Hannibal : Œuf

Episode 4

This episode was not shown in the US. Fuller pulled the episode but claimed it had nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing just that the imagery of what happens in the episode wasn't right for the time it was being broadcast.

It was still broadcast in other countries.

***SPOILER***

We start with Graham talking to Hannibal about how sometimes he walks in the field outside his house and that is the only time that he feels safe. He tells Hannibal that he tried so hard to basically understand Hobbs and that he feels guilty when he saw Abigail's friend suspended on the antlers. He does know that he isn't Hobbs though.

We then flash to a dead family, heads on their dinner plates, maggots everywhere. Graham does his thing. It is a little strange having Graham take the place of the killer and talk us through what he thinks they were feeling. I love it as much as the Sherlock trick.

Hannibal is at Will's house feeding his dogs, I'm hoping normal, sausages. He snoops about the place finishes a fishing thing then sticks the hook into his finger and only as Hannibal can licks his own blood. Ohh Hannibal.

Back at the crime scene we have a missing son, he was abducted over a year ago.

Abigail is still in hospital looking at the scar on her neck. She tells Alana that she is hiding the scar but Alana tells her that she shouldn't hide anything. Abigail carries on with the strangeness, she seems to have totally gotten over the whole ordeal. Alana just wants her to find someone to relate to.

Alana then goes to visit Hannibal and gets a smile out of him! She's my kind of girl, whilst Hannibal drinks his pansy wine she has a pint of beer. Go Alana! Hannibal says that Abigail might be ready to get out into the world, Alana wants her to find herself but it seems Hannibal wants to become a guardian.

The detectives all are standing about in the morgue talking about how many brothers and sisters they have trying to out psyche each other. Crawford is the one to notice the vital clue that leads Will to make the jump that the killer was the abducted son. It isn't actually said but I know that is the jump, because I made that jump. I won't be eating my words later because I am a genius, just not good at making myself sound like one. Yeah I'm a common as much Sherlock 'Olmes me is.

Hannibal has picked up the same thing I have about Abigail and tells Graham this whilst they are talking about their families. As always Hannibal uses the current case to stick the knife slowly deeper into Grahams brain. Asking the hard questions he opens Will's eyes up a little more.

Crawford is back for more of Hannibal's cooking, we actually get to see his rabbit... It is no Treasure Box that is for sure!

In the lecturer room Graham is talking about bites but gets interrupted by Crawford who brings the news that the fingerprint that the rest of the agents found was of another missing boy. They rush to that boys family home to find the same scene waiting for them, kind of. The rest of the family dead. For some reason the boys are keeping their mothers till last, they also took the presents of the mother. There was also a burnt body, Graham believes it is Conner (the missing boy) because he had been disowned.

We then see the rest of the boys with the person who has abducted them. She's telling the boys that the families they were born into are only a stepping stone into this new family. She's basically brain washing the boys, it seems to have worked on the first families son and the older boy with them but it doesn't seem to have worked with another one with them.

Whilst the boys and their "new mother" are in a shop the youngest boy, the one that is off to kill his family, pee's himself.

Graham is still going crazy over Abigail. He's brought her a Christmas present. Again though Hannibal uses Abigail and now the boys as a lever into Wills subconscious. Will is angry that he can't help the boys, even if he helps them he can't give them back their families.

Hannibal goes to Abigail and invites her home with him. Abigail tells Hannibal about the dreams that she has been having and admits that she lies to her support group. Hannibal tells her that she doesn't have to lie to him. We get to see Hannibal cooking. Whilst they talk in his kitchen Hannibal basically gives her tea made out of mushrooms. I did wonder what the heck he had in his teapot.

Graham is slowly working things out, he explains capture bonding. The kids are adapting to their captor to survive. Whilst talking this through and trying to find the next missing child they realize that it isn't just and older kid but someone trying to be their mother. All the time they are doing this important work Hannibal has Abigail high on mushrooms. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Through the convenience store footage they find the kid they are looking for and we join him knocking on the front door of his real home. The question is will Will and his team get there in time to save the boys family?

I have to say Crawford turned bad ass with a big ass gun and his stupid sunglasses...

They get there just in the nick of time but Christopher (the boy) runs to the women who abducted them. Thankfully someone shoots her. Why the heck did they leave that kid with Crawford? He's such a bitch to the poor kid.

Alana isn't happy that Hannibal took Abigail out of the hospital, she actually calls Hannibal rude! I really love her. He doesn't tell Alana the truth he says he's given her a Valium instead of drugging her up with mushrooms. Under the influence she imagines that Hannibal and Alana are her family. We also get to meet Mrs Crawford who seems taken aback by the fact her husbands suddenly wants kids, she obviously doesn't now.  Whilst Graham is left on his own with his own little family of doggies (who needs anything else?)

The episode was just as interesting but even more though provoking then the ones before it. The threat they were trying to stop wasn't over the top (cannibalism, burying people alive) it was something very real. Abduction of young kids that might be vulnerable mentally. It is especially interesting to see this kind of case tackled in an episode were Hannibal is getting inside not only Grahams head but Abigail's.

If anything the threat was over too quickly, the main focus on the episode was on the growing relationship between Hannibal and Abigail and how Hannibal is slowly getting into everyone's heads. He's slowly but surely winning everyone's trust but also cunningly building up more walls around himself.

I really liked the story but do feel that they didn't do it justice this time around. The women was such an interesting character and other than little bits and pieces we never got to delve into her mind which would have been such an interesting thing to do. Plus the mystery of the oldest boy never really got solved, it might have been a mystery only I saw but the knowing looks etc to the boy who pee'd himself made me wonder if he really did believe in what this women was going on about. I think the main problem was with developing the main cast you lose a little bit of the characterization that things like CSI build when they profile the bad guys. Yes we get that they are all demented minds but it would have been interesting not only to see a little more of how the women was brainwashing these kids but maybe a flash back to how she kidnapped them in the first place and maybe a little more insight into how the two who had killed their families felt after they were caught. Even though the story was great, the episode was more then great and we learnt more about our main cast this story did suffer a little by having nothing at all other then a few lines here and there about the subject matter.

Altogether it works though. It was a soft mystery, just as it got going it ended. I guess it is easier just to portray a psychopath like the doctor in episode two then to dig deeper within one episode about a women who is brainwashing kids.

And I really want to see Crawfords wife meet Hannibal!