Digesting Hannibal

 Episode 13 – Savoureux Will walks through the woods at night with a scoped rifle, hunting a stag.  It runs off, and then Will fires a shot.  We kind of know, already, that this is going to be a dream sequence.  And knowing the stag represents Hannibal much of the time.  He runs after the body, and we see the stag in shadow, on the ground, then turns to face him.  For a moment it looks like a man with antlers.  And then it’s gone.  He follows a blood trail.  And sees a man with antlers, and glowing eyes.  He wakes

Episode 12 – Relevés Will walks through a hospital in a robe, pulling his IV line along on a cart.  He enters Georgia’s room, with her still in the hyperbaric chamber.  She looks close to normal.  They talk for a bit, and it’s clear they’ve been talking regularly.  She now seems able to recognize him, somehow.  Will reports that they’ve only found that he has a fever, but not why.  She gets pessimistic about what’ll happen — they won’t find a real cause, just give wrong meds and wrong diagnoses.  Well that was her experience, after all.  She also says she’s

Episode 11 – Rôti Hannibal serves dinner with Dr. Chilton.  They discuss Abel Gideon, and how Chilton tried to convince him that he was the Ripper.  Hannibal points out how that primarily works with those without a stable sense of self (Will), rather than with psychopaths.  This reflects on much of the series, with Hannibal attempting to control Will, who has the ultimate unstable sense of self.  I watch this always on guard that anyone could be Hannibal’s next victim, especially Chilton.  It turns out that Gideon is accusing Chilton of making him kill.  Chilton asks for advice, and Hannibal instructs

 Episode 10 – Buffet Froid A car drives up to a house at night.  A girl (BETH LEBEAU) gets out, and enters the house.  She plays with a cage bird.  We see her getting ready for bed.  As she tries to sleep something drips from her ceiling. She turns on the light to see multiple leaks coming through across her ceiling. She investigates the attic to find a hole in the roof, Big enough for a person to come through.   In fact we see what she doesn’t, footsteps in the snow, on the outer roof.  A good use of the

Episode 8 – Fromage The episode opens on Will fixing something at home, while hearing something like scream or whimper, faintly.  He runs outside trying to find it. Elsewhere, Tobias teaches a boy to play Cello, who complains that the strings are tougher to play.  Tobias admits that these “authentic” strings aren’t always made from cat guts.  Well what else could they be made of?  That’s the opening question for the episode, and we can already know where this is going.  It’s revealed that Tobias appears to have taken human guts and carefully worked it until he can make strings

Episode 7 – Sorbet [the palate cleanser] Will lectures his class on the Chesapeake Ripper.  The Ripper kills in groups of 3 at a time, every 18 months, and views his victims as pigs.  He claims the removal of organs and mutilation of the abdomen suggests someone with anatomical or surgical know-how.  Yes and no.  I’d say it would be more certain if the way organs were removed was important, or that the mutilation avoided any of the vital organs.  That would make the case more convincing that it’s a surgeon or a physician.  Will mentions that Lass’s severed arm was

Episode 6 – Entrée The episode opens with Dr. Abel Gideon (Eddie Izzard), on the floor of a maximum security ward.  The guards stand outside his cell, warning him to comply, or they will be forced to “restrain him.”  The imagery is a clear reference to the cells of Silence of the Lambs.  He’s clearly dangerous, and the fear is that he’s playing possum.  They check his pulse and call for a gurney.  The tension increases, now that he’s out of his cell.  Who is this guy?  Is he playing possum?   A nurse, now alone, puts him on a monitor. 

Episode 5 – Coquilles We open with Will walking barefoot down a two-lane highway, in only his underwear.  The stag walks behind him.  He’s sleepwalking.  A police car pulls up to him and the two officers question him.  He doesn’t know where he is, and still isn’t sure he’s really awake.  This tells us Will questions his own reality.  This doesn’t quite reach the point of Zhuangzi, but there’s clearly a similarity.   Will visits Hannibal in his home, early the next morning.  Hannibal remarks that sleepwalking is less common in adults than children.  True.  Will wonders if it could

Episode 4 – Ouef Warning: Wasn’t a big fan of the episode from a psych perspective, and may have vented a little. We start with Will and Hannibal in therapy.  Will describes his house, and seeing it from a distance.  “It’s really the only time I feel safe.”  Hannibal pivots this to thinking about Hobbs and how Will knew him.  “Like a bloodhound.”  Will discloses that he tried very hard to understand him.  Hannibal furthers this to exploring how Will felt about finding the body of Marissa.  Will admits that he felt guilty, “because I felt like I killed her.”  Here