An episode-by-episode analysis of the TV series Hannibal, focusing on character development, references, metaphors and symbolism. [Currently on season 1]
@hannibalanalysis I really loved the points you made about this episode being the point of no return. Your meta compelled me to think about some associations that jumped out while reading your brilliant take on the episode.
1. The flying angel Tableaus in thr alley and barn at thr beginning and end of the episode were recreated by Will at Hannibal’s Castle in S3 in his firefly Tableau of Mischa’s murderer, i.e his declaration that he was the avenging angel they hinted at with the halo here. Budish was so significant to Will’s development as a killer. This scene is also, let’s face it, the recreation of the moth found on the Silence of the Lamb movie posters. This is Bryan’s wink wink nod to Will essential being Clarice.
The second point is about Jack. In episode 4 he discussed how he wanted to be a father and longs for family. Just like Hannibal and Will. He apparently would have made a terrible father as he never could get it right with protecting Will and Miriam. So in episode 5, it felt like Will tried to reinvent their relationship to being friends in that poignant moment you mentioned at the end. Again this speaks to Hannibal’s influence as Will now knows what friends do. They talk and comfort each other. But Bryan didn’t let that scene play out in a way where I felt Jack opened up to Will. So even by the end of this episode, the only deep relationship in Will’s life was with Hannibal. Until Hannibal found out about Beverly. And we all know what happened to her.
And as an aside, Budish had the gift of sight for people who did bad things. Will’s little halo indicated he was just getting started and needed to recognize the baddies around him. As you pointed out, Will’s mind may have been clouded by the encephalitis and Hobbs, but part of me thinks Will deliberately refused to see, as then it would force him to look at himself. And in the Jewish tradition, Becoming is mentioned during most of the big rituals – adolescents to adults, life to death, marriage. This episode recognizes the huge transition happening in Will’s life. Hannibal’s influence has imprinted on Will and their intimacy and mind meld will be all consuming from this point on.
Coquilles: A scallop shell or a container shaped like one, in which seafood is served.
We open this episode with Will walking along an empty road at night, dressed only in his underwear, and hallucinating our old friend, the Ravenstag. This sleepwalking and hallucination scene is the first real clue the show gives us that Will is really not okay– that we aren’t just talking about weird trauma from the Hobbs case and his own pre-existing social inability, but that his work in the FBI and his relationship with Hannibal are having psychological consequences we cannot yet measure. As he tells the police officers who find him, “I’m not even sure I’m awake now.” Will was already starting to lose grasp of his own identity, as a result of his empathy disorder, but now he might be losing grasp on reality too.
We are now starting to see just how much Will trusts and already relies on Hannibal: after getting back home, Will immediately drives an hour from Wolf Trap to Baltimore and turns up at Hannibal’s house apparently unannounced, as Lecter has not had time to get changed. This is also the first time Hannibal calls Will his ‘friend’. They discuss Will’s sleepwalking, and Will suggests a seizure (only one of many moments in this episode that foreshadow his encephalitis), while Hannibal simply blames it on the emotional and psychological stress from working with the FBI, and both of them express their dissatisfaction with Jack, as Will says he no longer feels like a fragile teacup (a metaphor which will be heavily exploited in the next seasons) but like an old mug, and Hannibal flat out states that Jack manipulates Will.
This episode’s killer of the week ties with the main plotline in a number of interesting ways: most obviously, his brain cancer mirrors Bella’s story (who is possibly the only character in the entire series who has absolutely no bearing on the main plot), but it also provides a few moments of foreshadowing for Will’s encephalitis in the very episode in which it starts to affect him. And lastly, it’s the beginning of the series’ use of heavy christian symbolism, excluding Hannibal’s speech on God in Amuse-Bouche. The theme of transformation through murder seems oddly reminiscent of Dolarhyde’s “Becoming”, as does Budish’s obsession with religious imagery.
Back at Hannibal’s office, the psychiatrist continues his attempts to, as Will himself puts it, “Alienate [Will] from Jack Crawford,” questioning whether Will feels abandoned by the head of the BAU. In scene, the staging is again relevant, as it’s a reverse of their first session in Amuse-Bouche: if then, Will was uncertain and distrusting, facing away from Hannibal and staying up on the balcony, now it’s Hannibal who’s up there, towering over Will. This comes at the moment where Hannibal begins to manipulate Will in earnest, assuming the upper hand in their friendship.
And all this manipulation seems to be working, as Will talks back to Jack, frustrated at his inability to understand the Angel Maker, until he snaps, essentially telling him to actually do his job instead of just shoving everything into Will’s arms. Jack’s reaction makes the entire team excuse themselves and leaves Will muttering a half-assed apology like a misbehaving teenager, calling to mind last episode’s mention of Jack as a stern father figre for the BAU. As he leaves, Will goes back to contemplating one of the series’ most religiously charged tableaux: The victim not only was wings like an angel, but was also set up to appear as if floating in mid-air, guarding over his murderer. The light behind him suggests the heavenly light associated with angelic appearances in art, while the shape of the alley is even reminiscent of the long rectangular towers of gothic cathedrals. And, as this post points out, there is a second, smaller light shining just behind Will’s head. It’s clearly a foreshadowing of the episode’s last scene (which is in itself another foreshadowing of Will’s encephalitis), but the most obvious association is of course, that of a halo.
Bella’s cancer is handled in a very interesting way during this episode: first, we are lead to believe that she is, indeed, having an affair, as in her first session with Hannibal they only mention her doctor as “him,” and never mention a disease, while focusing on her guilt and Jack’s possible reaction. It’s only after Jack tries, in an extremely awkward way, to confront her about his suspicions that her condition is outright stated, though the episode had been throwing some hints at us, especially with Hannibal smelling her and immediately telling the story of his teacher’s cancer, clearly telling her that he knows (he will diagnose Will’s encephalitis in the same way later in the episode). Instead of making it a big twist, her disease is told to us in a nonchalant way, as if the earlier omission had been simply on accident. This avoids a “plot twist” type of revelation, and instead creates a certain level of tension as we wait for Jack to realise what is the real problem, watching his face fall as he connects the dots between Bella’s behaviour and Elliot Budish’s, as recounted by his wife.
Will and Jack’s confrontation at the shed seems to confirm that Hannibal’s attempts to turn Will against Jack are working: Will complains about Jack about the lack of the support he was supposed to be giving, and mentions that’s it’s getting harder and harder to empathize with the killers he’s trying to catch. This had been discussed earlier in the episode, at Hannibal’s office, and is almost a reversal of Will’s earlier situation: before, he empathized with Garret Jacob Hobbs to the point where he would feel like they were doing the same things at the same time– even after he was dead. Now, he’s unable to connect with Budish enough to catch him in time. It could just be a side effect of his growing encephalitis, or could it be that his mind is so full with Hobbs and the copycat that he cannot focus on others?
The scene where Will hallucinates Budish still alive has an interesting background: In the script, it plays in the exact same way, except it’s not a hallucination– Budish actually drops down and tries to “transform” Will before collapsing. This change fundamentally alters the significance of this scene, since it isn’t Budish who believes Will to be a criminal, but that is how Will views himself. The vision of his head in flames may be more than guilt, too: it could be that he’s aware there’s something physically wrong with him, instead of simple trauma, as Hannibal would like him to believe. And this scene ends with a very deliberate foreshadowing to the Dolarhyde plot, three seasons away– just before the dream fades away, Budish tells Will: “I can give you the majesty of your Becoming.”
Despite their fight in the shed, Jack and Will do manage to have what is possibly their closest moment at the end of this episode, as Will gently demands Jack be honest with him about what’s going on in his personal life. But their earlier conflict is more than just a hiccup in their relationship–it’s one of the biggest turning points of the season. Will has just begun to see the signs of the disaster that will befall him, and attempts to get off before the train crashes, while Jack, in a very fatherly manner (and reminding Will he is not his father), tells Will he can quit if he wants to (and making it clear that’s not quite an option). Had Will actually bailed then, he probably would have escaped mostly unharmed, but then there would be no series. This episode is the point of no return. Having made his choice not to leave the BAU, Will has made himself a powerless victim to all that will happen in the rest of the season.
In the almost all of the previous posts, I’ve mentioned what I call the “Mirroring motif,” a staging option that is very prevalent throughout the show: two characters having a conversation, sitting across each other, creating a mostly symmetrical and balanced frame. In previous episodes, it was never used in the context that would make it iconic: during one of Will’s sessions with Hannibal. It’s been used with Hannibal and Franklyn, and even with our main duo, when they have breakfast in Apéritif. It’s was teased at the end of Amuse-Bouche, as, for the first time, Will actually sits in the chair, allowing him and Hannibal to speak face-to-face, without any obstacles between them. But the specific type of shot I always talk about doesn’t arrive until the very beginning of œuf.
This staging suggests openness and a certain trust in Will’s part: this is a man who uses glasses he doesn’t need just to avoid direct eye contact, who monologues his way through his class and doesn’t take questions from students to avoid as much social contact as possible, who spent his first sessions with Hannibal trying to put as much physical distance and barriers between them as he could. Sitting in front of Hannibal like this, he opens himself up to the closer scrutiny he usually dreads. He lets some of his walls down. The visual element is also highly symbolic of their relationship, or at least as Hannibal sees it: he thinks of Will as his equal, or as having the potential to become so. Even if he leans forward as Will tries to back up in his chair, suggesting the upper hand Hannibal has in this relationship, he still believes the two of them are mirror images of each other.
This first scene (which was originally at the end of Potage) goes a bit deeper into Will’s experiences visiting Garret Jacob Hobbs’ house, as well as his feeling of guilt due to Marissa Shore’s murder. But most important, it further develops the theme of Will’s continued empathic connection with Hobbs: “Sometimes, I felt like we were doing the same things at different times of day– like I was eating or showering or sleeping at the same time he was.” “Even after he was dead?” “Even after he was dead.” Then, we get our first hint of the gradual eroding of Will’s identity at the hands of his empathy disorder, his encephalitis and Hannibal’s manipulations. “Like… you were becoming him.” “I know who I am. I'm not Gareth Jacob Hobbs, Dr. Lecter.”
It seems as though Abigail has returned to the state she was at in the beginning of Potage: unusually stoic for someone who has gone through what happened to her, closed off, distant, and trying her best to seem fine. She refuses to speak to her support group and wants to leave the hospital she’s in. It worries Alana, who believes Abigail is not dealing with her trauma in a healthy way– Hannibal, on the other hand, sees it as as opportunity to manipulate her further and to strengthen his position as a father figure, which Alana advises against: “You stepping in as a surrogate would only be a crutch.”
The second session between Will and Hannibal in this episode also includes an interesting bit of cinematography: most simple conversation scenes in film and television are in over-the-shoulder shots, where the character speaking is in focus and the camera is a bit behind and to the side of the character listening, or at least in a similar angle– they will actually be used, as well as the mirroring motif, later in this scene. However, this time we begin with super intense close-ups, which cut quickly between the two characters, leaving us disoriented, unable to fully determine where the characters are and extremely uncomfortable with the fast-paced editing. This comes immediately after the commercial break, with no establishing shot or breathing room for us to prepare for the action. It serves to startle us and to make us feel for ourselves how intimidating this situation still is to Will: They look each other in the eye, Hannibal inquisitive and piercing, while Will is tense and attempts to redirect the conversation from his personal life to Hannibal’s. (This could also be a homage to The Silence of the Lambs, in which conversations between Clarice and other characters were consistently shot in this style of frontal close-ups, as a way to make the audience identify with Clarice and feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny and gaze of her colleagues and of Hannibal.)
Just as in Potage, the theme of the “Killer of the Week” plotline is the same as the theme explored in the main plot. This time around it’s family, or rather, surrogate families: children killing their birth families in favour of a new one, Will’s lack of connection to the traditional concept of family, the family he’s made out of his strays (in which Hannibal includes Abigail), the family both Will and Hannibal want to form with Abigail, the family she’s searching in them and in Dr. Bloom, and even the family formed by the team at the FBI. Describing the morgue scene and the sibling-like banter that precedes the examination, the script states: “Jack faces Zellar, 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.”
Will, distressed at seeing the “Lost Boys” throw away what he could never have, buys Abigail a gift: fishing gear (his angry gift-buying is mentioned in Red Dragon). Although it’s more closely tied to the relationship between Will and Abigail, the fishing metaphor is much more appropriate to her involvement in her father’s murders than the hunting Jack Crawford loves to point at. It’s also interesting how the memory of hunting is what changes Will’s mind about the present: does he believe it might bring bad memories to Abigail or could he be attempting to avoid filling the father role that much, as Alana advised? In this session, unlike in the opening scene, Will doesn’t sit in his usual place in front of Hannibal (who is, in fact, still welcoming Will in his usual seat), but storms in, throwing the gift on the divan, and stands up for the rest of the scene, yet again putting distance between the two of them, and even has his back turned to Hannibal most of the time.
Going against everything Alana advised, Hannibal somehow manages to become Abigail’s guardian (or at least claims to become) and takes her to his home to do drugs. Before going, however, they talk about her bad dreams, Marissa and Nicholas Boyle, and Hannibal persists in trying to make her trust him, saying that while she’ll “have to get used to lying” to everyone else, she doesn’t need to lie about anything to him. As they leave, they deliver the most crucial lines to understanding Abigail’s position as both a victim and perpetrator of terrible things: “In the dream, I wonder how I’d live with myself knowing what I did.” “And when you’re awake?” “And when I’m awake, I know I can live with myself. I know I will just get used to what I did. Does that make me a sociopath?” “No. It makes you a survivor.”
Abigail mentions wanting to work for the FBI and Hannibal just too transparent: “I would certainly feel safer if you were in the hallowed halls of the F.B.I. protecting my interests.” Nevertheless, this little tidbit is one of the few moments where we learn about any desire of Abigail that isn’t just surviving through all of her trauma. We knew nothing about her as a person before the incident, and all that we know about her after is deeply tied to it. But the question stands, was she interested in that career before, or was it the FBI’s (and Will’s) actions in regards to her father that drew her to it? In the show, Abigail doesn’t really have any motivations that aren’t tied to her family, old or new, or the things she’s done, so it’s very interesting and intriguing to get what may be a glimpse of who she is removed from that context. (It’s also likely that this was introduced so that, had the show gone on differently, and Abigail actually joined the FBI, she could completely fill the role of Clarice’s surrogate.)
Hannibal does everything to make him, Will and Abigail into a family. He’s the first one to suggest the idea of paternity to Will, constantly reaffirms his paternal feeling towards Abigail, manipulates her into trusting and depending on him, and, at the end of this episode, becomes her guardian and takes her home. There, he tries to alienate her from Garret Jacob Hobbs (“You are not your father’s daughter. Not anymore.”) and tries to get Abigail to associate him and Will with her family: He gives her drugs and specifically makes the last meal she ever had with her parents, and (as explained in the script), attempts to have that dinner with her and Will. Will, however, never returns his calls and doesn’t come, so his role is accidentally filled by a furious Alana Bloom, but aside from that, Hannibal’s plan works perfectly: the hallucinogens, combined with the meal and his suggestions, make Abigail see her parents in Hannibal’s and Alana’s place, leaving Will out of this new family, out of the family at the FBI, and like the Lost Boys of this episode, alienated from his own family, alone at home with his strays, the only family he has.
Happy Holidays everybody! I’ll be traveling around New Year’s and I’m not entirely sure whether I’ll have reliable internet access or not, so this week’s post will (probably) be late.
But for some good news, I made a twitter! I’ll be using it to share some of my sillier and less serious reactions as I rewatch the episodes
Potage: a thick soup or stew of boiled meat and vegetables.
This episode is the very first in the series not to feature a Killer of the Week subplot, and it’s for a good reason: While Apèritif served to introduce most of the characters and the dynamics of the series, as well as the event that kickstarts the main plot, and Amuse-Bouche fully developed the beginning of Hannibal’s and Will’s relationship, Potage is the true debut of Abigail Hobbs, who provided one of the biggest twists in adapting the franchise to TV, by placing an unnamed character from Will’s backstory at the center of the emotional conflict of season one. We begin with a nightmare, as in last episode, of Abigail hunting a doe with her father. Their hunting had already been pointed out by Jack as possible evidence of her complicity in her dad’s murders, and the dream’s ending, with the doe being replaced by Elise Nichols, indicates that, even if she is not guilty, as it isn’t clear at this point in the season, at the very least feels and responsible for Hobbs’ actions. Her father might have been the hunter, but she still feels as though the blood is on her hands
With Abigail awake, Will is immediately torn between Jack’s, Alana’s and his own wishes: He wants to visit Abigail, but definitely not to discover whether she was involved in the murders, as Jack wants, while Alana is vehemently against this early a meeting, and expresses concern about the paternal position Will, partly due to Hannibal’s influence, wants to take in Abigail’s life, and warns that she may not be able to live up to the ideal he’s built in his head. “Dogs keep a promise a person can't.” “I get it. I can trust a dog to be a dog, but I can’t trust Abigail Hobbs to be who I think she is.” (Will’s line was cut from the finished episode and can be found on the shooting script.) This scene also highlights the tense power Alana has over Jack: “He respects you too much to yell at you, no matter how much he wants to.” “And I take advantage of that.” She’s cocky, almost proud of that, vaguely foreshadowing the colder and manipulative Alana we’ll see in season three.
Abigail’s conversation with Bloom is… odd. Abigail is unusually calm and accepting of what happened, and while Alana warned Will against becoming too enamoured of the Abigail in his head, it’s possible she had her own preconceptions of the girl as a fragile and traumatized mess, and her expression after Abigail mentions lying to the nurses makes it clear how off-guard the girl’s state leaves her. In her conversation with Jack, immediately later, she points out how Abigail is “Surprisingly practical,” and “has a penchant for manipulation. Withheld information to gain information. She demonstrated only enough emotions to prove she had them.” Alana may not share in Jack’s suspicions, but she definitely doesn’t blindly believe in Abigail’s innocence, as Will does.
The scene during Will’s lecture is short, but full of significance for Will’s and Hannibal’s relationship. It not only reveals that Will already knows the copycat and the mysterious caller are the same person, but it shows how much Hannibal seems to enjoy this little game he’s set up for the FBI. His reaction at finding his own work projected in Will’s classroom is not worry or surprise – rather, he looks proud of himself. He’s also very much pleased and impressed by Will’s insight, excited to have someone of Will’s caliber to play with, happy to finally have a challenge on his hands. Some have theorized that, throughout season one, Will is already subconsciously aware that Hannibal the killer he is looking for (the Ravenstag being a representation of that awareness, a mix of the crows and staghead present at the first of Hannibal’s tableaux Will saw: Cassie Boyle’s body), and this scene could support that: As Will discusses Hannibal’s actions, the two of them seem look right at each other.
As if the first meeting between Abigail and Will & Hannibal wasn’t gonna be tense enough, Freddie Lounds gets to her first, offering Abigail a way to “speak her own truth,” in other words, a book deal. If we believe Abigail’s reaction to be genuine, this is the first time she’s really heard the full extent of her father’s actions, and she’s noticeably more affected by it in this scene than the previous one. Her opinions of Will and Hannibal are definitely very… conflicting at first. Freddie’s meddling certainly doesn’t help, and these are the men who, simultaneously, saved her life and killed her father, and as both Hannibal and Will increasingly become father figures to her, her complicated feelings towards GJH will also be projected unto them.
Despite all the work Hannibal went through trying to get Will to be frank about the pleasure he got out off killing Hobbs, Will still hasn’t been convinced that it is “beautiful”, and won’t even admit to Abigail that killing her father felt just, despite her wording allowing that sort of answer and even anticipating it. He never quite gets around to answering her actual question as to how it feels. At this point, it’s still “the ugliest thing in the world,” much to Hannibal’s displeasure. (Will’s talk of how Abigail brought out the best in her father also provides some nice foreshadowing or referencing to his similar speech to Reba McClane in Red Dragon.)
Another important moment between Will and Abigail comes at Hobbs’ house, as both of them are faced with the events that there transpired. Abigail questions Will about his job and about his relationship with her dad, or rather, with his ghost, his “shadow suspended in dust”. Will answers he’s still trying to know Hobbs, still trying to understand him. Will continues empathizing with Hobbs, especially since Hannibal suggested they are, or should be, parental figures to Abigail, which is why, later in the episode, he will dream about killing her the same way Hobbs tried to.
After Abigail’s questioning, Alana mentions the concept of Folie à Deux, a condition in which a person’s mental disorder can be transferred to another. It’s what Abigail is so scared of, that her father’s crazy can pass on to her like bad genes, but it is also Will’s fear: he’s still not quite sure if the pleasure he felt killing Hobbs was his own or simply the result of spending too much time in a serial killer’s mind. When Alana mentions it, he remembers the moment of understanding he had with Hobbs. In Will’s case, he wouldn’t just catch another person’s crazy– he’d become somebody else entirely.
Abigail’s mental state seems to almost regress throughout the episode: when we first see her at the hospital, she’s unusually calm and practical. Later, when she meets Freddie, Hannibal and Will, she seems more nervous and uncomfortable. Throughout the trip to Minnesota, she’s increasingly shocked and traumatised, from being back at her house, from realising she was being fed her father’s victims, from seeing Marissa dead, and finally, from arriving back at her house and being immediately ambushed by reporters, Marissa’s mother, and Freddie Lounds. Of course this is the moment Nicholas Boyle chooses to arrive. Abigail’s confused, scared, unstable and holding a knife, having just found out her goddamned pillows were made of human hair. He appears in her house out of nowhere after having already broken in and threatened her, and when she tries to run, he follows her and pushes her up against the wall. It’s no surprise she guts him “just like her father taught her.” Hannibal may be gaslighting her when he claims it wasn’t self defense, but he’s definitely right about the way this will affect the way people see her.
Her conversation with Hannibal at the end of the episode again shows a calmer Abigail, but also a more open one: she comes to his office to process what they just did, and to confirm her suspicions. Hannibal, instead of letting his guard down, continues planting doubts in her mind, and only pretends to open himself up. Though Abigail’s interactions with Will were predominant throughout the episode, this is the moment she starts to become close to Hannibal, turning to him in much the same way Will does, and finds some comfort in, as she believes, knowing Hannibal’s secret just as he knows hers. Right now, Abigail is in the same place Will was last episode: just starting to fall under Hannibal’s web of manipulation, but she’s also willing to be part of his lies.
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