lecter’s cell in The Silence of the Lambs. And I don’t know anything about opera so I don’t know the piece being sung at all but goddamn if it doesn’t sound like something you’d use at a wedding.