Hannibal : Trou Normand

Episode 9

Hannibal escaped death and discovery last week and finally marked Will Graham as an equal. Of course when the spot light fell on Hannibal all we saw of Will was his decent into deeper and weirder madness.

I guess Graham couldn't complain though, he got to snog Dr Alana Blooms face off. Lucky guy!

***SPOILER***

Only madness lies before Will Graham and this week he seems to be losing time not only in his sleep but now when he's awake.

Jack takes him to this weeks murder scene on a beach. A totem pole made up of dead bodies with the newest of these at the top. He goes and does his Super Graham technique and then suddenly wakes up in Hannibals waiting room.

Back to a point I always make but I love how unique and sick the death is in this series. It might be too much for some but I think it is great, it is what a lot of these shock horror films miss. You don't need loads of blood or to even SEE the deaths you can make people shudder and really feel sick just by being artistic with what you do with the bodies. This series isn't scared to show the grotesque and make it the forefront of the camera shot. They don't show you a glimpse and then fade away never to really see it again, you get to see it up close and personal and THEN see Will Graham actually piecing things together himself. It always feels so wrong to write that in a blog but I have to say I think it is wonderful. The great thing is it doesn't overshadow the show either so we get the character development and some really wonderful character development as well as the deaths and artistic ways of presenting dead bodies.

Anyways, Hannibal tells Will basically that he's abusing his body and mind by making himself "see" he is worried that Will is mentally unstable, and he has a good reason to believe that with all these black outs and losing a lot of time. At least this week he's driving to see Hannibal and getting there safely, last time he was on the roof of his house! The reason Will doesn't want to give it up, well lets face it Jack Crawford emotionally blackmailed him into making him responsible for lives he theoretically could save.

We then get to go back to Abigail (mild yays all around) she seems to actually be talking to a group about how she feels but it turns out to be a nightmare, surrounded by the girls her dad killed telling her that he should have killed her so that he wouldn't have killed them. She's then face to face with the man she killed after he broke into her house all those episodes ago. Though to be fair the person who should have died to save him was Freddie!

Will goes to apologize to Jack about the day before but it seems that he didn't act any different as Jack seems to be worried when he realizes that Will is hiding something from him. Why he thinks Will would tell him about any problems when he threatened him after Will decided he wanted to give it up I don't know, and how he can't see that he has a problem is beyond me.

Back to Abigail and she's talking to Freddie, she sold the house but the money goes to the victims and this pushes Abigail into agreeing to write a book about her experience. I understand why some people (my sister) would read a book about her but to be honest she had nothing to do with it (according to her) and no one knows anything about her father really so why the heck would someone buy a "poor me" book by a murderers daughter? Well I guess it would be marketed as "will she confess to knowing about it all?"

In the morgue and the nerds have decorated with photos of the totem pole. Will tells them that the newest victim has to be special to him in some way and we find out that most of the bodies were accidental deaths on the death certificates but Will is determined that they are all murders. He then goes to lecturer about the killerl "every death is different, left to look like something else." He then blacks out again, one second talking to his class the next in front of Alana Bloom who tells him that she won't date him because he's mentally unstable. Wow in one episode his best friend and potential girlfriend calls him unstable, I could have told them that within minutes of episode 1! Then again I am a Sherlock fan (giggles manically).

Hannibal and Will go to see Abigail and they try to talk her out of writing her book. Hannibal reminds her that she'd forfeit all of their secrecy if she did and Will gives her a fatherly speech which she shoots down in flames. Hannibal does a much better job of being fatherly, Will is just way too.... Forceful in the way he says things.

And someone digging outside finds the dead body Hannibal and Abigail buried.

Back to the totem and Will tells them that the bottom of the pole will be the first victim, it happened 40 years ago and Will is certain that there will be a connection to him and the last victim. Jack interrupts and gets Hannibal, Will and Alana together to tell them that his body has been found. Jack is still insistent that Abigail knows something she isn't telling them, well he is right about the this one because she killed him. Hannibal gives her more credit then Will and Alana does, and he is right mentally she's got more strength then Will will ever know. Jack goes to the psychological torture of making Abigail answer his questions over the dead body. I don't know if it is bad acting, misdirection or something else but Abigails attitude is so off putting how the hell could you believe a word she ever says.

Alana Bloom is the best character ever created, such a strong willed person, wonderful human being. Love her.

Abigail talks to Hannibal about the experience, Hannibal knows that it was her that uncovered the body.

They find a motive for one of the murders and goes to pay a visit to the man that was connected to the death all those years ago. The man is just waiting there waiting to admit to his crime, he killed Joel Summers because he wasn't meant to be. The totem pole is his legacy and he'd be happy to go to prison. It turns out that the first person was killed because he was the father of last victim, it turns out that biologically he was the murderers son but the mother had decided to raise him as her partners son not his. He didn't seem happy to know that he'd killed his own son.

Will is still having a hard time so goes to visit the dead body and "see" what he can. I think he kind of guessed remembering some of the things that Abigail said that it could have been her, and sure enough that is what he see's is Abigail afraid stabbing the guy. The next stop he makes is to Hannibal's office to tell him what he saw. Will doesn't seem too surprised that Hannibal knew, Hannibal admits to helping her hide the body and to be honest Will seems quite sad that he found out it was true. Hannibal does the emotional blackmail better than Jack, Hannibal does everything so well he's just perfect. Hannibal just does it better.

It will be interesting to see how this secret bares on the relationship between these two.

What a wonderful dinner party Hannibal is having with Abigail, Will and Freddie. Will and Freddie just seem to act like children bickering, Hannibal presides over them like a teacher and Abigail figures out that Will has found out she killed the man.

And there it is, apparently she knew what her father did and she was the bait after all. I'm happy that we didn't have to spend any more time waiting for what we had already guessed. She also gets a hug with Hannibal, bloody lucky cow!

We get a flashback to Abigail meeting one of the victims on a train, the last one, the one that had cancer. I do hope that by the end of the season even if Will and Hannibal never find out why he did it we find out a bit more about the father. Even if it means more of Abigail.

That episode didn't feel half as long as it was, the really cool murder was solved in a blink of an eye with the old guy just surrendering. A little bit of a let down, though I'm impressed that they've managed to make me a little interested in Abigail though I still think she's a lot colder and more into the murder side of things then she's letting on. Her cold and calculating attitude doesn't suit a victim at all.

They've toned down on the Will going crazy thing, I prefer the blacking out for hours on end to the constant dream sequences with the stag and all that. His downhill spiral is interesting but episodes were being eaten up by all this. It is also nice that everyone and their dogs are telling him he is unstable like he didn't already know that. Though I'm sure that it is just going to make him worse.

Hannibal was being his usual wonderful self, you really couldn't believe there was anything wrong with him he just seems so calm and controlled. That is always the things people love about Hannibal he never feels like a killer. I did like the dinner scene with Freddie and the fact that you get so many comparisons with the other characters, the father figure compared to Will's attempts and his emotional twisting of Will compared to Jacks threatening attempts. He never raises his voice but the intent is clear, he hardly changes his tone but the security that Abigail needs is there.

We really need some more Alana and Hannibal scenes though as those are awesome!

I really don't think they paid half enough attention to the actual case they were solving this week, this could have been two separate episodes, one with the totem pole killer and the other with Abigail's murder being uncovered and Will figuring it out. I didn't dislike the episode, I found it interesting especially the way Hannibal was able to wiggle his knife into everyone once again and really found his standing as the dominant one in the team without anyone knowing or even noticing that is what he is doing.

For an episode that featured Freddie and Abigail, and worse, them both together it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Freddie was much less a stereotype and much more intelligent this episode. Thing is she isn't meant to be a match but she's meant to talk the talk like she wants to be a match to them, before this it seems they tried to do a Irene Adler but it didn't work out. Personally I liked her much more this episode but would rather they'd stop having her talk about Will because that is when she is at her most annoying.

I'm happy as I said that we got a little closer to finding out about Abigail's dad, the fact this story is being used as some kind of presiding arc over the season is good. I like that we weren't left with what we had in the first episode. I think I said in my episode 1 blog that I felt a bit sad we didn't get to know more about his motives but now we know quite a bit about how he did it and I do wonder if it is only a matter of time before we get even more information.

The series is still going strong and I am enjoying it immensely. The blog was late as we got our new puppies and I haven't had the time to watch the episode all the way through, the blog has been a work of patience over a few days (as anyone who reads my twitter page will know), the next episode looks really interesting and I can't wait to see it!