Ron Does Stuff

Oh my goodness, look at me consistently posting? At the end of the first episode of this second season, we saw what the killer of the week was doing — an eye made up of people. Will Hannibal catch this killer, since Will’s in jail. Let’s see!

Gotta be honest, the opening scene here is a lot now that I’m old and decrepit. The skin tearing off as the victim moves to set himself free from “the eye”? I can’t handle it. I think as a younger person I might have been able to stomach this but I’m not that young person anymore. It’s not “over-the-top gruesome that it’s no longer gory” like the tower of human corpses.

Unfortunately for him, while he does manage to escape “the eye”, he still ends up dead as the only way for him to escape from the killer is to jump down a cliff onto a river. Unfortunately, he hits his head on the way down.

Back at Baltimore and inside Chilton’s hospital, Will is with Alana and Hannibal, who are trying to help him with his situation. Will seems to have changed his tune, making it sound like he also isn’t sure that Hannibal did this to him, which I think is just a performance on his part. Whether he’s doing that for Alana or Hannibal remains to be seen.

And it looks like Will isn’t the only change happening in Hannibal’s life, as Bedelia visits him in his office, which I think is the first time it’s happened? At least, it’s the first time it’s been shown in the show. Bedelia has come to end her psychiatrist-patient relationship with Hannibal and reveals that she knows what he is. Yeah, I know she only said that he’s dangerous, but I think Bedelia’s smarter than that. This was a great scene to quietly telegraph just how dangerous Hannibal is, though, with Bedelia moving back whenever Hannibal approaches her. I also loved how she described Hannibal wearing a person suit.

Also, Bedelia saying Hannibal and Will deserve each other? Am pretty sure Hannibal got a half chub at least.

Back at the FBI, Katz shares the insight she learned from Will without sharing that it came from Will, but Hannibal is smart enough to figure out that the insight didn’t come from her. This leads to Katz being called to Crawford’s office, where we learn that even Crawford is unsure if Will is the Chesapeake Ripper, and that he wants Katz to keep consulting with Will.

Back at the FBI morgue, I really loved the visual the show came up with to depict Hannibal’s sense of smell, showing him in the middle of that cornfield with the victim’s body on a slab. And then there’s that small smile on his face when he decides — I think! — not to share it with the FBI.

We then get a conversation between Will and Hannibal in Chilton’s office, which is a nice spin? tweak? on how the scene goes in Red Dragon. It’s less confrontational than the one in the movie and the book, and that’s because Will is trying to lull Hannibal into a false sense of security. And when Will meets Katz later on, we also see a little tweak on that Hannibal and Clarice dynamic from The Silence of the Lambs. It’s a little more equal this time around, and Katz is more outwardly pushy than Clarice was, at least during her first meeting with Hannibal.

At the end of Katz and Will’s meeting, Will tells her that Hannibal might be holding things back from them, immediately followed by a scene of Hannibal in his plastic suit at the site of the killer’s location. Sorry, but I can’t help but think of JYP’s plastic pants whenever I see Hannibal in his plastic suit.

Hannibal manages to catch the killer as he’s about to work on his “eye”, but it’s not immediately clear what he does to him because the next scene we see is the FBI pulling out the bodies from the corn silo. We also find out that Hannibal did share the corn smell with the FBI, but I’m assuming this was after he confronted the killer.

Now this might just be me, because we never fully see the killer’s face, but isn’t he the one in the center of the eye? Hannibal killed him and chopped off his leg? Somebody who’s watched this more than a decade ago, help me out! AND IT TURNS OUT I DON’T NEED HELP BECAUSE HANNIBAL PREPARES THE KILLER’S LEG LATER ON.

Bedelia is also making moves, but it’s to save her own skin, I think she was signalling to Crawford that she is in danger from Hannibal, but apparently, Crawford isn’t much for subtlety and should have been conked on the head instead. I think that’s why Bedelia asked the FBI not to contact her again.

Will, however, is getting contacted again, this time by Katz and Hannibal at the same time. Katz tries to imply that she can’t look into Will’s case like she promised if Will doesn’t help her out with the mural, and I think Hannibal is noticing and probably even figured out what’s happening. I think Katz might be in danger here!

Thanks to Will’s help, the FBI finds out who the killer is, and the audience also gets to see the final conversation between the killer and Hannibal. I think Hannibal’s line here about God enjoying killing was from one of the books? I can’t remember if it’s from Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs.

After that meeting, Will has yet another visitor, Miranda Hobbes. Miranda tries to get him to plead guilty in his upcoming case, but Will is adamant about putting in a not guilty verdict. And just like that…Miranda Hobbes has her hands full.

However, that isn’t the final scene of the episode. Will has one last visitor, and it’s Bedelia. Bedelia has one tantalizing message for Will: she believes him.