“The killers in Hannibal are nightmares, exaggerated versions of people that hopefully don’t actually exist. They create art with their killings, “honoring” their victims in twisted ways that nonetheless make their corpses paradoxically beautiful and repugnant.” — Jonathan Raeder
“What do you think about when you think about killing?”
The killers in Hannibal are nightmares, exaggerated versions of people that hopefully don’t actually exist. They create art with their killings, “honoring” their victims in twisted ways that nonetheless make their corpses paradoxically beautiful and repugnant. The killings may be horrifying and violent, but they’re obviously the result of human hands. As Peter points out in Shiizakana: “Man is the only creature that kills to kill.”
Yet what are we to make of the killings in this episode? Dismembered corpses, gouts of blood, red splattered across the snow — this is not beautiful. It’s purely animalistic. Beasts have featured heavily in Hannibal’s mythology from the beginning — just take the stag that represents Hannibal himself — yet these last few episodes have raised that motif until it’s practically the overarching theme of the show. The lines between man and beast are really quite blurred, especially when killing comes into play. Randall Tier, the Cave Bear Killer, doesn’t even bother with grappling with his humanity. He’s embraced his beastly nature in the only way possible and wants to kill for no reason. Such a human thing to do, to kill for no purpose. He can’t escape his humanity, just as the rest of us can’t escape our beastly nature.
Hannibal delights in manipulating his patients, playing God — or rather, the Devil — and twisting damaged souls into murders. He came very close with Will, but Shiizakana makes it clear that he’s done it before, perhaps many times. Hannibal is trying his best to turn Will into a beast, to tap into the darkness that flared up when he killed Garrett Jacob-Hobbs in the pilot and when he attempted via proxy to kill Hannibal himself. He failed when he tried to change Will unconsciously, but if he somehow succeeds at changing a fully cognizant Will, then he’s truly become a masterful manipulator, the god he desires to be.
Will’s put himself under Hannibal’s influence again, but this time he knows who he is and he knows Hannibal’s secret. There’s always been an underlying tension between them — not exactly romantic or sexual love, but definitely some kind of attraction that manifests itself in similar ways. It’s even more obvious here, creeping into the close-ups of the two’s faces, their discussions about how killing Hannibal with his own bare hands would be so more satisfying. Will is trying to seduce Hannibal, to get him to think that he’s succeeded in turning him back around to his side. They’re both playing a dangerous game, each trying to convince the other that despite knowing what the other truly is doing, they should give in anyway.
This week’s other major plotline involves the increasing importance of Margo Verger. She’s tracked Will down and had a drink of whiskey while discussing their pasts and opinions of their mutual psychiatrist. Will’s on guard, not sure if Margo’s been sent there by Hannibal or someone else, and only gives vague answers. Yet the two are definitely related, part of the same twisted family that now consists of Will, Margo, Randall, Miriam, and anyone else that’s been treated to Hannibal’s “painful but effective” therapy. Margo continues to drop hints about Jason Verger, her no doubt horrible brother. What’s his ultimate role in the season or series going to be? It’s safe to say that with his history and his current status as an heir to a meatpacking industry, he’s definitely going to fit in with the rest of Hannibal’s colorful cast of villains.
Despite the killings being vicious and decidedly less beautiful, Shiizakana continues to astound in cinematography, sound, and an incredible scene of building dread near the end. The opening dream sequence, bathed in white light, in which Hannibal is choked to death in an elaborate contraption built by Will and pulled by a stag is particularly striking. Will’s inner darkness continues to be amazing to see; just look at him, dripping blood from his mouth and leering into the camera as he realizes that the killer is a person, not a bear.
Shiizakana shines the most in the ending sequence, in which Hannibal sets Randall on Will’s home in the dark of night. Will’s dog Buster chases after the killer, and for a terrifying moment all audiences’ worst fear – a dead dog – seems to be realized. Fortunately, Will manages to save him in a heart-pounding scene. We expect Randall to loom over him at any moment, yet Will gets back to his house, locks the doors, turns off the lights, and awaits his hunter. His prey? It’s hard to tell, especially when he gets that look of intense resolution right before Randall bursts through the window.
Then the inevitable jump forward. We don’t see Will kill Randall – and for a moment it’s unclear what even happened at all — but we finally realize that Hannibal’s goal all along was to get Will to kill Randall, to take another step closer to embracing his inner beast. Hopefully we’ll learn in more detail exactly what happened in next week’s episode. This season has only four episodes left in which to get to the flash-forward of Jack and Hannibal’s fight, if that indeed is where they’re going. How does Hannibal get caught between now and then? He’s managed to cover most of tracks, and is now left to cook food of ambiguous sources — it’s even more surprisingly that it might not be humans. It seems like Will might have to get Hannibal to slip up, but in order to do so he’s going to have to willingly walk back into Hannibal’s darkness. That can’t be good for his sanity.
Tidbits:
· Honestly, at first the “man in a beast costume” seemed ridiculous, somehow too much for even Hannibal. Yet somehow it all ended up fitting together and resulting in one of the best episodes of the season.
· How much is Will telling the truth when he talks about loving the feeling of killing? Part of me thinks he’s exaggerating to bait Hannibal, and part of me thinks the only way to effectively bait Hannibal is to tell the truth.
· Jack didn’t have a ton to do in this episode, but he continues to drop very subtle hints about his true feelings about Hannibal. He wants to forget things. Forget what he knows Hannibal is behind the person mask.
· “I’m the guy who didn’t kill all those people.”
