“Hannibal is clearly a serial killer show, the latest craze in television to spawn from the cop procedurals. Many of the criticisms of the genre can be applied to this show in certain ways — oversaturation of the media with violence, a dark world where real people fear killers lurking in the night, the treatment of women as beautiful corpses rather than realized and compelling characters. But Hannibal arguably transcends many of these.” —Jonathan Raeder

“I guess I’ll have to save my own life.” 

At the end of Hannibal‘s previous season, the collective fan base of the show rallied around the cry of “Somebody help Will Graham!” Will’s an intensely sympathetic character – he’s socially awkward, wants to help people and adopts dogs – but what’s contributed most is his powerlessness. We feel bad for Will; we hope that everything will turn out all right for him because he doesn’t deserve this treatment. Will Graham has been poked, prodded and abused more than any other (living) character. While he does provide valuable insight with his empathetic gift, Will is mostly passive – he’s manipulated by Hannibal, forced into dark situations by Jack, protected by Alana and exploited by Freddie. 

Except all that’s changed now. Will may still be behind bars, denounced as either a lunatic or an intelligent psychopath by nearly everyone, destined for the death penalty. Yet now he’s finally acquired a sense of agency. He knows Hannibal is a monster – in fact it’s one of the few things he’s sure about.

Yet he’s realized that shouting Hannibal’s guilt to Jack and Alana – and frankly, anyone who will listen – is going nowhere. He needs to outsmart Hannibal, to keep on remembering and piecing the clues together until he can build a solid case against him. He’s going to have to fight Hannibal using the same methods Hannibal used to destroy him – mind games and manipulation. When Hannibal and Alana confront Will at the beginning of the episode, he breaks down, acting the role of the poor innocent victim. This is – finally – just a mask, as the Will Graham back in his cell looks up into the camera, resolute, furious.

Outsmarting Hannibal won’t be easy, though. Life as the new Will Graham seems to suit Hannibal well – he’s ingratiating himself more with other characters, spending some time chatting with fellow serial killers, and collecting some more human body parts to serve for himself in his usual elegant manner. Hannibal is just as good at this as Will, and maybe even better – all it takes is smelling the corpse of the escapee victim to conjure up an image of cornfields that leads him straight to the killer. Hannibal climbing the silo in the golden afternoon, wearing a clear plastic suit and staring down the hole into an eye made of human bodies – has there ever been a scene so strange, nightmarish and quintessentially Hannibal?  

The body eye is preceded by a haunting opening in which the victim from Kaiseki’s ending awakes to discover his horrifying fate. In arguably the most gruesome and unsettling scene in the show’s history, he peels himself out of the eye and attempts to flee, managing to escape into the cornfield and eventually to a death that’s likely a better option than what awaits him back at the farm. It’s a scary, tense and ultimately sad scene, one definitely suited for this show.

Hannibal is clearly a serial killer show, the latest craze in television to spawn from the cop procedurals. Many of the criticisms of the genre can be applied to this show in certain ways — oversaturation of the media with violence, a dark world where real people fear killers lurking in the night, the treatment of women as beautiful corpses rather than realized and compelling characters. But Hannibal arguably transcends many of these. The female characters in the show are playing larger roles this season, and while many viewers will be turned off from the darkness of this show, it remains frighteningly beautiful. Sakizuki’s required scene of Hannibal cooking humans serves as a encapsulation of the show itself – taking the gruesome and making it somehow beautiful, even when we know what lurks underneath. 

Now Will isn’t the only person in the show to know what lurks underneath Hannibal’s mask — his therapist, Bedelia, has finally figured things out. Her role in the story is shaping up to be the biggest mystery this season — how did she come to the conclusion that Hannibal is really a monster wearing a person suit; how is she going to try to help Will; and will she survive the season? All questions of whether Hannibal really cared or could care about her — the one person he’s at least remotely honest with — are put to rest once the plastic suit-clad Hannibal enters her home at night, apparently ready to finally end their relationship for good.

Is this the last of Bedelia in the show? Will she assume a fake identity and flee for the rest of her life, anxiously awaiting the cannibal at her back? It’s possible, but Gillian Anderson is too talented for Bedelia’s part to be cut out out of the show so soon. She may yet have a part to play, possibly as a source of help for Will outside his prison.   

Whether or not Bedelia has any further role in assisting Will, it seems as though her vote of confidence — a theatrically whispered “I believe you” — is likely to give Will an added boost to his fight against Hannibal. The one person in the world who knows Hannibal the most has just confirmed to Will that’s he’s not crazy — and that Hannibal is disturbed, manipulative and very, very dangerous. Will immediately realizes that the body in the center of the eye is the killer himself, and, glimpsing the dark antlered-demon peering down through the hole above — his face finally clear and definitely Hannibal’s — realizes that Hannibal sewed him there. He made him a piece of art. A human being stripped of his humanity and made to comfort to another’s twisted desires. Just like Will. 

There will be a reckoning indeed.

Extra thoughts: 

  • Hannibal had so many great moments in this episode — his little smirk when Bedelia ends their sessions, peering down through the hole in the silo to say “Hello, I love your work,” and putting the killer into his own art, to name a few.
  • Jack continues to grow as an intriguing character, especially in the brief scene with his own therapist in which he accepts responsibility for Will’s state. He’s not such a bad guy after all.
  • I’m glad we’re seeing more of Beverly Katz this season — she’s one of the five main cast members after all, yet I have a feeling many people don’t know her name. She’s invented for the show, too, so her fate is up in the air.
  • The final scene of Will in his mind-river, fishing quietly only to have his reprieve disturbed by the floating bodies is fantastic — beautiful, haunting, symbolic and a callback to the beginning of the episode. This is television at its finest.
  • Again, this episode didn’t have any noticeable flaws. Good work, Hannibal team.