Hannibal : Potage

Episode 3

Last week we had a doctor burying people to bring them closer to mushrooms (I'll never be as intelligent as anyone in this series so my very layman explanation on events in the intellectual world of Hannibal will always sound really dumb. I apologize. Please forgive me!)

Who is Hannibal going to feed this week? (I do not apologize for making terrible jokes. I haven't said the "M" word so don't tempt me...)

***SPOILERS***

We start this episode seeing Hobbs and Abigail out hunting. Obviously it is a flashback seeing Hobbs is dead (I love starting this blog off by sounding like Crawford and stating the bleeding obvious.) Abigail doesn't look particularly happy about killing the deer. He is a bit weird to be honest, he seems to have a lot of respect for the deer but he chooses to show this by killing her and using everything to make something else. Apparently eating her is honoring her, else it is just murder. Still Abigail doesn't look impressed. Well Abigail is awake now.

Onto the rather wonderful and understated title sequence.

I forgot last episode that Graham has a family of dogs. The name of the female psychiatrist is Alana by the by, I did find the name out for this blog, and she breaks the news to Graham that Abigail is awake. She is still one of my favorite characters in this. Love her to bits. Alana wants to be the buffer between Jack and Will which seems to make Will happy. Alana volunteers to "reach out" to Abigail. It turns out that the nurses didn't bother to tell Abigail that her parents are dead.

Crawford is being normal bossy Crawford. Even though Alana is sympathetic she's picked up a lot (that I smugly will say I did as well) when talking to Abigail. She's manipulative, doesn't show much emotion other then a surface emotion, uses her manipulative side to get answers and is smart enough to figure out what isn't being said to her. Alana thinks she's hiding something so Crawford wants Graham sent in.

Graham is once again lecturing about Hobbs. Again talking about the copycat. There seems to be some underlying thing about Will pointing out constantly that there is a copycat. It is pretty obvious that Hannibal is the murderer in the copycat. The way Graham explains it is just an explanation of Hannibal's character in general. Ohhh and here is the untraceable call, and was that a smirk from Hannibal?

The journalist has shown up with Abigail. Ohhh when is Hannibal going to eat her? Well Freddie and Abigail are going to get on, they are the same character really. The reason I don't hate Freddie I just find her annoying is that the one from Broadchurch did it so much better. She tries to discredit Graham in front of his face, takes some balls but she is boring as heck. The most one sided and the worst character in the whole series. Abigail is taken for a walk by Hannibal and Graham. Abigail does seem to be very switched on, unlike most victims in these types of shows would listen to Grahams "you brought out the love in him" and not read into that "I brought out something else as well".

Ohh Will puts his foot in his mouth. But still Freddie is so one dimensional and boring...

Anyway back to Abigail and she wants to go home. Crawford wants Abigail to go home, Alana doesn't, Hannibal is in two minds but says he does want her to. Therefore Crawford goes with Hannibal.

Freddie is with a brother of one of the victims. She lets the brother know that Abigail is awake.

When they get to the house someone has graffiti'd cannibals to the garage. Hannibal, Will and Alana walk around the house with Abigail who is as cold and calculating towards Will as Hannibal can be. Actually it is really funny that Will mentions the phone call, the look on Hannibal's face is brilliant. She is truthfully weird she wants to reenact when she got the phone call, to be honest it sounds like she remembers it was Hannibal.

Abigail's friend comes to see her but whilst they walk in the grounds the brother of one of the victims comes and accuses Abigail of being the bait. Not only that but her friends mum comes and rushes her home. Not wanting her daughter to spend time with a cannibals daughter. Will has some strange assed nightmare, he really is a messed up one.

Next day they take Abigail to the cabin. She repeats what her father said to her about honoring the deer, it then dawns on her (though it probably already had) that he'd been feeding them the meat of the girls. She also shares with them that he told her before he cut her throat that he killed those girls so that he didn't have to kill her. Alana is straight in there telling her not to blame herself, but Abigail carries on blaming herself. Suddenly blood starts dripping from the ceiling and they find the dead body of friend encased in the antlers.

I cringed right away because I know what is going to happen, I hate moments like this when you can tell what is coming a mile off.

Hannibal basically blames the brother Nicholas Boil (probably spelt differently) for the death of not only this girl but of his sister. I was going to say earlier that it was the brother of the copycats victim but I didn't, but he is. Freddie has gotten behind the police barriers into Abigail's home but she isn't the only one it seems. Abigail rips open a cushion and finds human hair, the brother of the copycat victim is in the house but gets killed by Abigail as he grabs hold of her.Hannibal kind of second guesses it and knocks Alana out and takes total control of the situation. Hannibal is brilliant confusing the situation telling Abigail that they'd never see it as self defense because she butchered the man, scaring her into believing in her shocked state that they'd just see her as her dads accomplish and makes her agree to hide the body.

Back in Hannibal's study Abigail sneaks in. Abigail does realize that Hannibal was on the phone to her dad and realizes that he is a serial killer. Ohhh Abigail that is the wrong thing to say to him. She does seem to have the intellectual know how to out think Hannibal and Graham, then again Hannibal is also out thinking her.

Now this episode stands out, it carries on getting better but in a totally different way. It might be only three episodes in but for the first time there is no "new" mystery. Even though the Hobbs case is an ongoing thing this episode was totally focused on the fall out of Abigail waking up. It brought on a lot of development but at the same time none at all for Hannibal. Someone knows his secret, she's screwed up and stupidly intelligent but she knows. She worked it out. By trying to clean up his loose ties he's walked right into her hands. Does he really have enough on her? Probably. She's still young and even though she's worked it out she probably will fall into believing him. It would be easy to do. He's so calm and never perturbed by anything.

The only weakness in this whole series is the reporter. I don't know why they have to be bland one dimensional characters in EVERYTHING. There is one cardboard cut out reporter that everyone must base their reporters on. This time the character isn't even interesting enough to bring out hateful emotions. Hate is probably too strong but I don't mean it in the "I want them dead" sense more the "I hope karma bites that character in the ass big time" way. Everything she does is so predictable and bland.

Alana and Hannibal are only just starting to rub each other up the wrong way, I see her working him out before anyone else even thinks he's not the nice guy he seems to make everyone believe he is. The wonderful thing about him is he doesn't show any emotion, he doesn't do anything, he is so blank it would be like talking to an automated robot yet even the audience could believe butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. One smile is all I've seen out of him briefly, the tone of his voice never changes, he's never out of control of the situation. Yet even though he has the same tone of voice, same expression and is like a blank canvas he radiates charm and charisma. All I can say is that he has been written and acted perfectly so far. I'm a big fan of Mikkelsen anyway ever since I saw him in King Arthur years ago and this is the best thing I've seen him in to date.

I really like Abigail's character as well, she's not as innocent as she makes out. I don't think she's helped her father but she's very cold. Her,  Graham and Hannibal should make a support group up. Even though you see Graham falling to pieces he's just as much of a blank canvas as these two. Us as an audience see little moments with Graham and Abigail but on the whole they are so in control, so cunning and manipulative. Graham hides it the worst, Hannibal hides it the best and Abigail just makes you wonder to be honest.

I do like how this whole thing has carried on through the episodes.

Now the preview for the next episode is actually the preview for episode 5, episode 4 was never shown on TV because of the story but was available on iTunes. Even though I saw the preview for episode 5 and so badly wanted to watch it I am determined to watch them in order so I will be doing a blog on Œuf before I do a blog on episode 5. Though episode 5 looks good.