Ron Does Stuff

We’re halfway through the season, and we just saw Hannibal survive a serial killer in the previous episode, which I think doesn’t bode well for Will’s chances. Now Hannibal knows that Will is out to get him.

The first thing we see in the episode is Hannibal playing the harpsichord, which I didn’t even know you could still find intact in this day and age. I don’t know if this is before or after he almost got himself killed, though.

Meanwhile, Will is being interrogated by Crawford, who asks him point blank if Will asked that attendant to kill Hannibal. Will denies any involvement, though, which is possible since the attendant turned off the listening devices when he was courting Will in his cage for one.

During the interrogation, we also get a little nod to The Silence of the Lambs film when Will asks Crawford what needs does the Chesapeake Ripper serve when he kills. I also liked how Crawford’s face looks after Will tells him that the two of them have probably eaten some of Hannibal’s victims before.

So where is Hannibal? With Alana, preparing a feast. He’s really leaning into his almost death, showing off his scars and saying he can still feel the noose around his neck. He also says he’s been having nightmares, and I’m all…really? But it’s just Hannibal feeling his oats, I think, relishing being the poor widdle baby just this once and it not being Will. He also says he needs to get his appetite back, which leads to this really grotesquely beautiful tableau of what might be his latest victim. I say might because it could be some other killer, but I think it’s him.

Crawford thinks this new victim is someone the Chesapeake Ripper targeted, but he doesn’t talk about it with Hannibal, at least not immediately. What, or better yet, who they end up talking about is Will, and how his most recent action has changed things for Hannibal. When Crawford finally talks about this new Ripper victim, Hannibal says he can’t dwell on death anymore and you as a viewer kinda wanna go “Really, girl?” Hannibal says he’s going to be hosting a dinner party, and now we know why he can’t consult on this case. The meat will spoil!

Over at Chilton’s hospital, Will — I believe — fully takes advantage of Chilton eavesdropping on his conversations to put it out there that Hannibal is going to eventually kill Abel Gideon and Chilton himself, and since Chilton is a predictable sleazebag, he gives this information to Crawford. And while Crawford isn’t easily convinced, Chilton wears him down enough for Crawford to note that Hannibal is throwing a dinner party at the same time that the Chesapeake Ripper has started to kill again.

As the lab guys work on the tree that is definitely Hannibal’s victim, they manage to track down where the victim was kept before he was killed. But Crawford puts a pin on that for the meantime and has a talk with Alana about Chilton’s recording. Unfortunately, Alana thinks that Will is genuinely a killer, and I think Crawford puts more stock in her opinion than he does Chilton, and who can blame him?

While Alana and Crawford have their talk, the two men they’re talking about are having a conversation of their own. Within that little back and forth, while Hannibal says that he feels hurt by Will’s attempt to kill him, my headcanon is that he’s also a little proud and a little turned out by Will’s ruthlessness. I think he’s always wanted Will to be like him, and Will’s desire to kill him might just be the thing that pushes Will over the edge. But he also makes sure to remind Will that if he continues down that path, he could hurt other people that Will values, like Alana Bloom.

But Hannibal also has a feast to prepare, and I think I’ve said this before in a previous post, but they really shoot the food spectacularly in this show. That whole sequence of Hannibal preparing the food was delicious. I wonder who’s going to be eating all of that?

Meanwhile, Crawford is meeting with Abel Gideon to see if there’s any substance to Chilton’s recording, and of course, Gideon refuses to corroborate the recording. Gideon even tries to insinuate that maybe it was Chilton who sent that killer to kill Hannibal, which of course results in Gideon being killed by the hospital guards. But was Chilton behind all of that?

We then go to Hannibal’s party, which is packed with guests that include Alana and Crawford, and it’s darkly funny to watch all the people eating Hannibal’s victims and enjoying it. Chilton’s face when he was looking at…whatever that dish was? Hilarious. Crawford doesn’t stay look at the party though, but just takes some of the dishes on offer with him back, presumably to be tested in the FBI Lab to see if it’s human. The background music and Alana’s face make it seem like Hannibal didn’t plan for this and that he knows Crawford is going to have those tested, but I’m feeling like the music is a misdirect and Crawford won’t find anything suspicious about the meat.

Alana certainly believes that Crawford is in the wrong here for continuing to suspect Hannibal, and eventually ends up sleeping with him. Meanwhile, you as a viewer just kinda want to shake Alana a little bit and tell her she has horrible taste in men. That’s twice now you’ve ended up with a gay man.

After Alana falls asleep after making love with Hannibal, Hannibal gets out of bed to pay Abel Gideon a visit, who apparently did not die from the hospital guards throwing him off the stairs. While Hannibal doesn’t kill him in the hospital, Gideon might just wish that the opposite was true and Hannibal just ended his life in the hospital.

Of course, since he had sex with Alana before going off to abduct Gideon, Hannibal has an alibi. I also appreciated the reference to the census taker whose liver Hannibal ate with some fave beans and a nice Chianti.

After successfully using Alana as his alibi, we finally find out what happened to Gideon. With his back broken, he can no longer use his legs, so Hannibal thought it best to serve it to him. Props to Gideon for not backing down and eating his own leg!

As I expected, none of the meat Crawford took was human. Hannibal has also given Will an out, by using the same lures that were used to frame him to point all the murders to the Chesapeake Ripper. Which is himself, but Crawford and the FBI don’t know that yet.

The lures also have clues that lead to the same place where Hannibal’s victim at the top of the episode was killed, and guess who Crawford finds there? Miriam Lass. Alive.