For a moment, I had the audacity to assume I was over Mizumono and decided to rewatch it. Boy oh boy, was I wrong! I noticed a few details that slipped from me the first time, most likely because I was bawling my eyes out. And I realized that in the very moment giffed above Will motherloving Graham was about to kiss Hannibal The Cannibal Lecter.
A bit of context for anyone who managed to erase this scene from their memory (I salute you): Will arrives at Hannibal’s place, sees that Abigail is alive and Hannibal hasn’t left yet. “You were supposed to leave,” he says, to which Hannibal replies, “We couldn’t leave without you.” (Read “I couldn’t live without you.”) Will does a dramatic little turn like the actual Disney prince that he is to face Hannibal who had successfully managed to creep up behind him.
In the first gif, Will’s eyes travel down to Hannibal’s lips.
In the second gif, he gets one step closer to Hannibal and his throat trembles softly.
In the third gif, when Hannibal reaches out to touch him, his facial features have already softened, he leans in slightly, and there’s even the faint twitch of a smile at the corners of his lips.
The way I see it, this is the moment when Will realizes Hannibal actually cared about him and Abigail. It’s the moment when he realizes Hannibal risked sparing Abigail’s life (killing her would have been way less dangerous than keeping her hidden) because he wanted them to leave everything behind, run away together and live as a family. And in this very second it all dawns on him; a moment of full understanding as he looks at Hannibal’s dark, teary eyes and his bloody lips, and suddenly time stops and the world fades away and it’s just the two of them and the intimate knowledge of a shared consuming passion. Sadly, time doesn’t stop for Hannibal, as he still remembers Will’s lies and his betrayal. But let’s not get into that.
Now, this may not seem like a lot, but please keep in mind that this is Will Eyes-Are-Distracting Graham we are talking about and in this scene he looks like he can’t get enough of Hannibal’s eyes. Remember how visibly pissed off he was when Jack touched his glasses in season 1, episode 1 and compare it to this scene where he doesn’t protest to suddenly being touched AT ALL. He doesn’t break eye contact, he doesn’t shy away, he doesn’t pull himself from Hannibal’s touch. For someone who just saw his friend bleeding out in front of the door, came in with a gun (brief note here: I believe the gun was meant for Jack, as he lowered it when he saw Abigail and didn’t put it back on Hannibal, even though he could have), and found out his surrogate daughter was miraculously alive, you’d expect him to flinch, at least, when a bloody cannibal serial killer grabs his face. But no, he doesn’t. Because he has anticipated that sort of touch, and he wants it. He wants to kiss Hannibal Lecter. It’s such an intense and intimate moment that I get secondhand-embarrassment from Abigail sitting there and having to watch them.
Am I wrong and reading too much into this? Maybe, but you never know with a show that keeps getting gayer and gayer. Either way, A++ acting and micro-expressions from Hugh Dancy. Give this man the awards he deserves already.
