Let's start at the end here. Hannibal (the show) has plunged deep, deep into dreamlike abstractions. While I think it could maybe stand to come up for air, I'm still blown away that a network like NBC could show something as strange as this. Granted, they won't be showing it much longer. Hannibal was cancelled by NBC, but it looks like some other potential venues for it have passed as well, meaning that we're more likely than not watching the final season at the moment.
The final pair of scenes in Dolce show us the seeming ultimate defeat of Will, but also a bizarre switcheroo that dramatically changes the status quo of the season, and, if the show is actually heading to the situation from the books, will result in a Hannibal behind bars, but not before Mason Verger is taken out.
Will comes very close to having his brain pan-fried in front of him, in a nod to the infamous Ray Liota scene from the film Hannibal (I can't remember if that came before or after Red Dragon, but it's clear none of the other big-screen adaptations really lived up to Silence of the Lambs.)
Back in the US, Alana has teamed up with the Vergers to track down Hannibal, but the thing is that Mason doesn't just want Hannibal dead - he wants to eat the good doctor piece by piece - essentially subjecting Hannibal to what Hannibal did to Abel Gideon. The six million dollar bounty on Hannibal has turned the Italian police into an army of bounty hunters, and while Pazzi died trying to collect, that has not deterred others.
Also of note: Alana and Margot have some freaky kaleidoscope sex. This perhaps comes out of nowhere - the only reason I knew it was coming was because Caroline Dhavernas suggested it to Bryan Fuller in the middle of a commentary track on the season two DVDs. Margot is down a uterus after the events of season two, but she still wants to have a child - something that Mason even agrees to (and creepily, wants to be the father. Jeez, this is more fucked up than the Lannisters!) It seems Margot wants Alana to have her baby. Ok.
Jack and Will meet as the coroners are picking up Pazzi's body. They decide to keep up the story that Hannibal is really just Doctor Fell, to prevent other cops from going mercenary, but it's not really something they can manage.
They do, however, come to Hannibal's home and find Bedelia there. "Lydia Fell," after meeting with Chiyo, drugs herself, maintaining the story that she is an innocent, being manipulated like Miriam Lass. In an earlier scene with Hannibal, the two of them talk openly about his plans to murder and eat her (seriously, does Hannibal have any relationships that he does not intend to ultimately end by eating the other person?) but Bedelia's got a leg up. She isn't done "marinating," and she knows that Hannibal can't stay with everyone converging on him. Is she permanently safe? No, probably not, and paradoxically the very fact that she has out-maneuvered Hannibal probably makes it more likely for him to try to kill her later.
Bedelia meets Jack and Will, and while they see through her act with ease, she maintains it - she knows that she's not the one they're after, and ultimately, she's doing what she needs to survive.
As Jack tries to get the truth from her, Will disappears, and this proves to be a mistake. He goes to meet Hannibal at the Uffitzi, who is doing his sketches of Primavera - substituting in Will and Bedelia's faces. For Hannibal, this return to Florence has been a return to his roots.
He and Will walk out of the museum, not noticing that Chiyo has set up high above with a sniper rifle. It seems she's ready to take out Hannibal, but instead, she zeroes in on Will right as our hero pulls out a knife and gets ready to put Hannibal down.
Will awakens in Hannibal's captivity, and he is eventually sat down at a table while Hannibal spoon-feeds him a reduction of rosemary and thyme. The "soup" isn't for Will - it's to infuse him with flavor. Hannibal is finally going to kill him and eat him.
Jack walks in, as if to save the day, but Hannibal gets him by the Achilles tendon and sits him down on the opposite end of the table - so that he and Hannibal can chew Will's brain more literally than they were ever able to before.
Will is drugged to inaction, and Jack is forced to witness in horror as Hannibal takes a bonesaw to Will's forehead....
And then, images of clouds and hanging pigs, and Will and Hannibal are next to each other, hanging upside-down from hooks as Mason Verger wheels in, welcoming them to his farm.
I expect we'll find out how the hell that happened in the coming weeks, but we're left with quite a few questions. It's likely that the police officer interviewing Bedelia was the one to collect on the bounty, and that those loyal to him took Hannibal and Will right before the former could get into the latter's brain, but what about Jack?
We're now about halfway through what will probably be the show's last season. I expect next week's episode to be quite the climactic one. If the structure of this season is similar to the previous one, we might even see a massive time-jump to take us to the events of Red Dragon quite soon. After a whole lot of set-up, the show is moving pieces at a lightning pace.
No comments:
Post a Comment