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NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1: E6 -- HOPE IS THE THING WITH SURGICAL TROPHIES

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E6 – HOPE IS THE THING WITH SURGICAL TROPHIES

Hello readers and #FannibalFamily! Yes, it’s been a hot minute since I have updated this blog. What can I say? Life has a tendency to intervene. A few real-life events knocked me out of my daily writing pattern and I am just now beginning to regain my balance. This blog is, however, something I am committed to finishing no matter how long it takes, and so, I am digging back into the scripts of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal and prepared to create my next installment – an analysis of the theme, the message, the universal lesson in the happenings of Season 1, Episode 6: “Entrée.”

I must make an important note that at this point, I have rewatched the show some five or six times. But this is my first time delving into the scripts for all the episodes. I have to occasionally remind myself about scenes in these episodes or lines of dialogue that wound up being cut or moved to a different episode. But since I am approaching this project as an English major and analyzing both the show and the scripts as a TEXT – (my literary theory professor, Dr. Hogue, always said that everything in life is a TEXT and he was damn sure right about that) – then I see no issue with the fact that sometimes the words I am analyzing didn’t always make it to the screen in the exact form they started out in. Hannibal is a series that is a feast for all the senses – its visual beauty, its soundtrack and score and sound effects, the effort put in to rendering the most beautiful depictions of food on the screen and so perhaps the viewer can imagine their taste – (I have dreamed feverishly about those High Life Eggs more than once, I can tell you) – but all of it begins where good stories start – on the page. And so, it is to the page and the words that I remain loyal.

This episode of Hannibal, “Entrée,” had two authors. Kai Yu Wu conceived the story and Wu and Bryan wrote it together. The episode was directed by Michael Rymer.

In the order of our French dishes, by which each episode of the first season is named, at this point in the series, we have partaken of the following: a pre-dinner drink, a little bitty appetizer, a bowl of hearty soup, some eggs, and a chicken or fish dish baked in a sauce and served in a scallop shell or scallop-shaped dish. And so now, a viewer must ask, “What’s next?” That or: “I need to take a break because I’m full.” At which, Bryan Fuller points at the viewer’s plate and says, “You’ll clean your plate and you’ll like it. You’ll love it. You’ll beg me for another season when we’re done.” Just trust him. He’s the chef. You always trust the chef. They know what they’re doing.

In a classic French meal, the entrée is not necessarily the main dish and it is not always served – sometimes they skip courses. When it does appear, it is usually a meat dish, in a sauce (GOTTA HAVE A SAUCE), and with sides. In American cuisine, entrée has come to mean a MAIN COURSE always. And what an entrée is in American cuisine varies wildly by what is on the menu, who is eating it, and how many fried cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers the person had prior to the entrée arriving at their table. Still, the idea holds. When you say the word “entrée,” people expect a main course – something substantial, something that sticks to your ribs. And in this episode, there is definitely a lot of meat – meat that has been rubbed and aged over the last five episodes and is now sliced and steaming from the oven. This episode is mostly about advancing the MAIN storyline – that of the Chesapeake Ripper and the FBI’s and namely, Jack Crawford’s, attempts to catch the seasoned killer. (Seasoned… see what I did there? YOU GOT PUNNED!)

And on a thirsty side note: After viewing the scene in which Will Graham reenacts the murder of nurse Elizabeth Shell, the fact that the episode is named “Entrée,” makes complete sense. Hugh Dancy in that scene is an entire meal with ample meat for leftovers. (Seriously – JFC – if you haven’t seen it, or seen it lately, do yourself a favor and have some GOOD FOOD.)

We start the episode with our introduction to one of the series’ completely original characters, Dr. Abel Gideon, a former transplant surgeon, who after being convicted of the murders of his wife and her family, has been incarcerated in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, for the last two years. The character is portrayed with amazing skill, subtlety, and awesomeness, by Suzy Eddie Izzard. I have been a longtime fan of Izzard’s work and was insanely pleased to see the actor amongst the cast members.

I must point out the literary significance of the character’s name – Abel Gideon, a smorgasbord of Biblical allusion. The import of the Doctor’s first name is obvious – Abel, in the Biblical version of things, was the first murder VICTIM, slain by the hands of his jealous brother, Cain, who was angry that God liked Abel better and had a right fit about it. The character of Gideon is slightly more complex, but basically it goes as follows: Gideon was a prophet in the Old Testament. He destroyed the idols of Baal and others in his town’s temple because the townspeople were worshipping false gods. An angel told him to. Then, Gideon led the Israelites against other “heathen” tribes and won. They wanted to make him king, but he told them their only king was God. Still, he had them melt down the golden earrings of all their enemies who had fallen in battle and they wove the golden thread into an ephod, a priestly garment that is worn under the breastplate. Gideon put it in the temple and the people started worshipping it as an idol, because I guess, it was gold. Old Testament people always seem really impressed by gold. The Scripture is unclear, but it does say that the ephod was “a snare unto Gideon, and to his house” (Judges 8: 27).

You could say Gideon was a hypocrite, or more accurately, a terrible fool because he tried to stop the people from worshipping false idols and then he just led them into doing it again by creating something they would see as a sacred object. At best, Gideon was naïve. At worst, he was a fraud.

Dr. Abel Gideon’s name therefore could translate into something like: Dr. VICTIM FRAUD – or Dr. VICTIM FOOL. Despite his intelligence, he is lured directly into Dr. Chilton’s trap to believe and admit he is the Chesapeake Ripper solely because of Frederick’s needy ego – Frederick wants more feathers in his cap – he doesn’t have near enough and Hannibal Lecter’s are brighter and bespoke and where the fuck did he even find a custom featherer in Baltimore?

Then, later in the series, Gideon is led directly into the trap of the true Chesapeake Ripper and probably desperately wishes he had stayed in the BSHCI and eaten his stewed apricots and minded his own business.

Poor Abel is nothing but a puppet for two different egotistical psychiatrists. Unfortunately for him, one of them happens to be Hannibal Lecter.

And so, we begin the episode with the scene of Gideon passed out on the floor of his cell in the BSHCI and a team of prison guards approaching his limp form very cautiously and eventually shackling him, hand and foot, to a gurney, and wheeling him into the hospital infirmary, where he is treated by the aptly named Nurse Shell.

As evidenced by my previous discussion of Gideon’s name, I have come to realize the significance of character names in Bryan Fuller’s work. They are often allusions or tributes – homages to the work of other writers, directors, artists, scientists, and so on, that Bryan admires. For example, one has to assume that the surname of Bryan’s beloved Bedelia (another original character), Du Maurier, is a tribute to author Daphne du Maurier, author of many books and film adaptations of suspense – such as Rebecca, which Bryan and many of his horror colleagues discuss in the fabulous AMC/Shudder series Queer For Fear, on which Bryan was an executive producer and director. Basically, Mrs. Danvers was either literally or only metaphorically all up in Rebecca de Winter’s undergarments and when the woman died, Mrs. Danvers decided to make it everyone’s problem. The movie is awesome. Go watch it if you haven’t already. And then watch Queer For Fear. I believe they discuss Rebecca in both episodes two and four.

Anyway, Nurse Shell is correctly and tragically named because a shell of her former self is what she winds up as when the deluded Gideon is done with her.

As Nurse Shell turns her back, Gideon extricates the broken-off tine of a fork he has hidden in an incision in his palm. I believe this scene is an homage to the scene in The Silence of the Lambs when Dr. Lecter unearths a metal fragment from the back of his jaw, the inner workings of a ballpoint pen that has fallen into his hands. He uses this makeshift lockpick on his own handcuffs, much to the chagrin of Lieutenant Boyle and Sargeant Pembry. Classic scene.

Anyway, Gideon uses this tine to pick the lock on his handcuffs and when Nurse Shell turns around upon hearing the heart monitor hit a flatline, it’s lights out for the poor woman. We do not see Gideon kill her, but we see the results of his work soon.

Next, we see Jack Crawford and Will Graham vaulting up the front steps of the hospital, Jack explaining that based on the method of Nurse Shell’s murder, Freddie Lounds has run an unconfirmed story suggesting that Abel Gideon is the Chesapeake Ripper, which would explain the lull in murders for the last two years. Will is indignant that he is “fact-checking for Freddie Lounds,” but Jack coddles him with the statement, “You’re fact-checking for me” (Wu and Fuller 2).

There is heavy foreshadowing in the following exchange between Jack and Will before they enter the hospital:

WILL GRAHAM: I’m always a little nervous going into one of these places. Afraid they’ll never let me out again.

JACK CRAWFORD: Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you here.

WILL GRAHAM: Not today (Wu and Fuller 3).

I really do recommend you watch the series more than once so this dramatic irony is not lost.

Once Jack and Will enter the hospital, we see the first appearance of another of our main characters and one of the most important in the Hannibal canon: Dr. Frederick Chilton.

In Fuller’s series, Chilton is rendered flawlessly by actor Raul Esparza, a deep daddy of mine (see ADA Rafael Barba of Law and Order: SVU fame). Esparza is another Fuller Favorite, having appeared in one of Bryan’s previous masterpiece shows, Pushing Daisies.

There have been three actors who have portrayed the petty and obsequious Dr. Chilton, starting with Benjamin Hendrickson in 1986’s Manhunter. The second actor, and perhaps the most well-known portrayal, is that of Anthony Heald who took on the role in both 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs and reprised the role in 2002’s Red Dragon.

Heald’s portrayal of Chilton is masterful – the Doctor is intelligent, but smarmy – officious and gladhanding – his pass at Clarice in the early moments of the film immediately puts the viewer off on him. Hannibal only seals the audience’s hatred of the Doctor by regaling Clarice with Chilton’s petty tortures of him, which are effectively contrasted by the treatment Hannibal receives from the ever-present orderly, Barney Matthews, played by awesome Frankie Faison, who treats Hannibal with a cautious respect, as a zookeeper might treat a venomous reptile. Barney never forgets what Hannibal is capable of. Chilton supposedly knows as evidenced by his relation of Hannibal’s biting attack on a nurse – he left only one of her eyes, ate her tongue without his pulse getting above 85 – but still, Chilton prods and humiliates Hannibal in unnecessary ways that LITERALLY come back to bite him in the end.

Esparza’s Chilton is as intelligent as Heald’s, but slightly more savvy, ounces more petty, a bit more of a drama queen, and as opposed to Heald’s Chilton, who is ostensibly tortured and eaten by Hannibal at the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Esparza’s Chilton, in Fuller’s hands, is the favorite whipping post of killers and law enforcement alike – being practically disemboweled by one murderer, shot in the face by a traumatized Ripper victim, and later suffers the fate that Harris’ original Freddy Lounds suffers, a lip-ectomy and burning at the hands of Francis Dolarhyde. Freddy Lounds dies in both Manhunter/Red Dragon from this attack, but in Fuller’s Hannibal, no matter what, Frederick Chilton continues to survive, almost Fuller’s own version of the endlessly respawning Kenny of South Park fame.

By my calculation, at the end of Season 3, Chilton is down 3 lives, so logic dictates that he has 6 left. If Fuller ever gets to make the full 7 seasons of Hannibal he imagines, if Chilton averages a death per season, he should survive the completed series with 2 lives left over, proving him to be the true winner of The Hannibal Games.

But, once again, I digress…

As Jack and Will sit in Chilton’s office, Chilton can barely seem to contain his curiosity about Will. Chilton’s open is clunky and obtuse; he says, “Doctor Bloom just called me about you, Mister Graham. Or should I call you Doctor Graham?” (Wu and Fuller 3). From his first line, Chilton seems to embody his later Season 2 remark, a gem from Harris’ canon, that attempting to analyze Will “makes [him] feel…like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle” (Fuller and Lightfoot 20). Chilton’s questions are telegraphed from a mile away – his overtures for more information are blunt and tasteless. Chilton’s questioning of Will, throughout the series, is contrasted with that of Hannibal – the difference is like watching a skilled surgeon with a scalpel as compared to a poorly trained medical student with a plastic spoon. Chilton can’t cut it, in any fashion. Will seems to understand this from the beginning – he sizes Chilton up correctly from their very first meeting.

In their conversation, Chilton betrays himself a little, saying of Nurse Shell, “I can’t help feeling responsible for what happened. I had sessions with Gideon for years…I had no idea what he was hiding. And now one of our staff is dead” (Wu and Fuller 4). Of course, this is foreshadowing of Hannibal ascertaining later in the episode that Chilton is indeed COMPLETELY at fault. However, the most interesting thing about this exchange is Jack Crawford’s reaction. The script indicates that after Chilton’s remark here, it “strikes a chord with Jack…who can relate” (Wu and Fuller 4). Undoubtedly this “relation” is about Miriam Lass, Crawford’s lost trainee, who is first introduced in this episode.

This is all important because of our lesson in this episode and because it highlights one of the driving motives of Jack’s character. In Episode 1, Jack and Alana agree that one of Will’s deepest motives is fear. If that is the case, then we can say that one of, perhaps the most, significant of Jack’s driving motivations is GUILT. Jack’s guilt is so present, so prevalent, so real, it is almost tangible. He feels guilt about Bella, about Miriam, later about Beverly, about Will, about Pazzi. His guilt is so weighty, so integral to his being, that often it overwhelms him, wobbles his sense of reason and the health of his psyche. Our lesson is not about guilt, but it is about an emotion Jack Crawford will not allow himself. In his position as Special Agent Jack Crawford, head of the FBI’s storied Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Jack does not allow himself much in the way of the easier emotions in life – laughter, joy, wonder – these are not things he can traffic in. Jack Crawford lives in a chapel of death. He is a chronicler of pain.

As Chilton continues to prod Will for information, Jack finally states, “Graham isn’t here to be analyzed” (Wu and Fuller 5). It’s funny to me how people in the show, including Will, keep insisting that he’s NOT THE ONE to be analyzed, but since the very first moments of Episode 1, even the murders seem secondary to everyone else’s analysis of Will. It’s ironic, but I imagine purposefully so. Chilton retorts that “perhaps” Will “should be” analyzed; Chilton wants Will to speak to his colleagues in the hospital, but then he stops himself, saying, “no, no, not this trip. Dr. Bloom was very severe with me on that point” (Wu and Fuller 5). I also find it quite ironic how no one listens to Alana’s advice about handling Will. It speaks to the usual patriarchal pooh-poohing of women, even when they are extremely accomplished members of professional fields. Thankfully, Bryan saw to it that everyone who discounts Alana’s advice winds up paying for it.

Just before escorting Jack and Will to the infirmary where Will can view the crime scene, Chilton says, “Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won” (Wu and Fuller 6). This sentiment is attributed to the Duke of Wellington, and later to writer Robert Jordan, but to me the importance of it here is how it so perfectly illustrates the difference between Harris’ Chilton and Fuller’s Chilton. Every once in a while, especially in Season 3, Chilton seems to disinter these gems of wisdom from the muddy bottom of his intelligence. Often, lines like these, coming from Frederick are like an icepick of truth stabbed into the temple of the scene. A viewer who is familiar with all of the Hannibal canon can see – Fuller’s Chilton is smarter and more poetic than Harris’ Chilton, who is a slick, sad functionary who is both out of his depth with Hannibal Lecter and out of his league with Clarice Starling. Fuller’s Chilton is never in Hannibal’s league, but at times, real insight flashes up from the shallows of his brain, and it makes his character more sympathetic to the viewer. We feel sorry for Fuller’s Chilton. Harris’ Chilton never arouses such pity.

When Will and Jack finally view the nurse’s body, it is described as follows:

She’s IMPALED on the BROKEN FRAMES of several PRIVACY CURTAINS that have been fashioned into SPEARS. They PROTRUDE from wounds over the entire canvas of her body. Additional shards of wood and metal prop her organs above her corpse, giving them the appearance of floating outside her body.

(Wu and Fuller 6)

The visual of this tableaux is important, as it will contrast with the Chesapeake Ripper’s actual rendering of the famous medieval Wound Man shown later in the episode in a flashback. Later, Will calls this murder “plagiarism.” The viewer, especially one who has watched the entire series at least once, can understand Will’s assessment easily. The Chesapeake Ripper is an artist – even when his tableaux are deconstructionist in nature, like Beverly Katz’s murder scene in Season 2, there is still a lingering sense of the whole that once was. The essence of the thing that has been taken apart is still suggested by the Ripper’s composition. Gideon’s attempt at mimicry is just that – a sad parody. He merely skewered organs like Nurse Kabob. He merely jabbed implements in her like Nurse Pincushion. There is no whole left to be had. In Act One, we see the replaying of the gurney scene at the beginning of the episode, except this time with Will in Gideon’s place. This time, we see the attack on Nurse Shell; this time at the hands of Will, who is doing his mental recreation (pendulum swingy – this is my design-y) of the scene.

Will’s recreation here is filed very lovingly by the #FannibalFamily under the title, “THINGS THAT HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING INSANELY HOT,” but Goddamn it… it is.

It’s not just Will’s torn open shirt – it’s not just the visible sweat on his muscled chest and furrowed brow (although those things REALLY HELP) – it’s the power and the confidence Will exudes when he is in the mental guise of the killer. In truth, every time Will does a mental recreation of a crime, he becomes inordinately hotter because he is not the unsure, confused, flinchy Will Graham of outside-his-mind – he is the take-charge, aggressive, Will Graham with some goddamned agency, that he only seems to be able to muster when he slips into the minds of other people – that is until the end of Season 1, anyway. Will’s agency gets a glow up in “Savoureux,” just wait.

I will say that when Will gouges Nurse Shell’s eyes out with his thumbs, that’s a major ick for me. Eye stuff always deeply bothers me. I had two very invasive eye surgeries as a child and I think it makes me sensitive. The needle in the eye scene in Fire In the Sky is a trauma from which I will never recover.

After Will’s recreation is finished, the viewer is then treated to a flashback three years earlier when the character of Miriam Lass enters the series. It is well known that Miriam Lass, played astonishingly by Anna Chlumsky, is Bryan’s substitute for/homage to the character of Clarice Starling, who, because of copyright issues, Bryan could not use in Hannibal. This, of course, is a damn shame, because Clarice is a god-level character and I would love, love, love to see what Bryan could do with her. (I would also like – if we ever get future seasons – to see Ardelia Mapp, Barney Matthews, and Multiple Miggs show up, but I digress…)

Miriam and Clarice share similar backgrounds – they were both FBI Forensic Fellows – Clarice had the great distinction of studying under fingerprint examiner par excellence, Jimmy Price – but they both came through the same program there and at the FBI Academy. Their university degrees differ a little – Clarice is the daughter of a lawman, which Miriam does not seem to be – but both women are the same with regards to their stunning intellects, dogged determination, and their fascinations with and devotions to “the Guru,” Jack Crawford. It reminds me of a passage from The Silence of the Lambs. At the end of the chapter, (I tell you, Thomas Harris knows how to end a fucking chapter) – after Starling and Crawford return from the Potter Funeral Home in West Virginia, Harris writes, “She watched him walk away, a middle-aged man laden with cases and rumpled from flying, his cuffs muddy from the riverbank, going home to what he did at home. She would have killed for him then. That was one of Crawford’s great talents” (96).

Jack tells Miriam that he has culled her from the herd of FBI hopefuls to work for him in the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) because she is at the top of her class, has impressive credentials, and wrote him a fan letter when she was accepted into the Academy. When Jack brings up the Ripper, he says, “The Ripper is very hot right now” (Wu and Fuller 10). Jack is, of course, indicating that the Ripper is on a spree, having taken “his last two victims in six days” (Wu and Fuller 10). But I can’t help but think of Zoolander every time I hear Jack make this remark. “Ooooh, that Ripper – he’s so hot right now…” And let’s be honest, if there’s anyone who could pull off a perfect “Blue Steel,” it’s Mads Mikkelsen.

Miriam impresses Jack with her assessment of the Ripper – not a “true sociopath,” but a killer with “some of the characteristics of what they call a sociopath,” but that in truth, “they don’t know what else to label him” (Wu and Fuller 10). Jack then begins briefing Miriam on the case and we are flashed back to the present and find ourselves sitting with Alana and Will in Frederick Chilton’s office.

Alana and Will are both there to interview Gideon – they will be conducting their interviews separately and then comparing notes. Chilton is “convinced” Gideon is the Ripper (when he knows damned well he’s not), Will is convinced Gideon is NOT the Ripper – Alana is unsure. Chilton informs Alana that even though she only had two sessions with Gideon when he was first admitted to the BSHCI, Gideon has “given [her] a lot of thought” since then (Wu and Fuller 12). It ups the creep factor and of course mirrors the novel Red Dragon, like much of this scene does, except that the inmate is Hannibal Lecter and the person he’s “given a lot of thought to” is Will Graham. Hannibal thinking a lot about Will is deep canon. Always has been. Always will be.

Alana goes into interview Gideon first – when she does, the script indicates, “The STEEL DOOR of the maximum security section closed behind Alana Bloom. She hears the bolt slide home” (Wu and Fuller 13).

I’m always deeply thrilled at how often the writers of Hannibal return to the “Forward to a Fatal Interview” from Harris’ Red Dragon and snatch little phrases from it they leave like glistening Easter eggs for fans to find. This is one such bejeweled egg – a Faberge of one, in fact. This forward is about how Thomas Harris came to create the characters of Will Graham, Clarice Starling, and most importantly, Hannibal Lecter. In the final paragraph, he says, “When in the winter of 1979 I entered the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and the great metal door crashed closed behind me, little did I know what waited at the end of the corridor; how seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home” (XIII).

An adaptation is a beautiful thing when you have such beautiful source material to work with. I am forever fascinated by what different filmmakers and actors have done with the Hannibal canon, but we cannot, should not, ever forget the mind that created it and created such compelling characters that withstand the test of time and are enriched every time a new generation of writers and viewers return to them.

The interviews between Alana and Gideon and Will and Gideon are now intercut with each other, a wonderful technique that allows the viewers to compare and contrast for themselves, the differences and similarities between Alana and Will in their questioning, the differences between Gideon’s reactions to Alana and to Will. The most important fact that seems to arise from the interview is when Will says to Gideon about the death of Nurse Shell, “Brutalization of the body was done posthumously. The Chesapeake Ripper usually does that sort of thing during, not after” (Wu and Fuller 15). Will never buys Gideon as the Ripper. His other murders were spontaneous, not planned. Gideon is not an artist; he’s a plagiarist. What Will can’t figure out is why Gideon is copping to murders he didn’t commit.

We begin Act Two with Jack Crawford arriving unannounced at Hannibal’s office, just as the Doctor is about to leave for the day. Hannibal asks if Jack was just “in the neighborhood?” – Jack answers, “Something like that” (Wu and Fuller 16). This line is one of those TV/film chestnuts that you hear over and over and it never actually happens in real life. I have never in my life had someone show up at my door saying they were “just in the neighborhood.” Just like I have never had a cat suddenly jump on me from some unseen elevated position when I am in a darkened alleyway or corridor and things feel all spooky. It’s film logic. It’s kooky, but it works.

Bella is out of town and Jack has come to Hannibal to pry some sort of information out of him about Bella’s cancer – how she’s feeling, what she’s saying, what she thinks – all of which she is not telling Jack and all of which Hannibal cannot tell Jack due to doctor-patient confidentiality. Jack becomes angry. Their conversation is enlightening with regards to Hannibal’s character:

JACK CRAWFORD: You talk to me about Will Graham.

HANNIBAL: Will Graham isn’t officially my patient. We have conversations.

JACK CRAWFORD: What do you consider this?

HANNIBAL: Desperate coping.

(Wu and Fuller 17)

The line here – “desperate coping” – is such a wonderful illustration of how accurately Hannibal is portrayed as having some sociopathic tendencies or at least the tendencies of a narcissist. Throughout the series, Hannibal shows how he can go cold at a moment’s notice – how he can so easily shift from a seemingly caring, compassionate individual to a nightmare of stone-faced, murder-eyed calm. It’s terrifying. I was once very much in love with a man who could do this – he was not a murderer, but he could go dead-eyed and cold on you like this in seconds – and you never knew when it was coming. It scared the shit out of me.

Some might say that Hannibal’s line here is compassionate, that he feels for Jack and his attempts to handle the imminent death of his wife – but I think the line is meant to cut Jack to the quick – he slices right into the meat of Jack’s pain here – as if to say, “Yeah, your wife’s dying. Pull it together, wimp.”

It is canon that Hannibal prods people to cause pain – it is entirely for his own pleasure. A good example is from The Silence of the Lambs. When Hannibal meets with Senator Martin, supposedly to tell her the “real name” of Buffalo Bill (ha ha), he makes a cutting remark about the Senator breastfeeding her daughter when she was a baby. Then this happens: “When her pupils darkened, Dr. Lecter took a single sip of her pain and found it exquisite. That was enough for today” (201).

The man drinks pain. What else is there to say?

Then Hannibal immediately “salves” the wound he has created (“Salve” is the word used in the script directions) – saying “I’ll offer this one insight: she thinks she married the right guy” (Wu and Fuller 17). See Hannibal playing with Jack? Always playing.

Jack then says, “I look at her side of the bed and wonder if she’s going to die there or where she’ll die and I feel myself going uncomfortably numb” (Wu and Fuller 18). I believe this to be a reference to Jack’s actual, canon death that Thomas Harris wrote for him in the novel, Hannibal. It is a death that I completely understand but hate like fire because I think a character like Jack deserved a lot better. I feel that Bryan was writing a better end for Jack.

The end in question is as follows. Clarice Starling has already been drugged and hypnotized, pulled into a strange “relationship” with Hannibal – they live in Buenos Aires together under assumed names. Clarice finds out that Jack has died from the FBI website. Apparently, “after Crawford was home for a month from the hospital, the chest pains came again in the night. Instead of calling an ambulance and going through it all again, he chose simply to roll over to the solace of his late wife’s side of the bed” (483).

I understand it, but dammit Jack deserves better. I believe Bryan was going to give him better. At least he gets to go to Italy and kick Hannibal’s ass. At least he gets another chance.

Jack and Hannibal have a conversation about loss, which leads Hannibal to ask, “Who else couldn’t you save, Jack?” (Wu and Fuller 18). Once again, Hannibal pokes at the wound, tugs at the scab. We know full well that Hannibal has Miriam Lass hidden in a damp, darkened oubliette of a well in a secret farmhouse – all wet and cold with a missing arm in a dirty nightgown and in desperate need of some wet wipes and dry shampoo. We know this – which means all of this questioning about “the lost trainee” is just Hannibal enjoying himself, just Hannibal savoring Jack’s pain. I really do think he lets Miriam live because he likes her – (the same reason book/film Hannibal lets Clarice live – she’s a “deep roller”) – but I also think he lets Miriam live solely to give her back to Jack – just like he gives Bella back to Jack when he thwarts her suicide attempt. Just as he takes Abigail away from Will, then gives her back, then takes her away again – Lucy and the football. Hannibal is “curious” what will happen, but also because he loves the pain. Pain is so much more than hum-drum everyday life – and Hannibal doesn’t like mundane pain – like the worries and neurotic spoutings of Franklyn Froidveaux or Neal Frank, no. Hannibal wants Greek tragedy level pain – a boy who wants to be a killing monster, a girl who wants to kill the brother who has been raping her all her life, a man watching his wife die, a man torturing himself with guilt because he lost another girl, and Will Graham, whose pain is beautiful in its kaleidoscopic, ever-changing qualities – it is always the pain of the killer he is profiling, the victim he is investigating, and sometimes, Will’s own deeply buried pain, abandoned by mom, distant from dad, outcast at school, outcast among colleagues, always alone and beautiful, always alone and confused – in terms of pain, Will is 31 Flavors.

At this point, Jack refuses to tell Hannibal about Miriam Lass – but later on he breaks. The breaking is always Hannibal’s favorite part.

We are now flashed back again to three years earlier; we see Miriam and Jack surveying the Wound Man tableaux rendered by the authentic Chesapeake Ripper. The victim is lashed to his worktable, and all of his tools from the peg board on which they once hung are dug into the man’s body in varying places all over the corpse.

This is not an unfamiliar moment. Jack with a whip-smart profiler assessing the carnage of a crime scene; he has also cleared the way for that profiler by sending all “the others” – the crime scene techs and photographers and forensic creatures -- away. Jack seems to understand that the brilliant ones need to be unfettered by noise and stimuli, even before Will Graham joins his pack. Miriam concludes several important things about both the murder and the murderer, namely that the victim was awake during the attack, and that the Ripper was selective about the organs he harvested. Miriam calls these organs “surgical trophies” – in this way, she is half right (Wu and Fuller 19). It is Will who will determine that the Ripper’s trophies are edible and et. The Ripper is a medical doctor, male, and – and I love this line – “exotic somehow” (Wu and Fuller 19). I believe the “exotic somehow” is meant to refer to the fact that Hannibal Lecter is European. I assume Europeans do not consider themselves “exotic,” but most Americans are flabbergasted by anyone with an accent different than theirs, so… If “exotic” is referring to the fact that the Ripper is being played by masterful and devastatingly beautiful actor Mads Mikkelsen, then yes, he's EXOTIC AS FUCK. Point is, he’s not your run-of-the-mill American. He owns a cravat – more than one probably. He probably has a bidet – he calls sedans “saloons” – and he buys all his table linens and china at Christofle. Miriam compliments Jack’s “peculiar cleverness” and we move out of the scene back into the morgue at the BAU, where Team Sassy Science is examining Nurse Shell’s body and Will is observing (Wu and Fuller 20).

The team is discussing the similarities between Nurse Shell’s murder and the Wound Man murder. They are attempting to rule Abel Gideon IN or OUT. They are unsure how Gideon could have known about the wound patterns the Ripper inflicted on his victims because those details were kept away from the press. Will says, “I see the Ripper but I don’t… feel the Ripper. He’s an artist. This is… plagiarism” (Wu and Fuller 21). Will has his finger on Hannibal’s pulse from the very beginning of the show – whether it be Hannibal as the Copy Cat or Hannibal as the Ripper – when Will finally realizes the two are one and the same, it seems like something that has been on the tip of his tongue since the very beginning. And Will is also very correct in assessing that the real Chesapeake Ripper is not going to let Gideon take credit for his work.

We end Act Two with Jack Crawford at home, asleep in his bed alone, his wife still out of town at a NATO summit. The phone rings. Jack shakes awake and picks up the phone. The clock reads 2:47 A.M. Clocks are an important motif in Hannibal, especially in Season 1. I will address what I think the motif means when I get deeper into Season 1, when Will’s encephalitis begins to worsen, but needless to say – clocks are humankind’s desperate attempt to not only measure but control time – and quite frankly, time rarely cooperates.

When Jack answers the phone, he doesn’t recognize the voice at first – or perhaps he doesn’t believe what he is hearing. The words said by the caller are important because it is these words used to torment Jack for the rest of the episode:

MIRIAM LASS’S VOICE: Jack… Jack… Jack… It’s Miriam. I don’t know where I am. I can’t see anything. I was so wrong. I was so wrong. Please… Jack… I don’t want to die like this. (Wu and Fuller 20).

And then the line goes dead.

We start Act Three back at the BAU. Beverly Katz has checked all the online databases for telecom systems and says she cannot find a trace of any call to Jack’s home at 2:47 AM. As Brian Zeller continues to question Jack’s skills of perception and memory (that maybe Jack dreamed it, that he doesn’t remember what Miriam sounds like), Jimmy Price points out, “whoever called could have tapped in from that little box outside your house. Or the junction in your neighborhood. There would be no trace signal to track” (Wu and Fuller 23). We, the viewer, know this is exactly what the Ripper – Hannibal Lecter – has done, solely because he is Hannibal Lecter, the James Bond/MacGyver of serial killers. He is a psychiatrist, a medical doctor and a surgeon; he speaks/reads/writes at least four languages that we know of. He is a world-class chef, butcher, snail cultivator, beer brewer – he can tie knots, sew, handle a variety of weapons. He can fist-fight – he can ballroom dance. He can give lectures on Dante in the medieval Italian. Obviously, he knows how to tap a phone line. I also feel very certain that Hannibal can fly a plane, hack into any computer (although he finds it distasteful), make his own soap (Fight Club style), and he knows at least one martial art, if not more.

Incidentally, tapping into phone lines is also something Francis Dolarhyde can do – both later in Season 3 when he taps into the phone line at Hannibal’s office and calls Hannibal in the BSHCI with the call masked as Hannibal’s lawyer. But, according to Bryan, the Marlow murder in “Apéritif” is one of Francis’ early murders, and he had to tap into the Marlow phone line to record Mrs. Marlow’s call to the security company. It occurs to me that being a serial killer must create endless hobbies, solely based on things you have to learn, like phone tapping, lock picking, glass cutting, tree-climbing, and “this-is-my-designing.”

Will points out that the 2:47 call obviously didn’t come from the BSHCI, and therefore, could not have been Abel Gideon. When Brian Zeller again suggests that perhaps Jack dreamed the call, Jack shouts at him, “I know when I’m awake” (Wu and Fuller 24). The script then indicates, “Will reacts to that, not always sure he knows the same” (Wu and Fuller 24). Poor Will’s encephalitis is worsening. It only serves to isolate him from others who might possibly help him. And the only person he thinks can help him is actively worsening his condition. I forgive him later, but from this point through the end of Season 1, I am mad as hell at Hannibal. My loyalty is to Will. Hannibal not only doesn’t help my poor baby, he purposely alienates Will from the people who could help him. Grrrrrrr…

Next, we see Will in his classroom at Quantico. Soon, he hears the clacking of hooves on the floor of the corridor. When he looks up, he sees the Black Stag sidling toward him – then this vision morphs into the reality of the circumstance, Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford walking into the room. Jack floats the idea of baiting the Ripper with a well-placed story in the media, a story that will anger the Ripper because the reporter will heavily suggest that Abel Gideon is the REAL Chesapeake Ripper. Will thinks the scheme is dangerous. He says, “You might push the Ripper to kill again just to prove he isn’t in a hospital for the criminally insane;” to which Jack replies, “I have to push, Will” (Wu and Fuller 26). Jack’s statement is very telling – not just about his relentless pursuit of the Ripper, but of himself as a person. Jack does indeed “push.” He pushes everyone. He pushes Will so hard he practically has a nervous breakdown. He pushes him into the hands of the Ripper himself. He pushes Miriam so hard, he pushes her into that same man’s hands. He pushes his wife so hard, she flees to that same man for advice.

Considering that Hannibal and Jack don’t officially meet until Episode 1, Hannibal is already WAAAY involved in Jack’s life and already deeply embedded in Jack’s head. It’s funny upon their first meeting in “Apéritif,” that Jack is meeting his nemesis and doesn’t know it. The man who took Miriam from him, who will take Will from him, who will take Beverly from him, who will almost take Jack’s own life. Talk about “a bolt of fate sliding home.”

Will is disgusted with the idea that Jack is going to cahoot with Freddie Lounds, but you know how Jack has to push, so the next scene reveals Freddie Lounds entering a conference room at Quantico to meet with Jack, Will, and Alana. Jack and Alana are amiable and friendly to Freddie; Will is cold and bitchy (and insanely hot…) Jack tells Freddie he wants her to confirm her story about Gideon being the Ripper. Alana promises to talk to Chilton to get Freddie an interview with Gideon. In one of my favorite of Freddie’s lines, she says, “Not to snap bubblegum and crack wise, but what’s my angle? Is he the Chesapeake Ripper or you just want me to tell everybody he is” (Wu and Fuller 28). Jack suggests he could be because Gideon is a surgeon. The three then discuss the fabled list of professions which psychopaths most favor – journalists and law enforcement being two more. I often wonder if there is also a list of professions that psychos LEAST inhabit. Like, in the bowels of the BAU, a criminal profiler is saying, “Well, we know he’s not a pet psychic, a cupcake baker, or a crossword puzzle author, so we can rule those out! Thank God!”

We are then transported to the high security sector of the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane and see stylishly dressed and coiffed Freddie Lounds entering the prison and introducing herself to Abel Gideon.

When Freddie’s story is finished and published to Tattlecrime.com, we then see Hannibal at his desk with his little tablet reading it – his face as close to “bothered” as you ever see Hannibal come. This is the same face he makes when Franklyn leaves a soiled tissue on his end table, when Mason Verger stabs his chair. I like to call it Hannibal’s “I’m About To Cut a Bitch” face. This is one thing I will say for Mads Mikkelsen over and over again – he acts with every part of his body, including his beautiful face. Fannibals love to discuss Mads’ microexpressions – the little twitches at the corners of his eyes, the dead-eyed, yet sarcastic stares, the tears that appear from nowhere, the minute turnings of his lips into wry smiles – and the most prized being the MIKKELSNARL, the King of All Expressions. The look on his face when reading Freddie Lounds’ story makes you fear for her. Amazingly, she survives. It’s actually insane.

We then see Dr. Chilton and Alana dining with Hannibal at his home. Hannibal says that the dish is a lamb tongue served with Duxelle sauce and mushrooms, created by famous French chef Auguste Escoffier. After some tongue wagging amongst the diners, Hannibal says to Chilton, “Don’t give me ideas. Your tongue is very feisty and as this evening has already proven, it’s nice to have an old friend for dinner” (Wu and Fuller 30). This line is, of course, a tribute to the ending scene of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal’s phone call to Clarice in which he implies he will be soon killing and eating the bumbling Dr. Chilton. As previously stated, Fuller’s Chilton stubbornly survives every season.

Alana, Frederick, and Hannibal begin discussing Abel Gideon. Frederick proudly claims Gideon to be the Ripper. Alana begins questioning Frederick and asks, “Is it possible that you inadvertently planted the suggestion in Gideon’s mind that he was the Ripper?” (Wu and Fuller 31). Frederick replies, “Psychic driving is unethical” (Wu and Fuller 32).

I have to admit that I NEVER heard the term “psychic driving” before Hannibal. Truly, it sounds like a Cronenberg video game for the Atari 2600. Hannibal says that psychic driving is allowable “in certain circumstances” and actually seems to arouse some gentle suspicion from both Alana and Frederick (Wu and Fuller 32). They don’t seem suspicious that Hannibal is the Ripper – we are a looooong way from that – but they both seem a little shocked that Hannibal might condone the practice, even in narrow cases. Hannibal so desperately wants to play, I think he actually overplays his hand here. He so rarely gives anything away and usually only does so on purpose – perhaps Hannibal’s admission is just to facilitate the conversation Hannibal has in the kitchen with Frederick, in which he states that he believes Frederick already has “psychically driven” Gideon, but it seems a little haphazard to me. Perhaps he’s still amped up because Freddie Lounds has landed a hit on him.

Speaking of Gideon, we now see him in his cell at the BSHCI, this time being questioned by Jack, who states point blank to the prisoner, “You’re not the Chesapeake Ripper” (Wu and Fuller 33). Gideon tries to convince Jack, tries weakly to explain why he, supposedly as the Ripper, takes surgical trophies, why he didn’t display the bodies of his wife and her family, and so on. Gideon ascertains that Jack is not concerned with those prior crimes.

DR. GIDEON: But you’re not here to talk about my wife or even the night nurse.

JACK CRAWFORD: What am I here to talk about?

DR. GIDEON: Your trainee. Miriam something.

(Wu and Fuller 34)

This minor detail, the fact that Gideon does not know Miriam’s last name, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Gideon is not, cannot be the Chesapeake Ripper. The real Ripper, Hannibal Lecter, has a meticulous memory palace built in his mind. Thomas Harris explains the grandiose proportions of the Doctor’s psychic estate in both Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. In Hannibal, Harris even treats us to a description of the palace’s interior. It has a “Great Hall of the Seasons… [a] hall of looms and textiles…[and a] Hall of Addresses,” just to name a few wings (252-254). Hannibal actually retrieves Clarice Starling’s address from this cognitive library, buried in a mental construction that Harris says, “is vast, even by medieval standards” (252).

I know for a fact that Hannibal Lecter remembers the name of every victim he ever killed, how he killed them, what organs/limbs he took, what dish he made with them, and how they tasted. There is no way he forgets a victim’s name. With the exception of the incidental goons from the Questura in Season 3 or Mason Verger’s goons, Hannibal knows the name of every victim he chooses. No way he would forget Miriam’s last name. Gideon is an amateur.

As their conversation continues, Jack’s phone rings. He walks out of Gideon’s cell block to answer the call as the caller ID announces the number as “HOME.” Jack misses the call and redials. He believes the caller to be his wife, having returned early from her trip. Whoever answers the phone (you know who), then plays the same haunting recorded message – Miriam Lass scared, alone, and begging Jack to help her.

Immediately, we are in Jack Crawford’s bedroom, where Team Sassy Science is pulling and processing evidence from Jack’s bedroom carpet, bedside phone, and even his wife’s pillow. Will is once again observing. Jimmy Price pulls three sets of prints from the phone – the first two sets are identified as Jack’s and his wife’s. The third set is later identified as belonging to Miriam Lass. Beverly even finds a long blonde hair on Bella’s pillow. Will, of course, asks questions: “Did Miriam Lass know where you live?... Did you know you were sending her after [the Chesapeake Ripper?]…” and then states, “Whoever made that phone call thinks you were close to Miriam Lass and feel responsible for her death;” to which Jack replies, “She was my trainee. I am responsible for her death” (Wu and Fuller 36). Jimmy Price floats the idea that Miriam may be alive since her prints are on the phone. Jack cannot accept the idea.

This new evidence spins Jack into another flashback – the circumstance of Jack’s last meeting with Miriam – the last time he saw her alive. They are back at Quantico – Miriam has skipped a class called “Exclusionary Rules of Search and Seizure” to ask Jack’s opinion about a report she left on his desk (Wu and Fuller 37). Jack seems needlessly cruel to Miriam in this scene. He tells her “go back to class” and “Frustrated, Lass? Better start forming a callus or frustration is going to wear you through” (Wu and Fuller 37).

This is perhaps one of the reasons Jack feels so guilty about Miriam’s death, or what he believes to be, death. In their last conversation, he wasn’t very nice. This is one of the unfortunate things about life. The last time I saw my father, the night before he died, the last thing I said to him was, “Dad, don’t eat all that ice cream.” My father was a diabetic and my mother and we children fought him tooth and nail to eat better. Towards the end of his life, he merely circumvented us – he hid Snickers bars in the clothes hamper, peanut butter crackers in the visor in his truck – he finally just broke down and started buying all the sweets he wanted himself since my mother refused to buy them. He was unstoppable. The last time I saw him, he was digging into a half-gallon of Blue Bell chocolate ice cream, and so I told him not to eat it all. All he said to me was, “Bye.”

If I had known that was the last time I would ever see him alive, I would have told him that I loved him. I would have told him that even though he was a shitty dad, abusive and obstreperous, that I still loved him, and I always would. I have to content myself with the idea that either my dad knew that I loved him or he just didn’t care.

Miriam’s report makes a smart but dangerous suggestion in the hunt for the Chesapeake Ripper. She explains, “If the Chesapeake Ripper is a surgeon, we should look at medical records of all the known victims” (Wu and Fuller 38). Jack points out that this search would obviously be illegal – medical records fall under very tight privacy laws. Then, the following conversation proves yet another thing to the viewer about Jack’s character:

JACK CRAWFORD: It’s one thing for a trainee to go poking around private medical records without a warrant, very much another if “The Guru” did it…

MIRIAM LASS: Better for a trainee to ask for forgiveness than an FBI agent to ask for permission?

JACK CRAWFORD: In my experience.

(Wu and Fuller 38).

There is something to be said of the fact that this is exactly the way that Jack “loses” people. This strategy is how he loses Will, how he loses Beverly – sending subordinates to do things he can’t do. I suppose it is a comment on larger patriarchal culture – how men in power get little people to do their dirty work for them – everything from cleaning their toilets to fighting their wars. It is not lost on me that two of the people that Jack “loses” this way are women. Strong, stubborn, beautiful women who went off doing things Jack couldn’t do because of “rules.” I love Jack Crawford with all my heart – but he should feel guilty. The loss of Miriam Lass IS very much his fault.

After this conversation, Miriam wanders off to begin her search of the medical records and we are flashed back into the present where we see Alana Bloom again at the BSHCI, again interviewing Dr. Gideon. Two scenes here at the end of Act Four and the beginning of Act Five, one where Will has a conversation with Chilton, and one where there is a lockdown in the prison were cut from the final episode, so I shall skip them.

The scene we alight upon is Jack, back in the present, walking down a hallway at the Academy, and once again his phone rings. Jack accepts the grim possibility that the call might once again be the Ripper taunting him and answers it. It brings us to one of the most interesting and important locales in the series, the abandoned observatory. The real location is the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. We see the observatory several times in the series – it is always a place of gruesome revelations.

We see Will, Beverly, and Jack approaching the building – Beverly explaining that the last call Jack received from the Ripper “traced here. Or within a 100 feet of here” (Wu and Fuller 42). Jack then redials the last number the Ripper called from – one that wasn’t masked or anonymous. They hear a distant ringing coming from inside the observatory.

They enter the building, and underneath a bunch of discarded equipment, at the base of the main telescope, they find a severed arm, the hand holding the ringing cell phone. A note on a card beneath the arm says, “What do you see?” (Wu and Fuller 43). The viewer understands that this is Miriam Lass’ arm – it explains the fingerprints on the phone in Jack’s bedroom.

I must say, I do find the image kind of funny… Hannibal in his squeaky murder suit – which I affectionately call his “garment bag” because DAMMIT that’s what it looks like – a garment bag with sleeves turned sideways – in Jack’s bedroom, opening a plastic bag and tweezing out one of Miriam’s head hairs, laying it on Bella’s pillow – making the call from Jack’s bedside phone and then laying Miriam’s decapitated hand over the receiver – pressing the finger pads down with his own to make sure the prints stick. I always imagine Hannibal waving Miriam’s arm around with a dramatic flourish when he’s done – like some morbid maestro conducting an insane symphony all of his own composition.

The episode ends with a flashback – Miriam Lass showing up at Hannibal’s office door to question him. The Wound Man victim was a “Jeremy Olmstead” Hannibal had treated for an arrow wound in his thigh the man received while bow hunting – when Hannibal worked in the emergency room, most likely at Maryland Misericordia Hospital in Baltimore. Hannibal says he doesn’t remember the man (he totally remembers) – but under the guise of going to retrieve his notes from the years he worked in the ER, he leaves the room, removes his shoes, and then in his stocking feet creeps up behind Miriam, just as she discovers Hannibal’s own Wound Man drawing and begins to realize the trouble she is in. Hannibal begins choking Miriam – this is the episode’s second installment of “THINGS THAT HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING INSANELY HOT.”

The script describes the scene as follows:

Hannibal is like a column of marble, motionless as Miriam twists and throws, trying in vain to knock him off balance. She reaches behind her head, clawing at Hannibal but he presses his face almost sensually against the back of her neck to protect face and eyes from her slashing fingernails. Miriam’s eyes roll, defeated, tear-filled, knowing she’s going to die. She begins to go limp in Hannibal’s arms.

(Wu and Fuller 48).

This scene is an homage to the same scene in Red Dragon when Hannibal attacks Will from behind, just as Will spies a medical book on Hannibal’s bookshelves that contains the Wound Man drawing. Will’s gut is slashed by Hannibal in this attack – in Fuller’s Hannibal, Will’s gut is spared until the end of Season 2.

This is why I adore Bryan’s Hannibal so much – it is not just an adaptation; it is a remix. Scenes are moved and laid in the hands of different characters. Conversations are shifted – things Hannibal said to Clarice, he says to Will – characters are gender-swapped or their fates are interchanged. Much of Bryan’s remix remains the same – like the tiger scene between Reba and Francis in Season 3 – but so much of it is recut, reimagined, broken down and put back together. Hannibal is an artist of deconstruction and reconstruction and so is Bryan. I still say and always will that Hannibal is the best show ever on television. Good God, it is that fucking good.

But, you ask, “JESUS CHRIST! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET TO THE LESSON?” I shall now deliver.

The lesson takes place in the scene just before Miriam’s attack. After having discovered Miriam’s decapitated arm, Jack is badly rattled and goes to see Hannibal at his office. When questioned by Hannibal as to what he believes the Ripper’s motives are for trying to convince him that Miriam is alive, Jack responds “Hope. The Ripper wanted to cloud my vision in the fog of hope;” Hannibal then says, “It can sometimes be brave to allow yourself hope” (Wu and Fuller 44).

Hannibal then asks Jack when he gave up hope that Miriam would be found alive and then makes the leap from one woman in Jack’s life to another saying, “Don’t give up hope for your wife. Not yet” (Wu and Fuller 44). At the end of the scene, Hannibal coaxes Jack into telling him about Miriam, even asking what her name was. I have to say it, but making Jack tell him, as if he is absolutely unknowing of the details, about Miriam Lass and her disappearance seems almost masturbatory to me – Jack is talking dirty to Hannibal and doesn’t even know it. Hannibal sits there, absorbing every minutiae, every crease of pain in Jack’s face, every flutter of guilt in his eyes, enjoying every moment knowing exactly where Miriam is, and how she disappeared. Perhaps it is in this discussion with Jack that Hannibal decides to spare Miriam’s life. Perhaps that was always his plan. Hannibal couldn’t have known he would be called in to consult with Jack on his beautiful, but twitchy profiler, so who knows how long he was willing to wait, keeping Miriam alive, bleeding her for info that would bring him directly into Jack’s domain. All of it is devious and cruel.

It is perhaps the cruelest of things for Hannibal to talk to Jack about hope. The viewer knows that Hannibal is the one who has given Jack this “false kind” of hope (Wu and Fuller 44). It is important to remember that on a first time viewing, an audience member is not aware that Miriam is still alive. Just as on a first time viewing, the audience does not know that Abigail Hobbs is still alive after her ear turns up in Will’s gullet and then his sink. This “give the desperate loved ones a piece of their missing people and taunt them with hope” like a sadistic kidnapper, but one with no asking price, is a pattern Hannibal uses twice in the series – both times to manipulate people he cares for – to spin them in circles and watch the motion – no doubt in this spinning, Hannibal searches for weak spots, but he also delights in their pain and confusion.

It is interesting to think that the people Hannibal seems to care most about are the ones he plays with in this way. Will, Jack, Bedelia – he offers hope; he yanks it away. He lies and lies until suddenly, at the precise moment it will make the greatest impact, he tells the truth. A colossal tease is Hannibal Lecter. But he plays with these people because they interest him enough to invest time and effort into them, into both their pain and their pleasure.

Hannibal pokes at Jack’s hope not just about Miriam, but about Bella. As a surgeon, Hannibal knows the hope for Bella is even more of a longshot than for Miriam. But he wants Jack to hope because without hope, there is nothing to lose. It is best that Jack, Will, Bedelia, Alana – that all of them have something to hope for, something to lose. They will all become truly dangerous to Hannibal if they don’t. Which is basically what happens with most of Season 2 to Will, and for Jack and Alana in Season 3 – vengeance arcs – when Hannibal has stripped them of hope.

Our lesson resides in Hannibal’s line: “It can sometimes be brave to allow yourself hope” (Wu and Fuller 44). Leaving aside Hannibal’s qualifying statement of “sometimes,” the most important diction in this line is of “brave” and “allow.”

Mostly, we allow hope for others. For a sick friend, a family down on their luck, a whole group, a whole country – a sports team or a heroic dog – we can give our hope to them. That makes sense. And it feels good.

But often, hope is not a thing we are willing to give ourselves. It seems like something only for other people, like compliments or compassion or birthday cakes. Hannibal says it’s “brave” to allow ourselves hope because when our lives are in abject turmoil, hope is the last thing we want to give ourselves because… hope hurts. When things don’t turn out as we want – when we don’t get the promotion – we lose the contest – we fail the test – we screw up the date – or worse yet, our loved one dies – when we crash and burn, utterly crash and burn – we remember the hope we had beforehand and say, “You fool. You stupid fucking fool. How did you even dare to hope?”

And so the lesson, dear reader, is this – as he often is – Hannibal is right (the bastard…)

It is brave. Let yourself have it.

ALLOW YOURSELF HOPE. BE BRAVE.

I know it seems easy for me to say. It’s not. It’s hard for me too. Some days, I just can’t do it. But you and me… we’ve got to keep trying. I deserve hope. And so do you.

It seems impossible is this world full of pain and death and smiling villains.

But if Jack Crawford can muster hope from a decapitated arm and a dying wife who won’t talk to him, you and I can too.

Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Fuller, Bryan and Steve Lightfoot. Writers. “Kaiseki.” Hannibal, season 2, episode 1, Chiswick Productions, 2014.

Harris, Thomas. “Foreword to a Fatal Interview.” Red Dragon, by Harris, Berkley, 2000, pp. IX-XIII).

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

“Judges 8:27.” King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

Judges-8-27.

Wu, Kai Yu and Bryan Fuller. Writers. “Entrée.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 6, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

#lessonsofhannibal #hannibal #fannibals #fannibalfamilyforever

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NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1:E4 -- FAMILY DON'T END WITH BREAKFAST

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E4 – FAMILY DON’T END WITH BREAKFAST

And so dear friends and #FannibalFamily, we have arrived at S1:E4 of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, the episode titled “Oeuf.” And I just have to say it, and I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I have always thought that oeuf is a weird-looking word. There. I said it.

It’s not necessarily the combo of the three vowels all in a row. We have lots of those in English. I think it’s the ‘o’ followed by the ‘e.’ Whenever I see an “oe” combo at the beginning of a word, my mind immediately goes to the Greek tragic hero, King Oedipus, father slayer, mother lover, and poor, eyeless guy that he was. And then I think of Freud’s “Oedipus complex,” his now mostly debunked theory that all children, namely male ones, go through a stage in childhood in which they sexually desire their mother and develop an antagonistic attitude toward their father. Freud theorized that if parents were loving and not abusive, children would eventually exit this phase. Karl Jung coined the term “Electra complex” in which the theory applied to female children experiencing the same feelings about their fathers.

It is funny of course that my brain has led me here because the events of “Oeuf” do indeed have to do with family – with mothers and fathers. Boys that have one mother too many, grown men that had mostly none, and a confused teenage girl who now has lost a mother and must contend with the memory of one dead father and the expectations of two live ones.

They do so much to us – mothers and fathers. Good and bad. The sheer pressure of the idea often makes me glad I never had children. I can be content that the only person I have the power to mess up is myself. Hallelujah.

An oeuf is an egg. The first three episodes of Hannibal were: “Apéritif,” “Amuse-Bouche,” and “Potage.” So, at this point, we have had an appetizer and a cocktail and a bit of hearty soup. And now out of nowhere – EGGS! In doing research, webpages about French cuisine informed me that the oeuf course is not typically included in a dinner menu. EXCEPT for this episode of Fuller’s show, in which Hannibal prepares breakfast for dinner, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest traditions ever created. I eat breakfast for dinner quite often. It gives one a little bit of comfort at the end of the day, especially if the day was sad or rough or long. Yeah, your boss yelled at you and you slipped and fell in the parking lot and scraped your knees and there’s nothing good on TV tonight, but DAMMIT, you can have pancakes.

Hell... Now I want pancakes…

Anyway, it was sage Ron Swanson who said, “There has never been a sadness that can’t be cured by breakfast food” (Freedman). And even in an episode of a show about a cannibal psychiatrist and his obsession with a twitchy, beautiful FBI agent, breakfast comes through in the clutch yet again. More about that later…

The title of this episode is also very apropos because eggs are symbolic in and of themselves. In each episode of Hannibal, a symbol emerges. In S1:E1, it was the MONGOOSE. In S1: E2, the MUSHROOM. In S1:E3, BOATS. Eggs are symbolic of fertility, abundance, birth, and rebirth. In this episode, we see the birthing of an important thing – a FAMILY. Fertilization occurred in the Hobbs’ kitchen in “Apéritif.” The insemination was messy and violent, but the result was the same. By Episode Four, it is time for nest-building. And we know exactly which bastard would be best at that, beautiful bird that he is.

“Oeuf” was written solo by Jennifer Schuur (Big Love, The Catch). Undoubtedly, she is the namesake of poor Marissa Schuur, who wound up impaled on a rack of stag’s antlers in “Potage.” Personally, I think having a character named after you in an episode of one of Fuller’s shows an amazing and beautiful tribute. If it happened to me, I would probably stop people on the street to tell them about it. The episode was directed by Peter Medak (who has directed so many things I can’t even list them, but I just want to say that he directed Zorro: The Gay Blade which means that he is a true gift to the world forever.)

Schuur wrote an absolutely masterful episode here. The overarching theme of FAMILY is cultivated through all five acts of the script. She shows us three separate families all developing and growing at the same time. They are:

Eva’s family of Lost Boys

The BAU family with Jack as the domineering father

The Murder Family – Abigail and her two beautiful, confusing dads

In every act of this story there is a part of our lesson – a bud, a leaf, a root – that ultimately bursts into full flower at the end of the episode. Sorry, I cannot extend the egg motif to this. Birds build nests in trees – Eva, Jack, and Hannibal all build different kinds of nests. One of them is sundered by the end.

The theme of family is introduced right away with Will sitting at the Turner family table, amidst the remains of a rotting family meal and the rotting remains of the family itself. Again, we see the pendulum swing – we see the decriminalization of the scene as Will views it in his mind. I believe this is one of the best set pieces of Fuller’s adaptation of Harris’ work. The pendulum swing, which signals to the viewer that the murder scene we are observing is about to be literally rewound and undone, is very effective. The image of the pendulum is taken directly from Harris’ Red Dragon. In the beginning of the novel, when Will is alone at the Leeds’ crime scene, Harris says, “In his mind, a silver pendulum swung in darkness. He waited until the pendulum was still” (11). In Fuller’s version, once the pendulum is still, the scene has been deconstructed and Will enters as the killer, metaphorically walking in the suspect’s steps and murdering with the suspect’s hands. It is one of my favorite parts of the series. Will ends every decriminalization with the phrase, “This is my design,” and I must say, it always gives me goosebumps.

The Turner family has been killed by someone they knew, someone known and also short. The image of blood splattered all over the family portraits on the wall speaks to the theme of the episode and to the larger, real world concept of family. So much blood shed in families, by families, and for families in this world. Even if no one else has ever seen you bleed, your family has. It really can’t get more intimate than that.

A bit of a thirsty sidenote here: during the murder recreation, Will points at the Turner daughter and commands her to “eat her growing foods” or forfeit dessert (Schuur 2). This is unbearably hot and a perfect example of Daddy Will in action. There is a continuing light-hearted disagreement amongst Fannibals whether Will is “Daddy” or “Baby,” to which I answer “YES.” To Will Graham stans like me, he is all things. He’s every woman; it’s all in him.

After Will has recreated the murders, Jack enters the scene and the following bit of dialogue occurs:

JACK CRAWFORD: What do you see, Will?

WILL GRAHAM: Family values.

JACK CRAWFORD: Whose family values?

The viewer can detect the note of cynicism here in both Will and Jack’s assessment of the scene. I often imagine that if Will had answered Jack’s question, he would have said something like “America’s.” In Fuller’s show, the true killing floor of the American family is laid bare just as David Lynch does in Twin Peaks. The horror isn’t at the movies, folks. It lives next door – it works at your local car dealership – it sits next to you in the pew at church.

In the next scene, we cut to Will’s comfy Wolf Trap home, where Hannibal Lecter ascends the porch, enters through the front door, and begins feeding links of suspicious sausage to Will’s dogs. The script doesn’t indicate that the sausage is made of human flesh, but considering that later in this episode Hannibal feeds Jack boudin made from “rabbit,” (a very clumsy one in a plaid jacket we see being chased through the woods), I think it’s safe to guess that Hannibal made a lot of “rabbit” sausage.

Hannibal then begins exploring Will’s home. This scene always feels to me like an animal marking its territory. I am a cat owner and I can tell you that my cats have rubbed themselves all over everything I own. One of my cats even waits on the bathroom rug, so as soon as I get out of the shower, she can be the first to rub against me and deposit her scent. What can I say? The felines love me. Hannibal pokes through Will’s books, and literally roots through his underwear drawer. When Hannibal encounters the stacks of size small white t-shirts folded neatly in this drawer, I wish he had pulled one out and gave it a good sniff. Considering Hannibal’s legendary sense of smell, this would have made tons of sense. If he had, it would have been akin to the scene in Harris’ Hannibal when Dr. Lecter literally tastes Clarice. He breaks into Clarice’s Mustang, sits there breathing in her scent and then, “he leaned forward, found the leather steering wheel by scent, and put around it his curled tongue, cupping with his tongue the finger indentations on the underside of the wheel…Then he leaned back in the seat, his tongue back where it lived, and his closed mouth moved as though he savored wine” (Harris Hannibal 285). “Did you just smell me?” indeed.

Hannibal finishes his tour of Will’s home by admiring Will’s fly-fishing lures at his worktable set up for the process. The script indicates here that Hannibal sits down at this table and ties off a salmon tie Will has been working on, with his surgeon’s precision. Then, for a seemingly whimsical purpose (Get ready, y’all – this cannibal loves WHIMSY), he pushes the barb of the lure into his thumb, draws blood, and then puts the now injured finger into his mouth. The sound of Hannibal sucking the blood off is described as a “sound not unlike a quick kiss” (Schuur 4). If this scene isn’t showcasing the start of a tempestuous romance, then I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing otherwise. Yes, this is Hannibal-style reconnaissance, but it’s possessive and lingering and it’s about love, GODDAMMIT.

Next, in the beginning of Act One, we see Abigail and Alana at Abigail’s hospital. They are walking the grounds, discussing Abigail’s therapy. Abigail explains that she feels lost, that she is without a home. As opposed to helping her, she feels like the support groups she is in are wringing her out. Abigail concludes that most of the other patients in these groups are merely being performative and false and that this style of therapy is of no help to her. Alana listens and commiserates, but she encourages Abigail to continue trying to open up in group. Abigail’s dissatisfaction with her therapy will come up later on in the episode. Alana, bless her heart, tries her best to connect with Abigail, to serve as a confidante and a reliable adult in the young girl’s life. But considering the horrific secrets Abigail continues to harbor, the only person who can really help Abigail is Hannibal; incidentally, that is exactly the way Hannibal wants it.

We then see Alana arriving at Dr. Lecter’s office. Over her beer and Hannibal’s wine, they discuss Abigail’s progress at the hospital. Hannibal believes that the only way Abigail will make progress is if she is removed from the hospital and re-integrated into the real world. Alana vehemently disagrees. She cautions Hannibal about trying to become Abigail’s surrogate family because to Abigail it “would only be a crutch” (Schuur 9). Hannibal relents and agrees to Alana’s therapy plan, but we see later on that this promise Hannibal makes is an empty one.

Now, back at the Turner crime scene, the entire BAU family is in attendance – Jack, Will, Jimmy Price, Brian Zeller, and Beverly Katz. Team Sassy Science (as Fannibals refer to Price, Zeller, and Katz) are processing and preserving evidence. Jack explains to all of them that the Turner family had another son, Jesse, who went missing the year before; authorities could not determine whether Jesse was a runaway or was kidnapped.

We see a theme of appearance versus reality unfolding in this scene. The images families portray to the world and the actual horrors underneath. Will echoes this sentiment while examining the Turner family photos. He says, “False faces in family portraits. Layers and layers of lies betrayed by a sad glint in a child’s eyes” (Schuur 10). A big sad onion, the Turner family.

In the next scene, Schuur very pointedly pulls the theme of family forward again. The team has returned to the BAU lab at Quantico. As they work, they discuss their own families. Price, Zeller, and Katz all had siblings. Will was an only child. The description of the staging for this scene in the script says, “Jack faces Zeller, Price, Katz, and Graham. He’s like a demanding father, presiding over his children as they present what they’ve just learned at school. Will stands slightly apart, not quite fitting into this surrogate family” (Schuur 12).

Just as Will didn’t fit into his own family, now he does not fit into his work family. In this way, Will’s plight mirrors that of Chris O’Halloran, one of the Lost Boys we meet later, who is also having trouble integrating into his new family. Mind you, Chris’ new family is a lot more murdery than Will’s, but I believe this is an important parallel. As an empath, Will does not only relate to and inhabit the feelings of the killers; he feels into the lives of the victims as well. The Lost Boys are both – killers and victims.

Although she is a controversial figure, there are some tidbits of wisdom to be found in the work of the late self-help guru, Louise Hay. In her book You Can Heal Your Life, Hay writes, “We are all victims of victims” (99). She uses this phrasing to describe what happens in families. Parents victimize their children in the same way that they were victimized by their own parents. If these children do not make diligent attempts to avoid recreating these patterns, they will victimize their own children in the same ways. In this manner, generational trauma is created. All of the Lost Boys in this episode are victims of their surrogate mother, Eva, and her desire for love and belonging. But these boys were victimized by their own families before Eva ever showed up – that’s how Eva could get to them. Their inherited pain opened the door.

Also, Will not fitting in with his BAU family is juxtaposed with the family that Hannibal is preparing for Will. Throughout the episode, Hannibal is laying the groundwork to fuse his family members together. The Doctor’s plans do not turn out exactly as he wants them to, but he makes impressive progress.

At the end of the scene at the BAU, Will concludes that Jesse was involved in his own mother’s death based on the positioning of her body at the dining room table. A posture of forgiveness and acceptance is what tips Will off.

In Act Two, there is more intense discussion of family, this time between Hannibal and Will. Will sits in the familiar leather chair in Hannibal’s very well-appointed office and Hannibal begins their session with the classic, and cliched psychiatrist’s open: “Tell me about your mother” (Schuur 15). Even though Will castigates Hannibal for the “lazy” questioning, we still find out a great deal about both Will and Hannibal’s family histories in this scene. Will never knew his mother and grew up poor, following his fisherman father around from port to port. Hannibal’s parents died when he was young; he was an orphan until his Uncle Robertas adopted him at sixteen. I should note at this point, being the insane fan that I am, Bryan intended for the person to play Hannibal’s uncle in later episodes to be David Bowie, which would have been absolutely perfect beyond reckoning. The only man on earth who has cheekbones to rival Bowie’s is Mads Mikkelsen, so selling them as actual blood family would not have been difficult in the least. We lost a lot of things when the Starman left us; this amazing opportunity was one of them. It will always be my headcanon, and that’s the best that can be done. (BTW - #BowieForever).

Hannibal stresses that he and Will both have a lot of things in common with Abigail; their complicated relationships with family is yet another. In this exchange between the two men, an important piece of dialogue occurs that I must quote in its entirety.

WILL GRAHAM: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.

HANNIBAL: You created a family for yourself.

WILL GRAHAM: I created a pack of strays. Thanks for feeding them while I was away…

HANNIBAL: I was referring to Abigail Hobbs (Schuur 16).

Once again, in looking at the scripts in more detail, I am amazed at the sheer manipulation Hannibal attempts, just right out of the gate, just four episodes into Season One. Hannibal says that it is Will who has created a family with Abigail. I assume he means by killing her father. But, in fact, it is HANNIBAL who has created the family because he is the one who saved Abigail’s life. In that moment in the Hobbs’ kitchen, after Garrett Jacob Hobbs slashes his daughter’s throat, after Will shoots him ten times, after Will rushes to Abigail’s side, who is bleeding out on the floor, just a matter of minutes from death – in that moment, if Hannibal had not intervened, Abigail would have died. Will was way too upset – he was shaking life a leaf from head to toe. He looked as if he was having a panic attack, like he would pass out – his expression is terrifying as his entire body vibrates with his ragged breaths, blood splattered all over his face and his glasses. If you need just one scene from any film or TV show he has ever acted in to understand why Hugh Dancy is such a fucking amazing actor, this scene is the one.

When Will places his hand over Abigail’s wound to stop the bleeding, he can’t apply enough pressure. He is too upset – too much blood leaks between his fingers. Behind him, Hannibal stands. Looking at his face, (more of Mads’ genius microexpressions), the viewer sees him make a conscious decision to get involved. As if his mind said aloud, “All right, I shall intervene here. I think I know how I can use this.” Use this? For what, you ask? To get Will. To get Will to spend more time with him, care for him, talk to him – perhaps, already, in feverish fantasies, he has imagined Will killing with him. Even though events often make us question whether or not Hannibal truly loves Will, he does. It’s all about Will. From “Do you have a problem with taste?” to “See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us,” it’s all about Will. I can’t say I blame Hannibal. If Will Graham stumbled into my life, I think it would immediately become all about him too.

In this conversation, Hannibal is continuing his laying of groundwork. It started in the Hobbs’ kitchen – then, he stayed by Abigail’s side in the hospital. So did Will. Even when she was in her coma, the two men protected her.

The return to Abigail’s family home in “Potage” is like a ceremonial goodbye to her old family. Her old family who was at least partially killed by her new family. This is the same as Eva is doing. Eva says to her Lost Boys later in the script, “you can only have one family” (Schuur 28A). Apparently, Hannibal believes this as well. It is astonishing how quickly he moved to build himself this new family once he made the decision. It once again proves just how intensely Hannibal was KO’d by Will at their first meeting. It also proves that the loneliness Hannibal has been experiencing since his sister Mischa’s death is becoming unbearable. In Harris’ canon, Hannibal tries to turn back time. In Fuller’s version, Hannibal creates a family from blood and violence.

In the next scene, we see Jack and Hannibal having a lovely dinner together in Hannibal’s royal blue dining room. Out of all the set designs in the show, I love Hannibal’s dining room the most. It reminds me of the first lines of Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” – “Blue, blue, electric blue – that’s the color of my room, where I will live – blue, blue” (“Sound and Vision – David Bowie”). Hannibal tells Jack that they are eating a boudin noir made from “rabbit,” the aforementioned plaid-jacketed one. I always find it hilarious how amused Hannibal is by feeding people meat to people without their knowledge. It’s almost penetrative. It’s so male. Hannibal will get inside you one way or the other. The two men discuss Will. Jack is concerned that the Lost Boys case is hitting Will too close to home. Hannibal suggests that Will’s life in the past is not properly anchoring him. “He needs a anchor, Jack,” Hannibal says (Schuur 19). But that anchor is not Jack. Hannibal is already Will’s paddle, he might as well be his anchor too. Hannibal is just like Will. He’s every woman. It’s all in him.

Back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science examines more evidence from the Turner crime scene – soda cans, shoes, video game controllers. From this evidence, the team determines that there were three other boys with Jesse at the crime scene. Zeller is the one who dubs them, “The Lost Boys.” This is, of course, an apt moniker because both the Peter Pan tribe and the pack of film vampire teens are examples of created or found family. They are misfit children, all of them. Price pulls Connor Frist’s fingerprints, which will lead them to their next crime scene.

Next, we see Jack storming into Will’s Quantico classroom and very unceremoniously dismissing his students. He tells Will about Connor Frist, who went missing ten months ago, and that Will must get ready to board a plane with the team to the Frist’s home in Huntsville (I assume Alabama.)

Cut to the BAU team and other officers entering the Frist family home, which is all decked out for Christmas, even though it has not been the holiday season for some time. The mother, father, and two smaller Frists are all dead. A dog trots into the scene carrying a decapitated arm. You gotta give it to Fuller and all the writers on this series. The humor is darkness at its finest.

Act Three begins back at the BAU with Team Sassy Science examining the bodies of the Frist family. They discover that one of the bodies is the Lost Boy Connor Frist himself, who was apparently shot and then his body burned in the family fireplace. Together the team theorize that Connor tried to kill his mother, but she did not die with the first shot to her head, and possibly began having a seizure, which caused Connor to panic. Because of this panic, someone taller with a larger caliber weapon dispatched both Connor’s mother and Connor himself. Down feathers found with Connor’s remains indicate that someone put a pillow under the boy’s head before he was shot. The juxtaposition of the savagery and compassion of the Frist scene befuddles Jack, but Will manages to catch the loose thread of the fabric saying of Connor’s death, “Whoever shot him… disowned him” (Schuur 26).

Next, we see Will in Hannibal’s office again. I found myself beginning to question at this point if every time we see Will in Hannibal’s office if he is attending his therapy session or if he and Hannibal are close enough now that he just goes to Hannibal’s office whenever he needs to talk. I know his appointment time with Hannibal is 7:30 p.m., but I am unaware if it is every week or every other day or every day. (If anyone reading this knows, please comment.) Will is angry when he enters Hannibal’s office – not at Hannibal, but at himself and at the Lost Boys. He tosses down a very plain, but neatly wrapped package that he says he intended to be a gift for Abigail: “Magnifying glass. Fly tying gear,” but that he “thought better of it” (Schuur 27). After buying the gift, Will realizes that Abigail’s father taught her how to hunt and that the idea of Will teaching her to fish bears too strong a resemblance to the trappings of fatherhood. Hannibal asks Will if he is “feeling paternal;” he confirms that he is and asks Hannibal if he feels the same, which Hannibal also confirms, but also passes along Alana’s warning about the dangers of assuming new familial roles for Abigail. Will then explains that he is actually angry about the boys in the case he is currently working. A great deal is made of Will’s almost perfect empathy. Several plotlines in the series really bring it to the fore and rely on it for dramatic movement. But Will’s empathy is also showcased in small moments like this one with Hannibal. Will says, “I’m angry about these boys. I’m angry cause I know when I find them, I can’t help them. I can’t give them back what they gave away” (Schuur 27). Will is angry because the boys cut themselves off from the one thing Will never really had – family. Jack Crawford is correct – the case is hitting Will too close to home. But most importantly, Will is upset that he will not be able to help the boys once he tracks them down – to Will, actually finding them is secondary. Being able to fix something once he does is paramount. It is a horribly naïve view for someone who spends as much time with murder as Will does, but it is the essence of who Will is. Will cares. But he also cares too much. People who care too much run the sincere risk of burning themselves out – and when they do, God help those around them. Their new life philosophy doesn’t always shift into “don’t give a fuck,” it shifts into “I’m gonna make people pay.” Not always, but as a person who cares too much, sometimes I really crave a villainous turn for myself… I’ll never do it. I’m too soft-hearted.

In this context of Will’s anger at the boys who sacrificed their own loving families, Hannibal enters with the verbal equivalent of quick-dry cement and a rake. AKA, groundwork manipulation. He remarks to Will, “Abigail is lost, too. Perhaps it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to help her find her way” (Schuur 28). See? You and me, Will. You and me. You can’t fix what’s wrong with these boys, but together we can fix Abigail. Won’t it feel nice to create something rather than destroy it? Won’t it feel nice to belong somewhere, to belong to someone? Hannibal is a genius. Completely unethical, but when Hannibal wants something or someone, he doesn’t let anything get in his way, even if he has to eat them.

Now, we see for the first time in the episode our Lost Boys family – but we see them with their surrogate mother, Eva, played insanely well by Molly Shannon, who absolutely kills in dramatic roles. Personally, I love comedic actors in dramatic roles; I feel they are able to shift back and forth seamlessly because in all forms of comedy is the element of darkness – the dissatisfaction or anger or fear or sadness that drove the creator to write it. But, I digress…

Eva is sitting in a diner with her three “boys,” C.J. Lincoln, Jesse Turner, and Chris O’Halloran. Over burgers and fries, the “family” is discussing what happened to Connor. Eva makes Connor’s murder sound like a mercy killing, that he was granted the love he could not kindle for his new family. Chris asks about Eva’s “real” family – she vaguely mentions a brother and it seems he was not particularly kind to Eva. Eva (and her name is Eva, I imagine, to be like that of Eve, the first mother ever in Christian mythology) – Eva says, “The family you’re born into isn’t really family. Those are just people you didn’t choose. You have to make family” (Schuur 28).

In expressing this, Eva is expressing the feelings of very real people, many of whom are in Hannibal’s audience, who have been disowned by their families. Or, people who have had to walk away from their own families in order to preserve their own safety and sanity. Families are rent apart for all reasons under the sun, but the ones I hear of most often are because of neglect, abuse, and marginalization. Children are disowned by their parents for all sorts of reasons – the child is queer or the child doesn’t want to be a doctor or the child isn’t religious or the child has an addiction or the child suffers from mental illness or for whatever shitty reason the disowning parent needs to make themselves feel justified. But also, children cut their parents off all the time too – for similar or equally shitty reasons. These people then go on to create new families wherever they can find them – at work, in the military, at school, online, at the gym, or in their own minds.

If a family member is hurting you and won’t stop and you are able to get away, you owe it to yourself to do so. I would never, ever say that someone should stay in a situation where they are unsafe or unhappy or in danger. Many people need their new families like air because their real families will never be mended – the gap will never be bridged and in many cases shouldn’t be. But to loop back to Louise Hay, I must offer her wisdom again, “We are all victims of victims.” Families, all of them, of every ilk, are messy. No one emerges unscathed. No one.

In the next scene, we see Will alone in his classroom at Quantico, sitting at his desk, studying photos of Jesse Turner and Connor Frist. The beautiful and badass Beverly Katz comes in. Will tells her he believes all of the Lost Boys have ADHD because they are small for their age and this could indicate they have been taking meds that have stunted their growth. Bev informs Will that Price has identified the gun that killed Mrs. Frist; it was used to kill C.J. Lincoln’s mother a year ago.

Now, we see all of Team Sassy Science, Jack, and Will looking at a picture of C.J. along with his juvenile criminal record on a screen. They bandy about theories about C.J. Will does not believe he is the ringleader. He believes the leader to be a still older boy.

Meanwhile, Eva’s family of Lost Boys are at a convenience store. As young Chris stands next to Eva at the cash register, C.J. glares at Chris from behind a shelf of soda bottles. C.J.’s eyes are as flat and cold as a sheet of ice. The boy is dead inside. Chris is terrified. He involuntarily urinates all over himself. When Eva discovers Chris’ now wet state, she cleans up the puddles using napkins from the counter and tries to console Chris, though she is completely unaware of the cause of Chris’ distress. I guess being a murdering criminal really doesn’t prepare a person for sudden motherhood of mentally disturbed children. Gosh, who woulda thunk it?

We shift now back to Abigail Hobbs’ very posh psychiatric hospital. (I find myself wondering who is paying for Abigail’s stay in the upscale sanitarium. The FBI? Based on the state of health insurance in America, I doubt her parents’ insurance is covering it. That and both her parents are dead. I wonder if Hannibal is paying for it. I wonder if legally Jack could have allowed Hannibal to bankroll Abigail’s recovery. Hannibal has the money, trust me. I will discuss my theories about the source of Hannibal’s funds in a later post, but let’s just say it’s a combo of family money and dead people money.)

Hannibal invites Abigail to leave the hospital for the evening and come to his house so he can make her a proper dinner. Abigail questions whether the hospital administration will allow her to leave after her egregious wall-climbing episode in “Potage.” Hannibal’s response to her is very significantly phrased: “You could say I’m one of your guardians” (Schuur 31). The foundation of Hannibal’s House is almost complete – the pillars have been sunk. Just need to wait for the concrete to dry.

Hannibal tells her he will have her back by bedtime. As Abigail gets ready to leave with Hannibal, she comments about how much she dislikes being in group therapy. She cannot be open in group because she cannot tell them about her murder of Nick Boyle. Hannibal says, “You must only lie about one thing. And when you’re with me, you don’t have to lie about anything” (Schuur 31A). The purpose of this comment is twofold. First, it is more of Hannibal preparing the way for his Murder Family – all families have secrets, silly ones and painful ones and all kinds of hidden information. Hannibal is now the only person in the world Abigail can tell the truth to – Hannibal has effectively isolated her from everyone, even people like Alana who are actively trying to help Abigail in good faith. This in Hannibal is classic narcissist behavior and we see him do it with almost everyone he really cares for – Abigail, Bedelia, and especially Will. The second purpose of this comment is that Hannibal is absolutely convinced that Abigail helped her father kill his victims and he wants Abigail to come clean with him, Hannibal keeps secrets like he keeps business cards, but if he has identified you as someone that belongs to him, you are not allowed a single secret of your own. He will poke around in your underwear drawer or your subconscious or both until he gets the truth. I suppose one could look at their subconscious as the underwear drawer of their mind. If so, both of mine could use a good cleaning. Anyway…

Act Four begins in Hannibal’s kitchen, the setting of many important scenes in the series. It makes me think about the tried-and-true principle that when a person throws a party, no matter how large or luxurious the rest of the house is, the bulk of the partygoers wind up in the kitchen. A good deal of the things that happen in Hannibal’s kitchen could not be termed as “parties,” but there definitely is a lot of action and drama in this room. Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner, a recipe, in fact called, High Life Eggs. Should you like to recreate this recipe, you must immediately acquire yourself a copy of Janice Poon’s Feeding Hannibal. Janice was the food stylist for the series. She is an amazing chef, stylist, and person to boot. She loves her Fannibal Family and the book is resplendent with full color photos and a foreword by Mads himself. No Fannibal library is complete without a copy. High Life Eggs is eggs and sausage. It looks delicious.

As Hannibal cooks, Abigail stands in the kitchen and the two discuss her future. She discovers that on a side counter Hannibal is steeping mushrooms in a teapot. He encourages Abigail to drink the tea, laced with the fungi’s psilocybin, to help her process the traumatic memories of her father. Abigail agrees.

Now back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will are looking at a case board filled with photos of the Lost Boys and the timeline of their abductions and the subsequent family murders. The boys are traveling southbound, but since none of them are of driving age, the team is confused as to how they are moving that way. This is the moment that the idea of an adult who is traveling with the group enters Will’s mind. He determines that the boys have been capture-bonded to this adult who now serves as their new master. Based on Will’s hunch, Jack expands his search.

We return to Hannibal’s kitchen where Abigail Hobbs is now totally on a full-blown shroom trip. In her inebriated state, she drops a teacup on the kitchen floor and watches it shatter. This is the introduction to one of Hannibal’s most predominant and important motifs. The provenance of this motif in Harris’ work will be discussed in a later post, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the first occurrence of the teacup, a symbol of fraught and delicate meaning in the series. Hannibal explains that Alana would not approve of him giving psilocybin to Abigail, but that it will be one of “many secrets” the two of them will share (Schuur 36). It occurs to me at this point that Hannibal “capture-bonds” people to him just as Eva does – well, with definitely more nuance and finesse, but the philosophy is the same. Because Hannibal knows about Abigail’s murder of Nick Boyle and has helped her cover it up, he always has this secret to use against her, and should she get out of line, it is the threat of the revelation of that secret that keeps her bound to Hannibal. Much, much later, Alana calls it blackmail and she is absolutely correct. Abigail also stays connected to Hannibal because let’s face it – he’s damned charming and seems to give her exactly what she needs. If you need an attentive daddy and aren’t very picky about his criminal record, one could do a lot worse that Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Abigail begins experiencing the nauseous phase of a hallucinogenic trip. Hannibal coaches her through it, and tells her to lean into her feelings. She muses dreamily that Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner. Then, a very crucial dialogue exchange occurs.

ABIGAIL HOBBS: Eggs and sausage was the last meal I was having with my parents.

HANNIBAL: I know. It’s also the first meal you’re having with me.

Again, Hannibal proves himself to be an astonishingly devious motherfucker. The meal selection is purposeful. The mushroom tea is purposeful. In Abigail’s state of enhanced consciousness, her senses will be teased with the nostalgia of the smells and tastes of her family kitchen – but now, instead of her father preparing that same meal, she will see Hannibal. The smells, the tastes, the memories will all blur together and Hannibal will become her new father. Although Hannibal’s weapon of choice is a good knife, throughout the series, he also wields a more subtle one – drugs. He drugs so many people in the series it is difficult to list them all. As a doctor, he is aware of all the medications, both natural and synthetic that can be used to warp the human mind. And he makes use of them all. If you don’t love him, he’ll dose you with scopolamine and flashy lights until you do. Like I said, Hannibal gets what he wants – no matter what.

The significance of the breakfast meal reaches a higher note when the viewer realizes at the end of the episode that the other person Hannibal intended to be sitting at the dining room table with he and Abigail was Will Graham. If Will hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Hannibal’s plan to cement the foundations of his family that night over sausage and eggs might have been successful.

Hannibal and Will both have, in their own ways, tried to place themselves in Abigail’s life as new family members, new fathers. The difference is in intention and execution. Will stumbles into this new fatherhood and seems to have only the best hopes for Abigail, although his own motives seem confusing to him. Hannibal executes his plan with precision and solid intent. Since “Apéritif,” he has incrementally been making both Will and Abigail more accustomed to the idea of the three of them as a family. He insinuates the idea into their subconscious minds and he also states it just flat out to their faces. Hannibal comes at you from all sides. When he wants something, Hannibal will get it by hook, by crook, or if you are unlucky, by something sharper.

Back at the BAU, Alana has come in to help Jack’s team try to identify the Peter Pan of the group of Lost Boys. She and Will and Bev all look at files and photos of kids who have gone missing and fit the basic profile Will has worked up. Through discussion and teamwork, they pull out the file of Chris O’Halloran as a possible Lost Boy. When Alana says that the boys are like, “brothers looking for a mother,” everything clicks in Will’s mind (Schuur 39).

Will goes to talk to Jack. He tells Jack that the leader of the boys is a woman who is “looking to form a family” (Schuur 39). Jack says, “Family can have a contagion effect on the alienated. You adopt the same behaviors” (Schuur 39).

This, of course, is exactly what is happening to Will and Abigail as Hannibal’s contagion works its way into their system. Will, as an empath, is already known for adopting the behaviors of those around him, even down to their ways of speaking and physical gestures. But, like Hannibal, Will is becoming more protective of Abigail. Like Hannibal, Abigail is lying more often, and is learning how to lie better. And they both are becoming more reliant on Hannibal. The virus is already in their system. I would imagine that under a super-powered microscope, the Hannibal virus wears a little three-piece suit and you can hear strains of a tiny piano playing The Goldberg Variations. It’s absolutely true and you can’t convince me otherwise.

The BAU team then comes up with video camera footage of Chris O’Halloran in a convenience store with Eva. Chris’ family lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and so the team gears up to descend on that home.

Act Four ends with Chris on the front doorstep of his family home, ringing the doorbell. His mother opens the door and is overwhelmed with joy to see her missing son returned to her. Until C.J. steps onto the porch holding a gun.

Act Five begins with an FBI SWAT team and all of Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will storming into the back yard of the O’Halloran home. The boys are holding Chris’ family hostage at gunpoint around a barbeque grill. SWAT shoots and kills C.J. Chris runs. As Jack and the rest of the team tend to Jesse Turner and the O’Halloran family, the patriarch of which has been wounded, Will catches up with Chris by the pool. Chris has a gun. Will begins coaxing Chris to put the gun down. The boy is conflicted, confused. Eva suddenly steps out from behind the pool house and settles in behind Chris. She drapes her arm in a motherly embrace around Chris’ neck, revealing her firearm. She commands Chris to kill Will. Will begins baiting Eva. He questions the horrible things she has done to the boys, her “family” she supposedly loves – she kidnapped them; she forces them to kill people. At this point, Eva says something that is very key to our lesson.

EVA: I’m honoring them like their other mothers wouldn’t. They’re not invisible anymore. I can see them. I see who they are and love them (Schuur 40A).

Seeing and being seen is one of the most dominant and recurring themes in Hannibal. Acceptance and understanding are as well. More about that in my conclusion.

Eva continues to push Chris to shoot Will. Chris freezes. When Eva raises her own weapon to fire at Will, from behind him, there is a shot. The camera cuts to show that the shot has come from Beverly Katz. Eva is hit in the shoulder. As she falls, Chris is released. Bev takes the kid away and Eva is arrested.

We now see Chris sitting in the back seat of Jack Crawford’s car. Jack gets in the driver’s seat and turns over his shoulder to talk to Chris. Jack is preparing Chris for the long hours of questioning and court proceedings that are in his future. Chris asks about jail and then says of Eva, “She told me they weren’t my family. That we had to make our own family” (Schuur 43A). Chris asks to speak to his real mom, but Jack tells him that can’t happen until later, probably after a good deal of interrogation. Jack takes Chris away.

Now, at Hannibal’s house, we see that Alana has arrived and is laying into Hannibal about checking Abigail out of the hospital without her permission. In a line that is absolutely hilarious to the #FannibalFamily, Alana says, “Rude, Hannibal. Shockingly rude” (Schuur 43A). It has all sorts of implications, but I find myself most often wondering if Hannibal could lop off a small bit of himself for Alana to eat or even more to the point, if he could find a small piece of his body that he could eat himself. The rude get eaten. Hannibal is definitely more than a snack. He's a five-course meal.

Hannibal apologizes. He tells Alana that she was right, that Abigail was not yet ready to leave the hospital. She suffered some distress and so Hannibal has given her “half a valium” (Schuur 44). The two go into the dining room, where Abigail sits, her eyes watery with stoned emotion. Alana sits in the place at the table that was meant for Will. Abigail smiles brightly and stares at Hannibal and Alana. The image of her two guardians shift into a beautiful image of her parents. When Hannibal asks her what she sees, Abigail says, “I see family” (Schuur 45). The episode ends.

And now dear readers, the LESSON.

To which you say, “Oh my God, about fucking time!”

I promised you a lesson. I never promised brevity.

Outside of Hannibal, in the non-fiction world, some people are lucky enough to have “real” family members who are kind and reliable people. Still, many people have to leave their “real” families behind and find and make their own. I have delineated the reasons people must walk away from family before – abuse, neglect, or any shade of agony along the spectrum of wielded pain.

Many people are crucified by their families for being the one thing those family members cannot tolerate – DIFFERENT.

When I was a little girl, I loved Mr. Rogers. I still do. I love him with all my heart. One of the reasons I loved good ol’ Fred was because every single day, he told me, “You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are” (Fred Rogers, every day).

And so the lesson…

“REAL” FAMILY LOVES US FOR EXACTLY WHO WE ARE.

They love our strengths and our weaknesses. They love our admirable traits and our not so admirable ones. They love our morning breath, and our crappy dancing, and our little idiosyncrasies. They love the big things about us too. They don’t shame us for being who we are and they don’t try to change us to fit some ridiculous standard that they deem to be more “acceptable.”

They love our scars as much as our smiles.

If your own family doesn’t love you like this – get you a new one. Even if you have to make it.

Just don’t kill anybody.

Try social media. I hear tell there’s lots of folks there.

By the way, I must send MUCH, MUCH LOVE to my #FannibalFamily.

Eva was wrong. You can have more than one family. I have two.

Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Freedman, Adrianna. “54 Ron Swanson Quotes from ‘Parks and Recreation’ Guaranteed to Make You Laugh.” Men’s Health, www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a34774462/ron-swanson-quotes. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York, Berkley, 2000.

Hay, Louise. You Can Heal Your Life. New York, Hay House, Inc., 2004.

Rogers, Fred. The thing he said on every single episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Schuur, Jennifer. Writer. “Oeuf.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 4, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

“Sound and Vision – David Bowie.” Lyrics.com, www.lyrics.com/lyric/32096867/David+Bowie/Sound+and+Vision . Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

#lessonsofhannibal #hannibal #fannibals #fannibalfamilyforever

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