Mizumono: Whose side was Will on?
It is somewhat of a question still whether Will was on Hannibal or Jack’s side at the beginning of Mizumono or if he was simply undecided. We actually get the answer to the question right at the very beginning of the episode. Two facts show us definitively that Will was on Hannibal’s side from the start.
1. Will tells Jack that Hannibal is planning to kill Jack in the kitchen.
Will: He’ll try to kill you in the kitchen. For convenience. Make it easier to prepare the tartar.
We know this is a lie because when Will thinks about what would have happened at the dinner in Aperitivo, they kill him in the dining room, not the kitchen. The only reason Will would lie about this to Jack at this point is because he is planning to kill him with Hannibal and he wants to catch Jack off guard.
Will: Jack won’t be easy to kill. He’ll be armed. He’s strong. Well trained. We can’t hesitate.
Jack: I’m wearing a wire. I have sharp shooters on the roofs of neighboring houses with lines of site to all the windows.
They slit his throat to prevent him from making him a sound and they kill him in the dining room because the only window is covered. This is what Will was planning and he lies to Jack about it. In this same scene, he doesn’t lie to Hannibal. He’s chosen Hannibal.
2. The scene directly after Jack and Hannibal are both talking to Will about their plans and whose side he is on is Will “shooting” the Ravenstag. But he did not shoot the Ravenstag.
We know at the end of the episode, this was a misdirect. It’s to make us think he’s chosen Jack because he supposedly shot the Ravenstag. But he didn’t. He left it alive and it’s only “dying” at the end when Hannibal guts Will. He’s chosen to keep his connection to Hannibal alive. He’s chosen Hannibal.
We have to watch the rest of the episode with this fact in mind. He chose Hannibal at the beginning. So, why does Will make sure that their dinner plans were still on? Was it to capture Hannibal? No. It was to kill Jack with Hannibal.
The reason that Will was so intent on killing Jack was to prove himself after he couldn’t back out of his lie about Freddie. He needed some way to prove to Hannibal he was his man and show Jack what he is, beyond a shadow of a doubt. That’s why he was so insistent about killing Jack even when Hannibal didn’t want to. If Will wanted Hannibal simply to escape by himself, he could have told Hannibal much earlier to get away before Hannibal was close to being put into danger. Furthermore, if his goal was to capture Hannibal, he could have arrested him when he mutilated Mason. He told Jack that’s what he would do and he didn’t do it. Neither capturing Hannibal nor simply telling him to run away without him was on Will’s agenda.
This is further confirmed in Season 3 when Will tells Jack, “I wanted to run away with him” and when he thinks of his perfect world he thinks of his missed opportunity of killing Jack with Hannibal at the dinner. When he talks to “Abigail” who is really himself, he tells himself, “Yes, I still want to go with him,” he says, “We were supposed to go with him.” It was clearly his plan.
The real tragedy of Mizumono is that Will was planning to run away with Hannibal. But since he didn’t get the chance to prove himself, and he kept lying and relying on the act of killing Jack to cement his and Hannibal’s relationship, Hannibal gave up on him and gutted him thinking that Will really was going to turn him over to the FBI. It was a miscommunication pure and simple.
There are only a couple of things that I can think of that would undermine this reading of the episode.
1. Will tells Jack that he “wasn’t decided” when he called Hannibal and only decided to tell him to run when he heard his voice.
It’s possible that Will is simply lying to Jack, as he’s done before, because he didn’t want Jack to know he was going to kill him with Hannibal. It’s also possible that Will was indeed undecided at that particular moment because his plan had fallen through. The dinner wasn’t going to happen and there was a warrant out for him and cops at his door. He had to decide what to do when his plan had entirely changed. Should he call Hannibal to warn him even if that meant he couldn’t go with him? Should he protect himself from any further involvement with Hannibal since he might be caught? He had to decide and he decided when he heard his voice that he would warn him to get away even if he couldn’t go with him. Either way, it’s not a problem to this reading of the episode.
2. When Will talks to himself as Abigail in S3
Ghost!Abigail: Why did you lie to him?
Will: The wrong thing being the right thing to do was too ugly a thought.
The first thing we think of is that Will is saying here that he lied about working with Jack. But that’s not what he’s saying. What did he lie to Hannibal about? Killing Freddie. That was his initial lie. We know he’s talking about the initial lie because he follows that up with “you just kept lying”. So, what he’s saying here is that he lied about killing Freddie because even though he thought killing her (the wrong thing) was actually the “right thing” it was too ugly a thought. So he didn’t kill her and he lied about it. Will had described killing as “ugly” before multiple times so I think we can safely say that killing Freddie is what he’s talking about here. He’s not talking about warning Hannibal to get away or failing to do so at the last supper and he’s not talking about lying about working with Jack.
Will: He gave you a chance to take it all back and you just kept lying. No one had to die.
So what does “No one had to die” mean, then? It doesn’t make sense in context unless you realize what emphasis we should understand. If Will had stopped lying to Hannibal at the last supper, that doesn’t mean no one would have died. Hannibal and Will would have run away together. Does that mean no one else would die? Of course not. If they’d run away together, or if Hannibal had run away on his own, Hannibal would still keep killing people. No, what he is saying to himself is that he didn’t need to kill Jack like he thought he did.
It isn’t “no one had to die”. It’s “no one had to die”. What you emphasize and pay attention to in that sentence is key.
Hannibal: Is it ideal that Jack die?
Will: It’s necessary. What happens to Jack has been preordained.
Hannibal: I don’t need a sacrifice. Do you?
Will: I need him to know. He wants to see you, see who you are. See what I’ve become.
Will thought that Jack’s death was necessary, that it HAD TO happen. When he’s talking to himself in the hospital, he is saying that was wrong. Jack didn’t have to die. They could have run away together and left him alive. Just like Hannibal said.
Hannibal didn’t want to kill Jack, but Will insisted. Why would Will insist so much on that night that they had to kill Jack supposedly to catch Hannibal and then turn completely around the next day and tell Hannibal to run away? Nothing had changed between them in that time. Nothing at all. In fact, he never spoke to Hannibal in that time. The next time he spoke to him was to tell him to run away. The only thing that had changed was that their plans to go to dinner with Jack were ruined. Will’s plan to kill Jack with Hannibal was ruined. That’s why he insisted they kill Jack one night and then told Hannibal to run away the next night.
And one last thing. What about when they show him as “two” in Mizumono? Does that mean he was still undecided or of two minds in the beginning of Mizumono? No. We have to remember the other time he is shown as “two” and what happened.
Hannibal describes it in S3 as not being of two minds, or undecided, but as an “active and deliberate” splitting of his personality.
In each of these cases when Will is shown as “two” it means he is actively and deliberately splitting his personality. It means he’s ready to kill Jack. There’s no question about it since the first time it’s shown, he’s on Hannibal’s side and is planning to kill Jack. That’s confirmed when the 2nd time it is shown he immediately does help Hannibal kill Jack in his fantasy.
In summary, what happened in Mizumono was that Will was planning to kill Jack with Hannibal in order to prove himself. He had lied about killing Freddie and he needed a way to “undo” that. Once the FBI interfered and the dinner was ruined, Will’s plans were also ruined. He had to decide what to do after that. He decided to help Hannibal even if it meant they would be separated (which Will did not want). But Will didn’t know that Hannibal had smelled Freddie and thought that Will had betrayed him. He goes to Hannibal’s house, he gets gutted and does nothing to stop it. He never wavers from his decision to be on Hannibal’s side and help him escape. When Hannibal says he didn’t want his “gift” Will counters that he did. Their misunderstanding was the tragedy.
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