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cedarxwing · 3 months

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Hannibal Season 4 Plot Ideas

The main concepts that keep coming up in interviews of Bryan Fuller and some of the cast are:

"Will Graham's broken mind" and "memory palace bullshit"

"Inception meets Angel Heart"

an interesting return to season one dynamics, but flipped

deeper exploration of Will and Hannibal's relationship than in previous seasons

stuff from Hannibal the novel that no other adaptation has done yet.

we're in Cuba

So based on that, here are some possible story beats for S4 (picking up right after the Fall as if the show was never cancelled):

We start out in Cuba. The most obvious reason? To hunt down one of their victims that have fled the country, as Hannibal does at the end of Silence of the Lambs. Based on interviews, it's clear that Chilton would remain in the US to head the BSHCI again (how is he alive, let alone working?), so it's more likely that they're hunting Bedelia for the post credits leg scene.

Will Graham's Broken Mind

During the Fall, Will suffers a mental schism that splits his personality, similar to the detective in Angel Heart. I don't think he literally has a split personality disorder, but he compartmentalizes his killer/Hannibal self from his moral self. When he participates in murders, he's not quite himself, viewing it through a dream lens (we saw a little of this when he was killing the Dragon). It's possible that he takes on personality traits from killers in season one, or even has to fight against a Red Dragon personality ("You can always toss the Dragon to someone else." "Will Graham interests me.")

I think we'll see a return of the teacup metaphor relating to Will's mental schism, since their reunion represents the "teacup coming together again" the way Hannibal wanted it to in Digestivo. "Not even in your mind?" Well, the teacup HAS come back together in Will's mind, because there's no other way for him to accept his feelings for Hannibal. He mentally regresses back to season one/two and we see the return of the Abigail imago we last saw in Primavera, as well as Beverly and Hobbs and Gideon and all our other friends. Maybe Will thinks they're all alive again! Or maybe he thinks he's dead! This would be really poetic from Hannibal's perspective, since his arc in the novel is about dropping a teacup and "being satisfied when it does not gather itself together." So it would be perfect for the cup to gather itself in Will's head and for Hannibal to realize that's not at all what he wants.

Will hallucinating Abigail would be a fun way to get the "murder family" dynamic. "It's hard to grasp what would've happened, could've happened. In some other world… did happen." Well, we can see that world in Will's broken mind!

I don't have a clear guess of what a "return to season one but flipped" might mean. There are lots of possibilities...

1. Could refer to Will's encephalitis days when he wasn't sure if he was committing the murders or not, except this time he's committing them. Maybe he has a pendulum wipe moment and thinks he's reconstructing a murder instead of committing it (like a reverse of the Georgia Madchen murder in Buffet Froid). Going extreme in this direction, maybe he analyzes his own crime scenes with Hannibal in therapy. Maybe Beverly shows up at an actual crime scene and helps him "analyze the evidence."

2. Could refer to his dynamic with Hannibal. According to the rest of my bullet points, they return to their therapy sessions, but with memory palace elements and hallucinations, etc., but this time Hannibal is trying to fix Will instead of breaking him down.

Something from Hannibal the novel that no one else has adapted

This could be a few things, but I think it's most likely the end of the novel where he's brainwashing Clarice. Hannibal would use drugs and hypnosis ("therapy") to help Will merge his two halves and fully accept who he is. This happens in different places in their memory palaces, kind of like the white space dinner scene from Dolce, or when they were jumping around to different places in the Red Dragon investigation. To be clear, they're on friendly terms. Will consents to this. He has ample opportunity to escape and go back the US if he wants. We might get a lot of information on Will's childhood and backstory, maybe a "saving Hannah the slaughterhorse"/"silence of the lambs" moment. I'd like to see him as a cop working in New Orleans. The time he got stabbed. The time he didn't have the stomach to pull the trigger. This would be a nice reverse from the S3a dynamic where Will was delving into Hannibal's backstory. :)

Part of this "therapy" could be helping Will let go of Abigail the way Hannibal helped Clarice let go of her father. This plot beat has already been done twice in the show (1. The Primavera line "A place was made for you, Abigail. The only place I could make for you" refers to the place in Will's mind. 2. The WCWTS scene where Hannibal helps Abigail let go of her father. "What you need of your father is here, in your head.") BUT I still want to see it with Will/Hannibal. What I'm really saying is it would be cool if Hannibal showed Will Abigail's skeleton to convince him that she's dead and Will cried over her skull.

For the other half of Will's therapy, Hannibal has to get him to really delight in a murder when he's fully present as himself (Similar to how Clarice ate Paul Krendler's brain. Similar to how Hannibal wanted Will to kill Mason Verger.). Ideally the victim wouldn't be a criminal (Will is already fine killing murderers like Dolarhyde and Bedelia), but a representative of the corrupt judicial system. Someone who has personally slighted Will. An FBI official that Will HATES enough to eat their brain. The perfect option is Kade Prurnell (whose name is an anagram for Paul Krendler!). So yeah I think Hannibal catches Kade Prurnell and they have a dinner party where Will kills her and realizes, "Hey, I don't care what Jack or Alana or the FBI or anyone thinks about me anymore. My personal ethical code is good enough for me because I am MORE ethical than the law." And then he and Hannibal can be full murder husbands after that.

Side character subplots

While all this is happening, there's an international manhunt for Will and Hannibal going on. Jack/Price/Zeller are still at the FBI, probably beefing with Kade Prurnell to establish how awful her character is. Either Clarice Starling, Miriam Lass, or Alana Bloom are on the case. The murder/disappearance of Bedelia (or whoever) in Cuba is their first lead, so everyone gets to go to Cuba!

It's been nearly two seasons since Will interacted with Prurnell, so maybe they need to have a cat and mouse dynamic in Cuba to reignite his loathing. Idk why she would be in Cuba, when she works for the OIG... but who cares! She's there, motivated by greed, basically acting as Will's Pazzi. Maybe she's bullying her underlings in true Krendler fashion.

At this point, Jack is the only somewhat moral person in the entire cast. His primary motivation is saving Will. Yep, that's right, he still thinks there's a chance to bring Will back. He's leading the investigation, but he's hoping to catch Will alone before anyone else finds him so he can try to talk him back onto his side. This would continue the God vs. Devil thing with Hannibal, fighting over Will's soul.

Maybe Jack finds Will when he's in his broken state of mind and they have a chat. I'd want this scene to function like Clarice's hypnosis scene where she talks to her "father." Jack and Will address the vague father/son dynamic they have ("I'm not your father, Will." "Abandonment requires expectation." Jack as God/Will as the Lamb). Jack forgives Will for his crimes. Will forgives Jack for sacrificing him. The conversation helps Will along in his "therapy."

Last time we saw Alana, she was fleeing on a helicopter with Margot and their son. My first thought was "Omg they're going to Cuba! They're going to get Chilton'ed in Cuba!" but Fuller has mentioned that Margot would be actively managing the Verger meat packing company as a vegan girlboss lesbian so idk. (I personally don't see how a vegan could run a meatpacking company... maybe it transitions to tofu packing).

Anyway, I think Alana's character has gotten even darker since Hannibal's escape. She's given up on Will and is completely focused on protecting her family. Knowing Hannibal is going to come to kill her, maybe she sets up some sort of trap for when they come (or she puts Will's dogs under a cardboard box held up by a stick and waits). Maybe she catches Will and Will has to pull a Bedelia and pretend he was kidnapped and brainwashed (and he kinda was, if Hannibal used hypnosis and drugs like in the book). I think it would be fun for her to finally give into her "professional curiosity" about Will and try to study him (like a Bedelia/Mason hybrid character). Maybe she teams up with Jack to use Will to catch Hannibal. It would be wild if W+H actually killed her, but maybe! Maybe she gets the Chilton treatment and lives, but gets a nice facial scar like every other fallen character in the show.

Freddie Lounds would have to come back! And I want her DEAD haha. She's escaped punishment for too long, so in my ideal S4, she writes a book about Abigail even though Will asked her not to. Maybe she's investigating/contaminating Will's crime scenes in Cuba? She's definitely gonna die, but not before W+H use Tattlecrime for some shenanigans!

Chilton loses a limb (that's really all he has left to give). In an actual S4, I'm sure there would be a plot reason for this and some other killer would probably do it, but in my mind it's a comedy beat. W+H don't even set out to get Chilton. They don't hate him, they just find him pathetically entertaining at this point. Through Chilton's own incompetence or some karmic twist of fate, he runs into them (like Barney at the opera). W+H take one look at each other and go, "You know what would be funny..."

I have NO idea what to do for Molly. I assume she's living with Wally's grandparents in Oregon. Maybe Will mails her some signed divorce papers and that becomes evidence in the investigation lol. I'd rather leave her in peace!

More serial killers who used to be Hannibal's patients! W+H read about a former patient's murders in the news and go to catch him before the FBI can (running into the FBI in the process, of course).

Other stuff

I'd love to skip around to Brazil or Buenos Aires, the South American locations from the books. Maybe Hannibal gets injured and needs surgery in Brazil, and his medical records are another lead for the investigation. Maybe the season ends with a happily ever after in Buenos Aires. <3

They pretend to be recovering from plastic surgery to hide their faces in bandages. I just think that would be funny.

Will escapes Alana's clutches by using all the serial killer skills he learned in season one. He pretends to be a dead body, wearing someone else's face as in SotL. (This was actually in the Digestivo script but it got cut.)

They steal an ambulance (and turn off the radio!) again like SotL. And then the "This is very educational" line from Sorbet would come full circle.

Someone has to send a secret message using book code. What if W+H got separated and that's how they had to communicate? Or maybe they communicate to another killer that they're hunting? Or maybe they do it just to taunt the FBI?

Jack vs. Hannibal fight scene (round 3)! This time over Will's soul. Will watches, amused (maybe in broken mind state).

(If anyone else has thoughts I'd love to hear them!)

#hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannibal s4 #hannibal season 4 #hannibal meta #will graham #hannigram #cedar writes

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