So that is what it feels like to take Bedelia’s concoction of drugs as this is one super trippy episode of Hannibal – yes even by Hannibal standards – as beginnings and ends blurred as one with all the many players in the Hannibal hunt approaching their prize. Plus there is always time for a kaleidoscope infused sex scene (thankfully minus the stag man from the last super trippy sex montage).
Last week ended with a broken and bloody Hannibal limping away into the night with a bruised and bloody Will Graham heading in the same direction to offer up his forgiveness. Hannibal is cornered, but he is not going to go down without a fight and while there are many after him; the conflicting reasons behind their desire to get Hannibal offers him up a chance of escape. Some want to kill him so they can shed that part of them, others want to cage him as he had caged them, money provides motive as does good old fashioned revenge.
All are operating outside the law so even though Jack and Alana just want to see him behind bars (I think both wouldn’t be too upset if he was killed but they’re primary objective is justice without any more casualties) they are working with other forces who don’t necessarily share this same view.
Jack wants to save the broken imagination of Will Graham which he borrowed and set him on this path of destruction; he tells Will that he needs to cut out the part which dreams of leaving with Hannibal. And this is probably why his choice of weapon against Hannibal is a knife as by slicing Hannibal it might free him and maybe he wants to etch a matching smile on his belly to solidify their bond. Will is foiled by Chiyo who is waiting with her rifle and her desire to cage the beast. Hannibal really does have a way of drawing people in and manipulating them in such a way that it feels imperative to protect him against all danger.
This gives Hannibal to opportunity to return to his position of apex predator as he now has control over an injured Will and plenty of drugs to subdue him. Tying him up is for later and despite not having read or seen the movie Hannibal I am very aware of the Ray Liotta brain eating scene and my dread levels at who might receive this fate grew with every moment Will sat at the table and the back of his head was in shadow. When Will asked who else was coming to dinner those fears shifted from Will to Jack who we see entering the building and sharing a lift with Chiyo, rifle case and all. No words are uttered in this journey up to the seventh floor and instead of engaging in violence Chiyo simply retreats saying she has got the wrong floor. Maybe she realized that there are too many players in this scenario and now she can fly free.
Unlike the epic fight sequence last week Jack enters the apartment without the upper hand and Hannibal is lying in wait under the table, ready to pounce and have the dinner party that was so rudely derailed at the end of last season.
Will is informed that you should never ask what is for dinner as it ruins the surprise, the surprise being that you are the one who is being served. Ah yes it is Will who is to suffer the brain eating and Jack can do nothing but react (cue plenty of screaming). The blood budget continues to grow this season as Will’s sprays all over the place rising up toward the ceiling as Jack’s did when he lay dying in Hannibal’s wine cellar. Cutting from the blood spray and blue skies to both Will and Hannibal strung upside down and back in America as they are welcomed to Muskrat Farm by none other than Mason Verger; Verger in this moment is Will’s savior and future torturer.
How did we get from dinner about to be served out of Will’s head to snowy scenes? Bedelia and Mason’s riches are the key to this one and instead of buying just one police officer Margot went ahead and made ‘friends’ with the whole department. Bedelia may not be fooling anyone with her “I’m Mrs Fell” routine, but she is not the prize everyone is vying for so in the end she gives the all important clue to Hannibal’s location and I’m guessing they arrived before too much damage could be done to Will’s already broken brain.
Mason has a whole lot planned for Hannibal and by extension Will (a two for one deal) as he is also high up on Mason’s shit list for various acts such as being present when the face eating occurred and impregnating his sister.
In one of Mason’s dreams he is walking (although his face is still disfigured) and surveying the Peking Duck version of Hannibal as the centerpiece of his revenge plan. While Mason seems to be winning in the ‘Who can get to Hannibal first? game (aside from the Pazzi money he lost) he doesn’t realize there is another scheme at play between his sister and Alana.
Flirtation has progressed to a super trippy merging body parts sex scene which feels like a sequel of sorts to the even trippier five-way that took place last year between two different bedrooms; Will saw Alana where Margot was and now Alana is there for Margot too. This pairing and subsequent hook-up is fine, but I also wish there had been more groundwork aside from that initial flirtatious scene in the stables because it all feels rather rushed. The way Alana ties up Margot’s black and white wrap dress (which I am coveting hard) shows a level of care and intimacy telling us a lot about their union and yet I would have liked to see more buildup between the pair.
Alana is wearing the plaid suit that got me so amped when I first saw it back when the promo photos were released as it mimics Hannibal’s style while also showcasing her new sartorial direction; the red plunging blouse and matching lipstick add to this aesthetic and there is still plenty of femininity in her look. It is also less severe than the all red looks which has dominated her costuming this season.
Margot’s let her hair down since Alana arrived and her curls mirror her new lovers while offering up a softer more nurturing side to her brother as part of the ruse. Mason’s cruelty took on a disturbing level when he not only terminated Margot’s pregnancy, but also removed her uterus taking away her choice and chance at any inheritance. Her plan is still focused on getting that back and Mason holds the key; he thinks she is agreeing to raise a child together, but instead she is in collusion with Alana and Alana is going to turn Mason into the FBI when he has Hannibal. In the end Alana Bloom is still very much the same Alana Bloom as she was before the defenestration encounter.
Now both Hannibal and Will are on the farm it seems that Alana’s position within the Verger inner circle will be of paramount importance; how will she react when confronted with a Hannibal in need of savior?
History has a way of repeating as Bedelia notes (and something I focused on last week) and the “hot darkness of Hannibal Lecter’s mind” has a way of dragging people down into the inky abyss in many different ways. Bedelia is one such person and she has embraced this at times including an actual embrace as Bedelia and Hannibal go beyond bathtime chats in levels of intimacy in “Dolce” with an actual goodbye kiss.
In a reverse of Bedelia’s whispered assurance that she believed Will last season when he was locked up, Will leans in and whispers “I don’t believe you.” But at this point Bedelia is giving none of the fucks and the performance Gilliam Anderson gives as she’s half propped up is incredible.
Just look at this exceptional face.
Jack even admits that he can’t be that mad at her because her plan is quite incredible and they also note her unprecedented survival skills. Lucky for her the net closed in before she had marinated for the appropriate time and this suggests her weekly trips to the same high end deli was no mistake; she was simply sending out the signals as to Hannibal’s location to anyone who might be looking. Even though she has essentially been free the entire time, as with everyone else she can’t leave his sphere of influence and she is another one of his birds. But at least she had the foresight to hatch her own escape plan for when he did get caught.
Drawn together and in a scene which resembles a meet cute of sorts in the gallery location which means so much to Hannibal (which gave me instant About Time feelings), but instead of it being a first hello it is reunion wrapped up in a goodbye. They share smiles, jokes, hurt feelings, catching up on what they have been up to. The usual.
There is a strong romantic undercurrent from the music that floats between the words to the discussion about how they are blurring into one. Except the romance here is tinged with death as Will reveals he feels guilty of all of Hannibal’s many, many crimes. We have been inside Will’s head so many times where he experiences other people’s diabolical acts and it isn’t surprising that some of them have remained inside his empathetic mind.
We’ve spent so long circling Will and Hannibal and when they would sharing the same space beyond mind palace chats, stabbing hug flashbacks and playing “I forgive you” hide and seek so when they came together in this location it hit me harder emotionally in a way I wasn’t expecting. Sure really horrible things went down after this conversation, but in this moment in the gallery I totally understood all the Hannigram devotion. Plus Hannibal turned Bedelia and Will into Botticelli figures which is some kind of next level fan art from Hannibal.
And for surreal inky ‘we become one’ images look no further than Will’s drug induced dinner time visions.
Now Will and Hannibal’s fates are entwined in another fashion and it isn’t a case of whether Will kills Hannibal or if Hannibal eats Will. Instead they are both in the same pig farm predicament and it is going to be fun seeing how they get out of this pickle and where it leaves them after.
