alwaysthinkingoutloud

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Raya and the Last Dragon (2021, Carlos López Estrada)

Our world too, once, consisted of one nation. One people. A world where peace and brotherhood didn’t sound utterly utopian as it does to us now, they were states of nature that were acknowledged instinctively. It was a world where the shades of colors were of concern only to painters, where the common grounds binding us were far more profound than languages. It was a world where the best among us were the people gifted with the most beautiful traits that we all looked up to. Those people were our parents and our children, our friends, and our lovers. We needn’t have looked to heavens to see love, trust, acceptance and tolerance; we saw them in people sitting next to us. They were our Dragon gems. We were humbled by each other and heaven was here.

As our Druun which is greed, pride, distrust, and hate sneaked into our lives with all its destructiveness; the virtues of those that we long aspired to became so alien and rare that they stopped being what they are -the norm, that is- and turned into miracles. Love became a legend, tolerance a myth. Trust became a joke. Everyone grasped any piece they could find only to squeeze the meaning out of them. We too broke the Heart of our own existence. Those people who were able to maintain the purest of hearts, to manage to keep the malice out became prophets. How could they not since they still spoke of compassion and altruism and such, things that long became fairytales? We legendized the very intrinsic goodliness of men, we divinized it into oblivion to conceal our willing failure to better ourselves.

But one just can’t forever deny what’s already under his skin. A world can’t altogether be without those whose hearts outbeat the most tainted ones. Men are destined to remember that the ability to love and tolerate and trust is not a grace exclusive to dragons, to prophets. It is the currency of our souls that is meant to recognize no borders of state or mind. It is very us. It is us. Prophets don’t make the deeds; the deeds make the prophets. We can’t forever be blind to the tableau and see only the painter, be deaf to the composition and hear only the musician. They ask for no recognition. It is not about them. They want us to look beyond, to see the colors and hear the notes. They want us to paint our own pictures and compose our own pieces. They want us to say, “if they did, why can’t I?”. Afterall, aren’t we all created in His image?

Once we remember that what will defeat greed, pride, distrust, and hate is our love and trust and tolerance that are awoken not by a mandatory acceptance of a divine dictation but by an unselfish act of submission; maybe then we too can be Kumandra again. 

Finally getting united not by the last dragon magically coming alive, but by the love and trust He reminded us of. 

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Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 13, Season 1 (Savoureux)

Will dreams about being on hunt for the stag in a forest that is dark, the best perception tool at his disposal being not his sight but his inexplicable bond to it. He takes the first shot, and the bullet does not only pierce flesh, but the primitive innocence of the fur as well. That deceitful skin is shed, and the stag figure evolves into a wendigo. The dream suggests that somewhere between Will letting Hannibal know that he is closing in on the Chesapeake Ripper/the Copycat Killer and his waking up to be soon throwing up an ear, Will must have picked up on something so that his seeing such a revealing dream can be explained. What I think is, when Hannibal drugged Will to shove that ear down his throat, just for those semi-conscious seconds, Will became aware of who Hannibal was. He put the pieces together to see that Hannibal is framing him only now, because he feels too cornered by his persistency to go after ‘the killer’. The fact that the stag turns into wendigo only when Will wounds him feels a bit like Will subconsciously knows that he forced Hannibal’s hand to peel off his mask.

While Alana gets devastated hearing that there is nothing wrong with Will physically, she also feels guilty and angry since she sees what is wrong with Will has to be psychological and could have been controlled -if not totally prevented- were they to see it. If she could see it. So, between her continuous tears since getting the news of Will’s arrest, she smiles for the first time when she sees the distorted clock he draws for her. Here is her hope. Here is the hope that it is a physical problem that can be treated, mistakes and neglections can be taken back.

Alana, with her enthusiasm to clear Will, voices a possibility of encephalitis right after the so-close confrontation about the clock, and the slight worry becomes visible in Hannibal’s eyes. He stares at her longer than it is appropriate, most probably thinking if he will need to kill her in near future. Or maybe it is right at that moment when he decides to blind Alana soon.

While I cannot totally deny the possibility that Hannibal’s tears are fake, that they are a necessary accessory to a convincing psychiatric appointment where grieving is discussed; I believe they have genuinity as well. They are not shed for Abigail, of course, but for Will. Afterall, Hannibal had not cultivated Will only to get him locked up in the end. He may have begun working Will up with pure curiosity to see what would happen, but at some part of the journey, he started to see Will as someone who can understand him, who can be worthy of his companionship. He hoped that Will will end up shedding his ethical concerns and evolve into a state where he can accept Hannibal as he is. So, he may very well be crying for a perfect opportunity lost, a unique chance of friendship wasted. He may be crying for he failed to save Will from the cliff he had to push him off.

That is exactly why he agrees to go to Minnesota with Will, why he tries to convince him that he may have, could have killed Abigail or anyone for that matter, because it is in his nature. After going out of his way to frame Will so that he would not find out his true identity, why would Hannibal suddenly decide to encourage Will’s viciousness so boldly, tell him acquiescent things about his murderous nature openly? Hannibal becomes overly reckless when it comes to Will. He is grasping at straws to make Will see, see himself and accept, and then see Hannibal and do the same.

As time passes, Will hallucinates of the wendigo more often, most probably a result of his mind trying hard to put a face to it, to find an explanation. In the interrogation room he comes one step closer to the truth, seeing that he is being framed by somebody close to him. The circle of clarity is narrowing. When Will tells this opinion of his to Dr. Lecter after escaping custody, Hannibal gets a bit nervous and then offers a solution to help Will prove his innocence. His true agenda is, just like agreeing to take Will to Minnesota is, not convincing Will of having committed those murders but showing him that the idea of Will himself as a killer would not be so far-fetched as a concept. However, whilst Hannibal is trying to do that, he indulges himself maybe a little too much with the details and Will hallucinates of the wendigo again, even closer than before. When Will says “I know I didn’t kill her.” when Hannibal is talking about Cassie Boyle and he asks how he knows that, it is almost like Will is going through a subconscious epiphany when his mind is trying to signal, “because I know you did.” And finally, he sees the wendigo right behind Hannibal.

After that point on, there is no muzzle on Will’s mind for the number of clues it throws Will’s way exponentially. He dreams of being Garret Jacob Hobbs and answering the phone that morning and hearing Hannibal’s voice reply, Hannibal calling out to him in the car in real. Remembering Abigail’s asking Hannibal to be the man on the phone while reenacting the crime and asking for the same thing…

At a point, Will’s mind stops needing to try to signal anything since Hannibal decides to take a shot and divulge his real agenda, telling Will that he may have come here not to find a killer, but to find himself, to understand his darkest urges. Like a devil whispering in an ear, Hannibal takes of his mask and talks about Will’s becoming with a mad passion in his voice and eyes. Will may see and accept himself now and be the man Hannibal always hoped him to be, or he may choose to deny it all and turn on Hannibal seeing him for what he is. Hannibal is taking a significant risk, something not likely of him, and it smells desperation. 

As the latter possibility turns out to be true, disappointment along with the regret of his recklessness is vivid on Hannibal’s face.

For Will, he finally sees Hannibal as his figure superimposes the wendigo. But for Hannibal, Will does not see. Not the way Hannibal wishes Will to see. Will sees a fitting profile of a killer, a mere monster, he just sees a picture; but he does not see the tableau with its beauty. He does not see the inevitability, the grace. And most importantly, Will does not recognize what he sees. He does not see the familiarity of his own reflection on the tableau. Not yet at least.

That smile of Hannibal tells us enough to know that he will continue to try opening Will’s, this unique man’s eyes until he sees the way Hannibal does, until he sees that the tableau is indeed, beautiful.

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Crimson warmth radiating off your glance,

My break of dawn, my awakening, my every chance

The brightest there is, that red

Remedy of every tear I've ever shed

xxx

When cold caresses that cheek of yours,

Purer than a baby's, yet older than gods of ours

The freshest there is, that pink

Everything ever beautiful painted without ink

xxx

The sun-kissed vastness my fingers brush through,

A mighty mane fit to be my king's that is true

The most glorious there is, that goldish yellow

A crown yet ever the local, ever the mellow

xxx

Deeper than the uncharted forests your eyes,

A pair of angelic heart rippers in disguise

The most divine there is, that green

Only executioner at whose hands I could have ever been

xxx

Watching the raging seas meet the humble sky,

Your skin touching mine and I know my will is nigh

The most free there is, that blue

It must be

Yet I cannot see

Nothing feels blue, not even blue

xxx

The darkness of the night comes enveloping

Numbing, soothing, collapsing yet expanding

The blackest there is, that black

Even when sight is what I lack

You are the rainbow that is blinding

I close my eyes and I see everything

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Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 12, Season 1 (Relevés)

While Will assumes others’ point of view painfully well, it is questionable if he longs to be understood himself too. He does want there to be enough of himself to be understood and he wants his own identity not to blur in the depth of perception of others; however, he denies any commonalities between his identity and those killers’ reflections in his mind and that prevents him from understanding himself in an honest way. Garret Jacob Hobbs, along with the other killers, somehow saw him as much as he saw them, but Will refused to feel understood by them since all the murders of the killers he profiled so far were deliberate and vicious in nature. There were no malfunctions, no accidents. They did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. The right thing for someone else, or the right thing for themselves. Or the fun thing for themselves. So, he kept being in a defensive mode despite of it being lonesome. But it is different with Georgia Madchen, she is a killer with an excuse -her condition, that is -, with a veil to hide behind. She is someone who was never understood because she was different, and that difference was never understood either. Will himself too has been alienized all his life because of the way he is, and again, he did murder Garret Jacob Hobbs in the name of justice and shot Dr. Gideon (to kill) while he was sick. However, not to Will’s liking, the similarity between him and Georgia ends here. Will desperately wants to believe that he is more like Georgia Madchen than he is like GJB. That he killed without really meaning it and that he found it to be ugly. That is why he has sympathy for her. That is why she gets to him differently than the others preceded her. That is why he looks faintly disappointed to hear she does not remember killing her friend. And that is why he asks her, with a bit of hope, if she dreams about killing anybody else. Because he does, and he wants to know he is not alone. He wants to prove himself that dreaming about killing -regardless of the reason- may haunt you in your dreams nightmares; and that it is not about a forbidden hunger surfacing, but about being traumatized. It is not, though. Georgia is terrified to remember killing, while Will remembers his bloody actions very vividly; it is not a memory that he despises. Georgia Madchen could not recognize anyone; she could not see them. But Will saw everyone and everything too well, including the darkest corners of his mind. He knows what is there and what it craves. So, Will can try as hard as he can to make himself believe that he is like Madchen, that he is a victim, still he very well knows that this is not true. He is not a victimized prey or a prey that attacks only to survive, he simply is the hunter. A hunter who likes being the hunter.

Will’s emerging dark side which is getting more intertwined with to-be-discovered Chesapeake Ripper/Copycat Killer every passing day, aka the stag, comes into sight in one of his intuitive dreams and he puts the pieces together. Will does not really acquire any new data about the present or previous cases, but he suddenly reaches to conclusion that the copycat killers of GJH and Georgia Madchen are in fact the same person. Will making that connection is quite a spectacular reach even with his capabilities which makes me think how much his empathy grows exponentially when it comes to the copycat killer, as almost Will’s mind is irreparably already connected to his, even before Will knew who it was. Another sudden and groundless intuition is that he dreams about confronting Abigail about Hannibal knowing that she helped her father kill, out of nowhere. Some things just come to him, like a memory would come. Or like a revelation would come, too smoothly to be someone else’s. That is why he sees Georgia saying “see?” the way Garret Jacob Hobbs asked Will when he shot him. GJH -who Will killed- asked him if he saw the beauty behind what he did and now Georgia -who the copycat killer killed- is asking the same thing. That is because Will, in a way, feels responsible for Georgia’s death and he sees the similarity between her and GJH’s deaths. The moment Hannibal walked into Will’s life, so did the missing ingredient for him to self-actualize. From that moment on, every seemingly independent kill of the two belonged to the other one as well. Hannibal did not open a door within Will’s mind that goes to his true self, Hannibal was both the door and where it leads. Will did not reinvent himself but reunited with his other half.

I do not think neither Hannibal nor Will are truly aware of it at this point, but it is safe to assume that comparing to Will, Hannibal is at least closer to comprehending what is happening. That is why,

 “There are days when even Will doesn’t understand his own thinking.”

says Hannibal to Jack. This is most probably followed in his mind by “but I do.” Jack must have felt that too, so he goes right to Dr. Du Maurier to dig that out.

Will makes one of the longest, non-stop eye contact ever with Abigail, meaningfully when she is talking about how it felt to kill someone. If Will truly avoids making eye contact because he finds eyes too revealing and noisy to look at as per his suggestion to Hannibal when they first met, would not this be the perfect time to look away? But no, he does not even blink and he seems to be speaking as honest as it can get. So, Will is not actually afraid of what he might find in someone’s eyes when talking to them, but he is afraid of what they might find out in his. When Will looks someone right in the eye, it is a clear statement that shouts openness and honesty. And now, when talking about how good murdering someone feels, he can be himself without any concealing or pretense. 

During the conversation of Hannibal and Bedelia, she stands while talking to him as his psychiatrist, but she sits on the couch when she begins talking to him as his colleague in a manner that is more friendly than professional. Then, she goes back to standing again when she talks about the limitations of psychiatrists’ abilities, shifting back to a professional point of view. So, when Bedelia advices Hannibal to maintain boundaries with Will; Hannibal goes and sits in her couch saying, 

“When the pressures of my personal and professional relationships with Will grow too great, I assure you, I’ll find a way to relieve them.” 

What he actually says there is that if there comes a time he has to choose between being Will’s psychiatrist and his friend, he will choose to be his friend, just like Bedelia did with Hannibal, sitting in the couch and setting her therapist hat aside.

After talking to Will about his intuitions about the copycat killer and his idea to take Abigail back to Minnesota to reconstruct the copycat killer’s thinking; Hannibal realizes that although he will need to take his therapist hat off, it may not be in order to become friendly with Will since he pushes too hard and is about to come too close in a way Hannibal does not want him to, not yet anyway. While he cannot let that happen, Hannibal knows this will leave him in a position to act in a non-desirable way and he is displeased about the means he will have to follow to stop Will. The means to draw Jack’s suspicions away from Abigail towards Will.

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Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 11, Season 1 (Rôti)

As pieces of Will’s mind start to disintegrate, he feels the uprising waves of unbelongingness. Waves that do not meet with resistance, however. Waves that consist of trillions of transparent water drops that have no identity but what they reflect. Waves that feel just like him, getting unleashed. The emphasis being on unleashed, it is not the growing of a seed that was sowed against his will. It is the emerging of what was already there, what took a lifetime to frost, to hide. That frozen-up dark side starts to melt down as his devils start burning hotter and brighter. His body and soul are burning hotter and brighter so that the iced identity of him would thaw free. 

As the walls that were once forced up are melting down, so is he. He feels as he is liquefying and even beyond that, vaporizing. Transforming into the form known as the most irregular state of the matter, the most chaotic one. Freest one. The most moldable one that gives him the opportunity to be shaped, to exist whichever way he wants, no more buried pieces of his entity. All this is an inevitable outcome enhanced by his encephalitis that will, surely, be treated at the end of the day but that will not be before chains of Will’s darkest side are broken for good, irreversibly. And that is what Hannibal ever hopes for while hiding Will’s condition knowing he cannot do it forever. He does not need to. Icebergs that once come down, do not go back up.

“How do you keep your whites so clean?” 

asks Dr. Gideon to the officers in his transfer vehicle, genuinely puzzled. It is amazing how sincere that question is and how insightful it is on a killer’s mind. The mind that has very hard time comprehending how people can want to keep it clean, when it is undeniably existential for men not to and that is as real as the life itself. When the blood is bound to spill and give everything else the color everything needs to be seen in. To think whites can remain whites, it is pretentious and even laughably fake. Nothing is that clean. No conscious, no mind, no heart. Dr. Gideon may not know who he truly is, but he sure as hell knows something: red is inevitable.

Dr. Gideon is not the only one who sees this, Will seems to be making peace with that notion too since he slips in and out of Gideon’s shoes easily, almost effortlessly. Will understands him well since he too feels his identity being ripped apart into pieces where he does not know if all or none of those pieces belong to him.

A room full of antlers imagines Will, in a room full of people. How convenient. He feels trapped into, obliged to something he does not know what. Jack pushes from outside while his own mind pushes from the inside, leaving no room for him to be, so the only thing left for him to do is melt away to his release. He will not be guideless then though, as Hannibal offers himself as his gauge.

Unlike Dr. Gideon who has everyone to tell him who he is and who is not and no one to help him know it for sure; Will has Hannibal. He uses what is happening to Will to uncure the concrete that is his identity and give Will every chance to mold it all over again.

“It is hard to shake off something that is already under your skin.” 

says Will to Jack. How true is that. He is not fighting some foreign threat, he is in a battle with forsaken, neglected dark corners of his mind. The stag emerges again from one of those corners, and Will now knows what it represents and who it is going to lead him to. And he follows. Not because he needs to, but because he wants to. He sees Dr. Gideon as Garret Jacob Hobbs, someone else who he understood a bit too well too. Understood and killed. Killed and enjoyed. Enjoyed and not regretted.

“I am taking (my identity) back one piece at a time. You should see the pieces I got out of my psychiatrist.” 

says Gideon to Hannibal, when Hannibal suggests that it is a terrible thing to have one’s identity taken from him. It is a curious emphasis to make on Gideon’s part after seeing Hannibal treating Will the way he is -a psychiatrist playing with his patient’s mind-, as he insinuates that Will also will be taking his revenge one day by taking a piece of Hannibal. Hannibal must have expected Will to reciprocate to his actions at some point, but I bet he never thought the piece of him that Will was going to be able to take would be his heart. Is not that some sort of a revenge too?

Will shoots Dr. Gideon not when he speaks of killing Alana but precisely when he turns into GJH in Will’s eyes and mentions his becoming. He is not doing it to protect anyone else but himself. He just wants the illusion to end, the curtain in front of his eyes to come down, no matter the cost.

The only person who can see what happened as a success is Jack. Dr. Gideon is brought down and the fact that it was done by Will shooting him and Will ending up getting hospitalized in the process hold no importance. A success he sees fit to celebrate with a drink. Hannibal counts on Jack’s untouchable arrogance that he will keep Will in the field even if he advised against it. How can a very experienced FBI officer like Jack not see the way Will is getting reshaped, though? Of course, he does. He is just willing to let this transformation happen up until the moment Will becomes something unrecognizable. Even Hannibal, with all his double and double-double agendas, looks more concerned about Will’s well-being. As he speaks to Bedelia about his feelings of what is going on with Will, it gets clear Hannibal really is not enjoying it. He saw what was happening to Will and he fueled it too, thinking all this had to happen as the means to an end. An end he desires for Will, an end Hannibal will not force him into. He does not want to see Will fall more than a parent would want to see his kid fall only so he can learn to get back up again, stronger. So, all he can do is watch. Watch and hope that one day Will will understand why.

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Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 10, Season 1 (Buffer Froid)

As Will’s sense of stability gets exponentially more and more out of reach, probably triggered after finding out about Abigail killing Nicholas Boyle, instability is not the only thing that is creeping in. More intimate he grows with his devils; unapologetically more candid and meaner he becomes. While speaking to Jack he acts more strategic, more self-confident, and defiant unlike his usual self. Obviously, his dark side does not only make him bad, but also strong. This reminded me of the time when Beverly and Will first met, and when Jack came in and caught her there where Will was supposed to be left alone. Beverly had lied about Will interfering with her thing and Will did not even say a word to defend himself and say it is not true. How weak and pathetic you should find someone so that you can lie about them -even a small one-, in front of them, within minutes of meeting them? Will’s vulnerability should have been radiating in waves, so Beverly did not even think twice. Considering how Will and his life was before he met Hannibal, isn’t it so expectable and understandable that he grew fast fond of the man who offered him a way to feel as powerful as god?

This time, the killer of the episode openly reflects more of Will than he cares to admit. As Georgia’s mom talks more about what she and her daughter went through about her mental illness, more resemblance to Will makes it to surface. Georgia feels lonely and like no one can see her, just like Will does. He too feels alone and unseen since nobody understands his shaky state of mind and his constant fight within himself. The way his dark urges come knocking hard on his door only to not be welcomed inside after a silent battle where each time he comes too close to lose. Hannibal later also suggests soon-to-be-discovered likeness of Georgia to Will such as her thinking even those closest to her are imposters and that her not being able to trust anyone anymore because of her mental illness… It seems like an attempt that was based on blaming any reservations that may come out of Will about Hannibal on mental illness. Afterall, mental illness cannot be observed nor vividly cured. So, what better way is there for Hannibal to hide Will’s physical condition while continuing to feed it?

When Will imagines the murders of the killers he profiles, he assumes their point of view and feelings. This time though, when he puts himself in Georgia’s shoes, something is different. He is smiling with a devilishly peaceful hue, predatorily confident. Georgia was scared, terrified while killing her friend, trying to carve out her mask. Set aside enjoying it, she was not even aware of what she was doing. So, this time, Will’s imagination stops being informative reenactments and starts being the wet dreams of a blood-thirsty killer.

“Just do me a favor and publish it posthumously” says Will to Hannibal, regarding the doctor’s publishing anything about him. When Hannibal asks if he means his own death or the doctor’s, Will says “whichever comes first”. Now, if Will’s objective is simply not seeing anything published about himself, then he would answer this question with “mine”. But he says that as long as he or Hannibal is dead, it is okay for it to be published. What I think it means is that he does not care about what the rest of the world thinks about him, all he cares is what Hannibal thinks of him and he is too scared to find out what that may entail. He does not want to face Hannibal knowing what he shared with him just turned out to be unique material for a psychiatric magazine. As long as they are both alive, he wants to preserve the sacredness and the intimacy of their relationship, for that is his safe haven.

Although Hannibal’s method of molding Will is as destructive as it gets, he still is protective of him in his own way. So, when Dr. Sutcliffe compares Will to a pig, I think that also played a role in his demise. Afterall, Will is Hannibal’s friend and what would that say about Hannibal if he chose to befriend a common pig? So, Hannibal kills Dr. Sutcliffe despite of him being quite cooperative about hiding Will’s condition. He could not have killed him because he knew too much, Dr. Chilton was in the same position too, but Hannibal did not attempt such a thing with him. Maybe it also is about Dr. Sutcliffe’s attitude towards Will, as well as about creating a murder to pin on someone later.

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Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 9, Season 1 (Trou Normand)

As Will loses his grasp on reality, losing time adds on top of sleepwalking and hallucinating. Hannibal asks Will why he keeps on doing his job despite of it resulting in his instability, insinuating he does not approve of it. Will replies saying “he saves lives” after thinking a bit longer than it is convenient to answer the question, in a way that resembles more to saying a line than to a genuine reply. He claims it feels good, but which part does actually feel good? The saving lives part, or the short-term license to feel the thrill the killer would part? Hannibal does not want Will to hide behind the excuse of saving lives for doing what he does, nor does he want him to be unconscious during his journey to the dark side. But he knows Will will continue to do so and it is surely better than him isolating himself from all the malice, so why not use this to make Will feel like whatever is to happen, it will be his own choice? So, he warns him that if this goes on, it is inevitable that one day he will wake up to a totem of his own making. Hannibal says, I do not want you to, and it could not be truer since what Hannibal wants is not for Will to wake up to what his darkness did when he was not even aware, but for him to do it deliberately, breathing all in. And if for all of this to happen Will needs to be pushed, so be it.

Why is Will so determined not to tell Jack about what is happening to him? It is not like he has done something wrong, so he has no reason to fear getting locked up somewhere. The worst-case scenario is that he would be asked to leave his job, and why is he terrified of that happening? Because he is so dedicated to saving lives that he just cannot imagine a life without it? No, I think not. I believe just like Garret Jacob Hobbs killed other girls so he would not have to kill his own; Will feels that intrinsic need to be around murders, to profile the killers to feed something dark inside of him which craves for blood, and he knows if he does not quench its desire this way, it will demand something fresh.

Once again, Abigail exhibits two different extremities in her behavior as a bold, unapologetic lion cub who disguises as an incapable and weak lamb, deftly and strategically, leaving even Hannibal baffled. He is not happy though, that Abigail is acting recklessly on her own. But Hannibal sees it less of a betrayal of trust and more of a failed lesson that he thinks that was taught better.

Will remembers the time when Hannibal told Abigail that they would help with the nightmares, wondering if Hannibal already did help her with one. Imagining what could have happened, he realizes she killed Nicholas Boyle and most probably Hannibal helped her cover it. This time though, unlike the other profilings he does, he sees himself as the victim, since that is exactly how he feels finding out he has been lied to.

Just as it was pinpointed in previous articles as well, there is a touch to either Hannibal or Will in every murder Will studies. This time, Laurance Wells, the guy who unknowingly murdered his own son, his legacy, what is important to him; makes Will fear to go through the same thing himself. It makes it all easier to choose protecting Abigail and keep her secret when he confronts Hannibal about it. When Hannibal tells him that he helped her dispose of the body, “Evidently, not well enough.”, comments Will angrily. He is not upset at the fact that Hannibal helped her hide a murder, but that he did not do it well enough. So, Hannibal knew it would not take much of convincing to keep Will’s mouth shut, as long as he knows it is the best for Abigail. Will cannot afford seeing Abigail getting destroyed by his own hand like Mr. Wells did to his own son. Addressing the remnant of light in Will that is trying so hard not to be like Garret Jacob Hobbs, Hannibal tells him this is his chance not to doom her like her father did. He also deliberately chooses to call them her fathers, not her uncles or guardians, but her fathers. Along with wanting to mirror the bond between Will and Abigail to strengthen his own ties with Will, maybe that is literally what Hannibal wants them to be too. Now, they all have this secret as a family. While keeping using the secrets as glue to tie the three together, he lets Abigail know that he also knows she helped her dad murder and despite of that, he and Will will protect her. It is no surprise that Hannibal reveals knowing another secret about Abigail that Will does not know right after they come to an information-wise equal position with Will, to make sure the scale of trust of Abigail is turned to himself, rather then to Will.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 8, Season 1 (Fromage)

Will’s sense of stability is crushing down as he continues his work with the FBI and his familiarization to darkness increases by day. He starts hallucinating about hearing dogs in pain, being attacked or trapped. Dogs are his pack, his family. So, what he subconsciously feels is loneliness creeping in. His current company is not enough/compatible to make him feel content anymore and that feeling of completeness perishes in his mind, not on anyone else’s account but his. Something inside of him is trying to wipe his palate of belonging clean. He knows that something is getting unlocked in him and he feels the void it creates along the way. Whatever is coming; it craves a stronger, more real, more deserving company than the dogs. It wants to destroy what was there before and rebuild a worthy companionship from the ashes. What is happening is not a foreign threat, though. Will is an unaware self-arsonist, his own house being set on fire by his own devilish flame.

He invites Alana over to “look for the wounded animal”, while it actually is an attempt to fill that void he has found in himself. He playfully brings up the idea of if she thought this was a date, and although he makes her feel otherwise, I think deep down it was a date in his eyes. He says, “It’s hard for me to wrangle a wounded animal by myself.” and is not that why animals hunt in packs? It is almost as if he is looking for a new, maybe even upgraded, sidekick. Someone who can understand, protect, and assist what he is to become. Someone to go after wounded animals with. It is actually an invite that is as romantic as it can get for an animal. As he soon mentions, he does not see any tracks except the ones they have made. He is not tracking any animal going around on itself, but the animal that is getting unleashed inside. The tracks he sees are the tracks he is looking for.  

Hannibal’s temporary tolerance for Franklyn’s blunt attitude seems to fade away as he refers psychoanalyzing his friends as becoming Hannibal. Surely Dr. Lecter would not like that kind of comparison. As Franklyn gets more specific saying it is Tobias that he is trying to analyze, we see a shade of familiarity passing on Hannibal’s face, indicating he already knows about what Franklyn has started to dig up. It is a bit of curious thing when Hannibal suggests that Franklyn may be attracted to psychopaths, since it takes more than one incident to make such a diagnosis. Well, Hannibal does know two since Franklyn is drawn to him as well as he is to Tobias, but Franklyn does not know what he is. So, Hannibal stops playing with caution. Another thing to suggest that he does not estimate a long lifespan for Franklyn.

As Jack also suggests, it does become easier for Will to look because he is acquiring a mental state -although unstable- similar to the killers he tries to understand. It draws him away from his relatively normal social ties and closer to whatever it is that is getting surfaced inside of him. But of course, for Jack, triggering Will’s devils is acceptable, even encouraged if it means it will be for Jack’s own benefit.

Bedelia keeps pointing out the similarities between Hannibal and Franklyn, trying to downgrade his position to just her patient. Hannibal, however, tries hard to gain the upper hand by suggesting equality between them. She does not allow that, though.

It is seen, Will’s experience this time is different than the ones before indeed. He sees Garrot Jacob Hobbs applauding on his design. He is not so uncomfortable with being comfortable with what he does anymore, he even accepts a praise. 

Another different-than-before act of Will is, looking still in trance, shifting right back to his empathic session with the killer in an environment he is not expected to, almost uncontrollably. He seemingly is having trouble with his on/off switch, getting lost somewhere between who he is and whose mind he borrows. Will feels the clueless and odd glances he gets from the people around him and finds himself confiding in Hannibal, once again, who looks at him with nothing but acceptance. Hannibal is the only person with whom he can discuss the murders happening not only forensically but also aesthetically and philosophically without getting alienized.  “What do you see behind closed eyes?” asks Hannibal and Will remembers seeing GJH, his own subconscious form of acceptance, and admits,

“I see myself.”

Franklyn figures out that the reason why Tobias would clue him in the murder he committed is because he wants Franklyn to tell it to Hannibal. Hannibal knows exactly why he would want that, and he retaliates by paying Tobias a visit. Franklyn, however, may attribute it to Tobias’s wish to be found out and discussed.

As the darkness inside of Will is trying to claw his way to surface, he feels the void it leaves behind and he tries to find someone help him fill it, someone to hold on to, that someone -at first- looking like Alana. After he kisses her, she tells him she does not think this is okay for either of them, leaving Will alone with the hole inside, just like the one he has on his wall. In her eyes; he is pierced with that hole, defective, flawed. After the rejection, he rushes to Hannibal’s. At first, it looks like it is not only to tell him about the kiss, but also to see if he can find the companionship he needs that he was just denied there. He surely thinks he would at least be a better companion than the person Hannibal just hosted, who did not even bother to finish his meal. However, as Hannibal also suggests, if Will always wanted to kiss Alana but only did it now, there must be another reason behind the timing. Will replies that notion with his thought that Alana knew there was no animal in the chimney and that he hallucinated it all. Considering Will did not even invite Alana up this time, it is questionable why Will really kissed her. Maybe after all, it was not due to his need of filling that hole with her friendship or romance, but it was a way to manipulate her away from what is happening inside his head. Maybe in his mind, Alana was never intended be befriended and after he fenced her out by making her uncomfortable; he came running to the man who does not think he is flawed. As Alana also suggested before, Hannibal and Will have that in common to flirtatiously change the subject. So, he does not come to Hannibal to say “Well, I’ve been rejected by Alana, hope you will take me.” but to say “She was this close to seeing me, look what a smart move I have made to divert her! Now, can we go back to discussing what is happening to me? Just the two of us?”

Will refers to the killer’s serenade as our song while talking to Hannibal and it is no surprise that Hannibal decides to lead Will to Tobias after that, moved by a little jealousy along with strategy. Afterall, Hannibal’s ultimate motive is to help Will embrace his darkness only to prepare him to see and accept what is behind Hannibal’s human veil. Will’s empathizing too much with another killer and understanding him well enough to be there a “we” is not tolerable. What is interesting is Hannibal’s doing that despite Tobias telling him he would kill whoever would come to interview him from the FBI. He may be okay with risking Will’s life like that because he thinks Tobias is too big of a threat to have around since he knows what Hannibal is, or because he got jealous of the way Will connected to this killer in a deeper, more different way than he did with the ones before. Probably both.

Right after that happening, while we are kept wondering why Hannibal would risk Will’s life like that, Hannibal confides in with Bedelia and tells her that he is considering a friendship with Will Graham. He mentions he finds Will’s empathic skills reassuring because he may understand him.

“You spend a lot of time building walls, Hannibal. It’s natural to want to see if someone is clever enough to climb over them.” 

says Bedelia, making it clear that Hannibal’s leading Will to Tobias was about testing him, as well as it was about removing Tobias from the equation. If Will can see Tobias, he can see Hannibal too. And then if Will kills/can kill Tobias -getting rid of the person who Hannibal feels Will got too close to- and survive, he will be worthy of Hannibal’s friendship. So Will is not only on trial for his unconscious loyalty, but for the authenticity and might of his predatoriness as well. When Will is talking to Tobias, I think especially from the accurate comment of Tobias about a richer, darker sound, Will already figured out that he was the killer. It was no coincidence that the voices in his head, his destructive dark urges that are trying to surface, came right at that second to draw him out of the building. I believe it was subconsciously to empty the room for Tobias, flushing him out by letting him murder the two officers. And it was, again, no coincidence that Tobias was able to kill two trained FBI officers but not Will. Will survived, as Hannibal hoped he would.

After Hannibal fights off and kills Tobias -eventually and meaningfully with the stag sculpture-, we see him looking at the door hoping, as FBI agents fill the crime scene. His worry when he sees Jack walking in alone for a second washes away, and leaves its place to absolute relief when he sees Will following him. The way he looks at Will’s eyes, sincerely, with genuine happiness, gratefulness, hidden pudency that he had put him in harm’s way in the first place… Admitting he came here on his own, but��he appreciates Will’s company, he means it from the bottom of his heart. Looks like Will is not the only one looking for companionship. Hannibal knows that he found the one he has been looking for. The one who is clever enough to climb over his walls and the one who is worthy of his friendship. Worthy of his tears. Maybe, even worthy of his affection.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 7, Season 1 (Sorbet)

The opera scene along with Will’s lecture about the Chesapeake Ripper gives us a lot of insight about Hannibal. Will explains that the Chesapeake Ripper does not see the people he kills as victims or preys, but pigs. That there is no intensity of emotions nor social drives behind the killings, but a practical and carnal purpose which is to provide meat. Right after that, we are shown the acoustic mechanics of the opera singer, her vocal cords, who seems to enchant the whole room including Dr. Lecter. Opera is an art that is supposed to rise from heart and soul, and infiltrate heart and soul, more than any other sense organs. However, Hannibal reaches the climax of this experience only through hearing what comes out simply from a throat. Even that opera singer who is mighty enough to bring out that admiration in him is a combination of a bunch of body systems that seemingly works very well and that is all she is in his eyes. What brings tears to his eyes is not the dramatic story, but the elegance and theatricality of the music and the live juke box that stands on the stage.

Franklyn is starting to get on Hannibal’s nerves, trying to penetrate his boundaries. He makes Hannibal uncomfortable with his raw desire to be his friend. He makes him sigh with displeasure too many times, almost offended that Franklyn would think Hannibal would take him -with all his drama-queenship and mundaneness- as a friend. I think the only reason why Hannibal does not wipe him out sooner is thanks to his touching greatness remark. Afterall Hannibal is a narcissist, and he might choose to hold on to a fan a little longer. Franklyn is not the first person using getting on Hannibal’s good side as a means to get something they want from him, Jack had done the same thing when he tried to convince him into profiling Will Graham.

Jack is still haunted about Miriam Lass, so his obsession about the Chesapeake Ripper beats his commonsense and therefore he keeps pushing Will. When Jack is telling Will how he will not get a chance to shoot the Chesapeake Ripper because Jack himself will, Will says that he cannot jack up the law and get underneath it and Jack asks, “Can’t I?” giving Will a very loaded-up look. So, here is the first indication of Jack’s real thoughts upon Will killing Garret Jacob Hobbs. He previously said that Will’s shooting him 7 times is not normal, referring to his possible mental breakdown, but this is the first time he insinuates that he thinks what Will did had intent in it. If Jack already has this kind of doubts about Will and yet he keeps using him up, isn’t Jack as responsible in Will’s becoming as Hannibal? He seems to have that on his conscience, as his hallucinations that have Will victimized like Miriam Lass suggest. At the end of the day, however, he leaves the office purposefully avoiding looking at where he saw those hallucinations. As can be seen Jack is aware of everything, yet he just does not learn his lesson.

That scene where Will closes the door on Brian’s face when he is making arguments opposite to his, just makes me think about what kind of person Will is even without Hannibal’s influence on him. Yes, he is socially awkward but being rude does not necessarily come with it. Will often is unapologetically rude towards a lot of people though, yet Hannibal does not seem to be bothered by that. Is it really only because the rudeness is not directed to him? He does not even seem disturbed by Will’s messiness -his throwing his personal stuff around when he comes to Hannibal’s office-, unlike any other’s. If Will was just a pawn that Hannibal liked to play to see what would happen, if this all were only for his own amusement and nothing more; I do not think Hannibal would make this too many of exceptions. He would not bother rewriting his rule book on what is acceptable for just a pawn. But he would maybe do it for someone more than that. It is as Will’s mess is not tolerated in Hannibal’s life, but almost welcomed. 

It is a weird thing to see Hannibal referring to her psychiatrist as his friend when he just corrected Franklyn when he tried to do the same thing. It is as, he finds Franklyn lonely and in need of friendship, and is trying to prove to himself that he is not like him. So, he asks that question to Bedelia expecting a different answer than he gave to Franklyn, but he gets the same. At that point, he sees the humiliating similarity between Frankly and himself: that they both are lonely. Loneliness hits him hard when he opens his office door and does not see Will there, missing their meeting. Looking totally resented and genuinely hurt, touching his phone longingly and even double-checking his appointments... Imagine the intensity of his feelings he must feel to make a super-intelligent, overconfident, proud man like him to desperately doubt his memory, looking for an excuse for Will not being there. Such a human thing to do. Will does bring out the human in Hannibal, just like Hannibal brings out the monster in him. Who makes a more-deserving friend candidate than the man who is capable of doing that to Hannibal?

Bedelia is the first character introduced to the audience who seems to know what Hannibal is. She makes on-point comments about Hannibal and he feels both intrigued and challenged about that. He says pink when Bedelia asks him if he would drink red or white wine, which may as well as be saying I wear neither only the person suit nor the human veil, mine is something in between.

Will seems almost upset about the fact that Hannibal has been drinking, assumably with someone. He does not show any interest in anyone’s personal life, but he does about Hannibal. He does not seem to avert his eyes while talking to Hannibal either. He asks further questions about the wine drinking and his psychiatrist. Maybe the lonely man he is, Will looks at Hannibal and sees a friend too. A friend who he is a little possessive and curious about.

“(He) takes their organs away, because in his mind, they don’t deserve them.”

Another Hannibalistic strategic jump is seen when he suggests to Will that the organ removal pattern may point to an organ harvester. He may be genuinely thinking that this is the case and wants to help Will, or he may be suggesting that only to pin his own murders as the Chesapeake Ripper on this killer. More likely, both. So, he makes his next kill look like it was done harvesting organs. While confusing both Will and the FBI, he still gives Will insight about the Chesapeake Ripper though, telling him that he takes away people’s organs because in his mind they do not deserve them. Another allowed peak behind Hannibal’s person suit -maybe also an indicator that Hannibal is getting warmer to the idea of letting Will see him-, Will gets a little surprised by the accuracy of the remark and he is given even more material when he sees Hannibal in the ambulance, tending the wounded man. Who knows, what Will sees. Maybe just a little bit of too much nonchalance, or a revelation that is beyond that.

Just as every murder that happens in the show gives us a window into Hannibal as well, this last murderer’s attempt to save the life of one of his victims is reflected on Hannibal, trying to keep another victim alive in the ambulance. It is the reflection of the power of darkness that can also be life-giving, but not more joyfully done than taking it.

Episode ends with Hannibal presenting his show both in and out of the kitchen. He succeeds diverting Jack from the Chesapeake Ripper while too using that means to throw a culinary fest. The applause ringing in the room is not only a praise for the dinner, but in his mind, for the genuinity of his well-tailored person suit. He looks euphoric about the belittling power he has over people that makes them sit on his table and eat whatever he serves, manipulating everything and everyone in his life without a soul hearing.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

A Royal Affair (2012, Nikolaj Arcel)

Where do we start and our commonsense ends?

The 2012-made Danish movie of Arcel is a sun whose rays touch upon many grounds. From cheated destinies to unexpected flames, from desperate fights for latitude of thought to fruitful collaborations, from the inevitability of power drunkenness to realizations of bitter facts of life, from brutal acts of selfishness to eventual glory of the light; this movie explores many shades of human life.

A princess who was raised free in mind but detained in fate lacks luck in her arranged marriage and goes through insufferable years wedded to a king of unsound mind. She bears it on the account of her sense of responsibility, until one day she meets a broad-minded doctor who is secretly placed into the palace by the enlightenment movement. Alike minds fall for each other and they bear fruit to a lot more than just the ideas to change the country. They maintain a perfect balance in the palace giving everyone what they want: a progressive and concerned governing for the people, a tended and burdenless life for the king and a passionate affair for themselves.

It all goes too well until the unavoidable banality of mankind catches up. The very people who tried hard to bring the light over the country become the first to try to turn it off when they end up on the nonprivileged side. A baby born out of royal wedlock upsets the social balance and it becomes the ideal bait to use for the ones who favor inequity. The power of authority starts to distort the ethics of even the strongest wills and the walls that once were brought down get put up again. The slowly built arrogance brings along neglection and it costs everyone dearly.

You can turn away from the light, you cannot outrun it.            

The self-seeking conservativeness wins, until the day the seeds which grew in lands that were watered with blood of the first struggle leaf out and let the light in that burns the brightest there is, once and for all. The enlightenment comes all in good time, even to the already-illuminated hearts, and not a second before.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

The Hunt (2012, Thomas Vinterberg)

There is nothing innocent about a lie, and there is no bigger lie than innocence.

A Danish 2012-made movie of Vinterberg shakes us to our cores for almost 2 hours, telling a story of how even the purest form of love there is can make all hell break loose.

A neglected, small girl from a problematic family who is confused about the variety of manifestation of love in the adult world, takes a confused emotional step towards her kindergarten teacher. When he tries to guide her through it, she takes it as a rejection. Although she cannot comprehend the concept totally, she slanderously defames him with the very intention of hurting him. Being so young, she does not know of the damage she will cause but her revenge is not necessarily any less real than any other adult’s. Heartbreak is heartbreak, and the naivety of her infancy is not enough to help her digest its sting. She is being steered by a selfish, destructive, and amygdala-driven stimulus that is as old as time and wreaks havoc which is incomprehensible to her consciously but very familiar to her genetic memory, until the lust of victimization of the society takes it from there.

The ‘small’ lie grows bigger and bigger every time it encounters doubt, swallowing everyone’s bias and hatred. It feeds on people’s fear and lack of faith, and the disbelief itself becomes the monster. The doubtee gets tested by everyone and everything he loves, but he does not quail against intimidation. He fights for his innocence that he cannot prove, yet he keeps the faith. Although he gets acquitted of the allegation, he does not get acquitted of people’s hatred, bias, and fear. Its scar that does not heal hurts worse than the stabbing itself.

Time passes and everything and everyone seem to heal, until it is seen that doubt is a stain that never really washes off and the target on his back can never be gone.

The hunt never really stops, because the need of men to hunt does not either.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 6, Season 1 (Entrée)

In this episode where facts keep being unraveled and a lot looks much clearer, Jack and Will go to Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane to get insight about the late murder. When Dr. Chilton is explaining how he feels responsible for what happened, he says “He sat directly across from me and I had no idea what he was hiding.” talking about Dr. Gideon but pointing his finger symbolically against Will. Will looks slightly shaken, almost offended from the statement. He knows what Dr. Chilton is saying about Dr. Gideon is somehow true for himself as well. When Dr. Chilton reveals by referring to that thing he does, that he actually does know about Will Graham unlike his ‘clueless’ questions in the beginning of their meeting suggested and tries to analyze him, Will gets surprised and irritated, which we can say destroyed any chance of Will feeling any sympathy for him right at that second. When Will asks Dr. Chilton where Dr. Gideon is, he replies Will with a disturbing smile that is directed to him when he says in his cell, clearly hoping to see Will one day in one too. Who knows, maybe just like we predicted Franklyn’s demise only by a gesture of his, Dr. Chilton’s too was obvious right from the start when he met Will.  

When Jack comes to Hannibal’s office basically to talk about what is troubling him, Hannibal learns that it is not only his wife’s dying but something more. So, it is no surprise nor a coincidence that Jack starts to get calls where the sound of Miriam Lass is played right after that commiseration. This happened before Hannibal knew Dr. Gideon was suspected to be the Chesapeake Ripper, so it had nothing to do with attempting to disprove that. It was solely about that conversation of Jack and Hannibal, and it was personal.

“Whoever made that call thinks you were close to Miriam Lass and feel responsible for her death.” 

,Will later will correctly suggest to Jack since the Chesapeake Ripper did know that and that is only because Jack just told him so.

Just as each time the Chesapeake Ripper or the Copycat Killer makes a move, the stag comes into Will’s hallucinations; it happens again after the call made to Jack’s house. At this point, Will’s own mind does not differentiate if it is the Copycat Killer or the Chesapeake Ripper that draws his evil out. Although consciously he will put the pieces together much later to see that in fact they are the same person, as suggested in earlier articles as well, Will subconsciously already knows this.

We, again, see a Jack who is okay pushing a serial killer into broad daylight even if it means one more body, just to rule out one wrong suspect. How far Jack can go to catch killers is not only limited to putting his own employee’s mental health at stake, but it reaches far enough to think even a glimpse of chance to get insight about the killer is worth risking human life along the way. So, with this agenda, Jack gets an article written by Freddie Lounds that suggests the infamous Chesapeake Ripper is Dr. Gideon, hoping that the real one would do something just to blow it apart. During the whole episode, while we see Jack getting too bold as to risk people’s lives in the means of catching a killer, we see Hannibal almost caring. It humanizes Hannibal while it dehumanizes Jack. (it will be clearer at the end of the post as to how)

Expectedly, there comes a second call from the Chesapeake Ripper and unlike the first one, this is not personal. This is a silently displayed outrage shown when somebody else takes the credit for what you do best, be you. Making the call from Jack’s bedroom has an overpowering ring to it, the Chesapeake Ripper is dauntlessly showing off. He is not only making himself known, but he is doing it in a way that shows his resentment to the limited perception of what he is capable of. I have doubts though, if his rage was actually caused by the perception that someone else was believed to be him, or it was because he felt like FBI insulted his intelligence by thinking he did not know what was going on and that the news was a bait, and he decided to teach some kind of a personalized lesson to Jack for doing that. 

As Hannibal draws Dr. Chilton into the picture, I do not think he has a definite plan about what to do with him. He rarely has. What Hannibal does is to collect every piece that may be somehow useful one day and wait for events to unravel themselves up to some degree and decide on the way if he is just going to induce purposeless chaos or going to bend events to his own liking and/or self-preservation. So, when he supports Dr. Chilton’s psych-driving Dr. Gideon, I do not think he necessarily had the plan of setting the scene of framing him in his mind. He may have just wanted to have something in his hand against him. Like, a secrecy/alliance-demanding sharing of a sin.

In the last scene, where Hannibal and Jack sit together by the fire, like two good friends, “What would be the benefit of making you believe your trainee was alive?” asks Hannibal to Jack, trying to make him question what just happened and why it happened. Jack begins his answer right, saying it was to give him hope. Then he continues saying that hope was given to get his vision clouded. Hannibal brings up Bella into the topic and encourages Jack to hope, tells him that hoping is a brave thing to do and encourages him to do so. When Jack stays down and claims he does not have a control over how he feels, we see Hannibal, for the first time, almost furious about Jack’s beaten-up mode in his own Hannibal way. He pulls himself back together, but we are shown what we are meant to see. Hannibal does not want Jack to lose hope and actually this whole thing may have been a way of reminding Jack the concept of hope. Jack is wrong, the benefit of giving Jack hope making him believe that Miriam was still alive is not only to cloud his vision, but contrarily also to open his eyes and make him see what Hannibal wants him to see: there is hope. Maybe that is as close as Hannibal goes to giving a friend what he needs, in his own distorted way. I will not be, of course, naïve enough to suggest this was just about giving Jack hope. Surely it was more about reclaiming the Chesapeake Ripper name from Dr. Gideon and taking this bittersweet revenge from Jack after the shenanigan he pulled with Freddie Lounds. 

The point is Hannibal is never unilateral. What he does or says never has only one aspect. Not only his words are full of puns, so are his actions. And his actions are more supplementary to each other, than they are ambiguous.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 5, Season 1 (Coquilles)

Episode opens with a scene where Will is sleepwalking on a road at night. Soon, it becomes visible that the stag is behind him. Will is under the influence of his darker side. His side which understands killers a bit too well, the same side that felt good doing it too… First, it looks like the stag is following Will, but then he stops walking and the stag pokes him a little to continue. So, Will is not the one in control; he is being driven, pushed by his inner malice unconsciously.

As it turns out, not only Hannibal’s continuous endeavors to uncover Will’s own darkness pay off -since what is driving Will in his sleepwalk is not only his own inner demons but Hannibal as well-, so does his effort to make Will believe that Jack is the sole responsible for his late unstable mind. In the beginning of the conversation, Will turns down every statement made by Hannibal that accuses Jack of overriding Will. However, he finds himself admitting to feeling overused by Jack, still refusing to demonize him though. Who knows, maybe it is because deep down he knows Jack is not the devil who offers him a bargain.

“If my body is walking around without my permission, you’d say that’s a loss of control?”  

asks Will, meaning he actually does not think that as a loss of control. I think there might be two different interpretations into that. One of them being, he does not think this as a loss of control because he knows that who is gaining that control is not somebody else, but his true, darker self. So, it can be termed as maybe a transfer of control, but not losing of it. Second option being, not being aware therefore not being responsible for his actions maybe a relief for him so he does not necessarily think of it as a loss of control, but maybe as voluntarily given-up control.

During the dinner hosted by Hannibal to Jack and Bella, “Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself.” says Hannibal. In his own philosophy, sentimentality is animalistic and uncivilized, while cruelty is humane. It is also understandable for Jack that Dr. Lecter would call human emotions a gift, but not cruelty. So, it is surprising how the head of the behavioral science unit does not catch the small hints Hannibal throws his way. Because he does throw enough to suggest at least something. This one is of the rare most obvious remarks of Hannibal that reveals what is behind his person suit, yet it goes unnoticed.

Hannibal smells Bella and by doing that, her perfume brand is not the only thing he finds out about her. His reference to finding out about his teacher’s stomach cancer only by smell and giving Bella an obvious look, tell us that he knew about Bella’s cancer the second he smelled her just like he will understand Will’s encephalitis the second he smells him. Bella sees that too and most probably that is why she chooses to go to Hannibal for therapy. And surely, Hannibal is too curious to turn down a chance to have such insight about the personal and marital life of Jack.

When Will and Hannibal are together in his office, he continues bringing up the topic of Jack’s effect on Will. Will still stays in defense, but that is okay. Afterall, Hannibal is playing the long game. He does not need Will to agree with him right away. Eventually, he must have got through to Will that he lashed out at Jack in a next scene.

Later talking about the angel maker, Hannibal is telling Will that the angel maker’s ultimate motive may not be not getting caught, but surviving FBI long enough so that he can complete his own becoming. And that the angels he is making are just praying so neither FBI nor his cancer would take him before he is done. I think when Hannibal asked Will “Who prays over us when we sleep?”, what he actually asked was “Who’s got our backs when we are on the way to our becoming?”. I believe this to be a half-clear proposition of collaboration, a slight complaint of loneliness and more than those, a semi-romantic and oblique proposal of a monster.

When Will notices the stag (symbolizing his own dark side, along with other things) sculpture in Hannibal’s office, that is non-coincidentally also the same moment when Hannibal touches upon Will’s likeliness to the angel maker. Pointing out the difference between Will and the angel maker, Hannibal reminds him that his days are not numbered unlike the latter and therefore Will’s potential lays there to be discovered. When he smelled Will’s encephalitis though, he may have decided to give it a helping hand as well.

Although Will clearly tells Jack how mind-consuming it all is becoming for him and that he cannot take it anymore, Jack exhibits no concern for Will’s well-being, and he continues trying to guilt trip him. So, we have a Jack who does what he does to Will with zero worry about him in his mind, and we have a Hannibal who does what he does to Will with the ultimate goal of Will’s becoming. Again, Will’s POV-wise, Hannibal has never been the villain of this story for me.

As Will hallucinates, he admits to himself that he thinks he is one of those bad people the angel maker tried to angelize and that he does not think that the evil inside of him can be totally extracted. Another hint to suggest that his worsening mental state brings him closer to what Hannibal wants for him. So, just as all the previous killers that Will profiled show him a yet-undisclosed face of Hannibal, the angel maker teaches him the concept of becoming, which is all Hannibal ever wants for Will.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

The Village (2004, M. Night Shyamalan)

Does darkness lurk around us behind the masks of common horror we face every day, or does it simply come from within?

2004-made movie of M. Night Shyamalan, The Village looks for an answer to this question, depicting us a synthetic village built by a group of people who lost their loved ones brutally and inhumanely at the hands of other men. Those who suffered a great loss already, creates this village where their children do not know that kind of ferocity in their lives. Or they think that is what they do.

They produce a bubble of no hatred, no greed and no outside world’s ugliness. They try to set and maintain an innocent, safe society yet they do it with fear. Fear of death, fear of losing, fear of not knowing…

A nightmarish legend, they create, where boundaries of the village are marked by horror of what people do not know of. A creature that kills livestock when one dares to break the truce and gets beyond the border line. A creature who red attracts, so the color is not to be used anywhere. A creature who demands sacrifice to keep the peace.

We become what we fear

After working hard for years to keep up the legend they created only to give people lives away from evil and death in vain, they almost let a man die of their own monstrous arrogance and fear to be found out to keep the legend going.

The village of intimidation functions smoothly until one day, balance of the universe catches up. Where there is light, there is darkness. The light of the love of a couple attracts the darkness of envy. And that darkness comes from where it is least expected, from the most innocent of them, from the least corrupted one. Jealousy itself starts hunting with the disguise of darkness that the elderly taught everyone to fear. Just like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the very monster they created to protect the innocence becomes real and destroys it all within. They fail keeping the evil out because the evil does not come from outside, it is inevitably inside. You cannot extinguish evil, just like you cannot extinguish red, since both are in our blood and it is doomed to flow out one way or another.

The real question is, does ferocity give birth to fear, or does fear give birth to ferocity? Does red attract monsters, or do monsters attract red?

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 4, Season 1 (Oeuf)

In the office of Dr. Lecter, Will is telling Hannibal how close he got to Garret Jacob Hobbs, to understanding him. So close that, at some point Hobbs’ actions started to make sense to him. Will saw him. And now unseeing him, seems not possible. Right after that when Hannibal asks Will about how he felt when he saw Melissa Schurr killed, Will says that he felt guilty because he felt like he killed her. But this does not really make sense, does it? That murder happened long after GJH was dead and at that point everybody thought Nicholas Boyle was her killer. So why would he feel guilty? I think at that point of the conversation, who Will and Hannibal are talking about becomes kind of ambiguous. Afterall, Hannibal killed Marissa because Will was closing in to the Copycat Killer and he wanted to divert him, creating a murder he can pin on Nicholas later. In a sense, Will was guilty of Marissa’s death. But he did not know it then. What I believe is, around this time in the series, Will and Hannibal (as the Copycat Killer) had already developed a kind of empathic/telepathic bond (that also explains seeing both himself and the Copycat Killer as the stag). Will often had the answers he was looking for already buried in his mind somewhere. I think that was why he felt guilty about Marissa’s death. 

As Will continues talking, the same ambiguity is still there. He says he got so close to him, and that he feels like they are doing the same things at the same time during the day. Unaware, he thinks he is talking about Hobbs, but I do not think he is, he talks about the Copycat Killer. And I think Hannibal is aware of that. That is why he asks if Will felt the same way even after Hobbs was dead. And that is also why he gives that look to Will, when Will says 

“I know who I am, Dr. Lecter. I am not Garret Jacob Hobbs.” 

Will may know that he is not Garret Jacob Hobbs, but he does not really know who he is or with whose mind his still is bonded.

Just like Alana tells Abigail that she needs someone to relate to in this experience, so does Alana. She seeks comfort in Hannibal’s company, just like everyone else does. It is darkly funny how sheep come running to wolf even before wolf’s asking. Hannibal must have that predatory scent of trouble which for thousands of years kept our ancestors on their toes, made them fail staying away from indefinitely because of subconsciously not being able to deny themselves the thrill. Anyway, so what he does is to flirt his way out of disagreements with Alana and do what he wants to do anyway. Alana gets quite furious after he finds out about Hannibal’s getting Abigail out of hospital but she is still a way too enchanted by Hannibal ever to attribute this to anything other than him being unprofessional out of his feelings for Abigail.

Just as Hannibal’s agenda with Abigail was anticipated, Hannibal draws attention to the fact that as of now; none of Hannibal, Will or Abigail has a family. And as he tells Will that soon he is going to find out those three have more than that in common, he is not just talking about her aptitude for the psychological. He is talking about their murderous side. Will does not know it about Abigail yet but for Hannibal, this commonality is more than ideal to make a family.

That short scene where Will goes out to his garden with all his dogs, but they leave him alone in the yard in a matter of seconds… He sighs probably thinking Hannibal was right, that his best shot at making a family is not his collection of strays but Abigail -Will is not yet aware, that idea of a family has Hannibal who comes with the package- . Also the last scene of the episode shows Will’s dogs all sleeping in one corner and Will sleeping alone. Hannibal evidently succeeded to awaken the sense of loneliness in Will to strengthen his need of Abigail. As Hannibal also tells Jack, he thinks Will too needs his anchor to stream behind him in heavy weather. His family to keep him grounded when it all gets rough out there. His pack, even, to remind him of what he is… So Hannibal is simply trying to give Will that.

I would die if I did not mention this in between, that scene where Will storms in Hannibal’s office and throws his jacket and his bag on the therapy couch, but as the neat guy he is, Hannibal attempts to straighten up the gift but he does not really. And he does not even touch Will’s jacket. On the other hand, in the next scene, he does straighten up Abigail’s book with a great care. So this whole thing just made me feel like Hannibal is ready to accept Will as he is. That he does not even mind his mess that much.

Although Will felt responsible and parental for Abigail since the beginning, Hannibal familiarizes Will with the concept of family and Abigail in the same context at every chance he gets. He did not introduce those feelings to Will in the first place but surely he magnified them. Just like he does when he tells Will that Abigail is lost too and it is perhaps his and Will’s responsibility to help her find her way. 

On the other side, he supports Abigail emotionally and clears her doubts about herself, he does not let her feel remorse about what happened. 

He also makes her think that he needs her as much as she needs him: 

“I would surely feel safer if you were in the FBI, protecting my interests.”

Hannibal replaces her memories of her father which she associates with being victimized, with the new ones which has Hannibal himself and gives her her power back. Almost like, redirecting the flow of devotion and loyalty she had for his dad to now himself. As he played a role at the events that broke her down to pieces (just like that teacup that slipped out of Abigail’s hand and crushed into pieces), he is now building her back up to be unapologetically herself. At some point, Hannibal’s goal pretty well may have become making his own family, just like the woman who kidnapped the ‘lost boys’ was trying to do. Erase the old family and make space for the new one to come.

From the look Will gives to that woman after she gets shot, it is visible that he can understand the lengths she went in her search for a family. Actually, each time Will empathizes with a killer to help the FBI, he familiarizes himself with an aspect of Hannibal. It was Hobbs who taught Will the distorted rationalization of cannibalism (just like Hannibal does), then it was Stammets who taught Will the destructive lengths one could go to bind with those he loves (just as it is what Hannibal does all the time) and finally this woman who used murder as a palate cleanser for a new family to come that which she is a part of (just like Hannibal is trying to do both to Will and Abigail by normalizing murder to have a common denominator to make a ‘family’ out of them). So that is how at the end of the season, Will was able to see Hannibal’s true face without needing any tangible proof. Because he already had tried hard to understand and succeeded to see the shreds of Hannibal and those, when combined, were more real and clearer than any other proof there could be. (more to talk about that later)

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 3, Season 1 (Potage)

The first scene of the episode takes us back to Abigail’s memories of hunting with her dad. That whole memory provides us with a brand-new aspect to who Abigail is what Hannibal might see in her.  Suddenly, it makes us question if Hannibal saw her as something more than a tool to draw Will in. Afterall, Hannibal’s philosophy would not sound too strange or bizarre to Abigail than what she already is accustomed to. She grew up being taught to normalize killing and eating what she kills with maybe different reasons than Hannibal, but obviously she still is the most fitting instrument to whatever he is planning.

Alana comes to Will’s house to talk about Abigail’s waking up from the coma and when Will expresses his concerns for Abigail’s being left alone, she says “Dogs keep a promise a person can’t”. And Will replies it with “I am not collecting another stray”. While she is trying to warn Will before he makes a huge commitment he probably cannot keep, because of guilt; she compares Will to a dog and Will compares Abigail to one. In the previous episode’s article I had already expressed my thoughts about Will’s relationship with dogs and how I think it represents his animalistic, urge-full side. So I find this set of metaphors to be a touch-on to Abigail’s yet-hidden killer side and Will’s subconscious recognition and acceptance of that, along with his own.

The conversation of Alana and Abigail is pretty informing about who Abigail is. When Alana walks into room and says that she is a psychiatrist, Abigail’s curious, if not tactical, question of what kind? and Alana’s saying family trauma (and not, for example, criminal something), ends up Abigail’s facial expressions to suddenly change into one that looks victimized. I do not believe it was an emotional transaction, I think it was one on purpose. As Alana later will say, Abigail shows enough-to-be-considered-healthy emotion about her parents’ deaths but also enough detachment from what happened to falsely suggest a lack of connection on her behalf. Her jumping from the topic of her parents’ being dead and her dad being a serial killer to making plans about college is not a mere denial caused by being traumatized but also a strategical move that someone of guilt would do. Her lying to nurses and trying to analyze Dr. Bloom is not a very victim-like behavior, she manipulates and tries to establish a position of dominance. I am this close to almost suggesting that this is something Hannibal would do. Hannibal made a fantastic move, bringing Abigail into the equation. (Abigail’s yet-to-come talk with Freddie is another example to what this paragraph is telling too.)

When Jack, Alana and Hannibal come into the same room together; everybody’s priority is different. Jack wants the case to resolve at all costs (at the cost of Will’s or Abigail’s stability), Alana wants the best for Abigail and Will, protecting their mental health and Hannibal wants neither. He wants the case to stay unresolved or resolved in a way he is pleased, and he wants both Will and Abigail in a position that is furthest from being stable. Actually in his thinking, he does want the best for them. Afterall, that is how Hannibal operates. He wants people pushed to their darkest potential, to unleash their beast, in whatever form it may come. He does that by increasing chaos around him and he feeds on that chaos. He sets things into motion to ends that even he sometimes does not know what of. So of course, he will agree with anything that stirs up the pot, which is right now Will and Abigail coming together.

Hannibal and Jack walks into classroom when Will is giving a lecture about the Copycat Killer. While doing so, he describes the killer in detail and to our knowledge, quite accurately so too. Hannibal seems to be listening to him intrigued and almost fascinated at Will’s deductions about the killer since they are so right and his smile reaches its max (well… max at Hannibal standards) when Will points out that the unidentified caller is in fact, the Copycat Killer. He is not just enjoying the thrill to be discussed as a killer in the same classroom he is standing in, without a soul knowing; what he enjoys the most is Will’s closing in. His spot-on deductions on what kind of person the killer is. Maybe this is the first time Hannibal hears someone speaking about the real version of him who is not wearing a person suit and doing that quite accurately too. Will is getting to know him, real him, and Hannibal enjoys it.

Will and Hannibal take Abigail for a walk in the greenhouse, Will supporting Abigail’s arm with his own. There is a one-second scene where Hannibal also touches Abigail’s arm (but that is all it is, a very no purpose-serving touch) to try and help her sit just like Will does and looks at Will, almost hoping to find appreciation or approval, which makes me smile.

During the conversation of Will and Abigail, the camera focuses on Hannibal only right after Abigail says, “That’s not all I brought out in him”. Up until then, Hannibal seems almost bored with their conversation about her mom. But that sentence makes something in him move, suggesting that he may be hoping Abigail to bring out something in Will too. Maybe that something being protective feelings against her which can be manipulated to familiarize Will with normalization of crime. Abigail continues to express her concerns about being messed up and having nightmares. But Hannibal only says “We will help with the nightmares.”, so they will not with her being messed up part? Well, why on earth would he? That is exactly how Hannibal wants her, messed up as others would say, or perfect as Hannibal would. Then, Abigail finally asks a question to Will that intrigues Hannibal the most, “Does killing somebody…feel that bad?”. Hannibal almost holds his breath waiting for Will’s reply. In return, Will gives a very interesting answer. He does not say yes it does, he does not confirm. He says, instead, that it is the ugliest thing in the world. He maybe right, but ugliness is not equal to badness, is it?  Ugliness is a measure of visual taste, not a measure of morality. He almost suggests, killing may be an ugly act, but does not necessarily feel bad.

“It is not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks of killing people for a living.”

says Will to Freddie, in response to her threats about badmouthing him to Abigail. Obviously, Abigail already became family for Will. He protects her and shows a very different face of his when his relationship with Abigail is threatened to get compromised. A face that Hannibal loves seeing Will with. So when Jack asks Hannibal why he let Will say those words, Hannibal gives some Hannibalistic answer while smirking in a very non-subtle way. Of course, he would not stop Will in one of those rare times that he reveals his inner demons, Hannibal counts on it, even.

The second time Alana and Hannibal have different opinions (the first time was about Will going to see Abigail) is about if it is right for Abigail to visit her home where all the crime happened. While Alana disagrees with the idea on an attempt of saving Abigail from possible trauma, Jack chooses to go with Hannibal’s idea which is that confronting everything that happened in her home could be healing for Abigail. Jack is so blinded by his professional ambition to figure out everything hastily that he does not even realize how much damage he is causing unknowingly by each time not taking Alana’s professional opinion over Hannibal’s, whose motive actually is the opposite of Jack’s.

I think right about here is a good place to express my thoughts about Hannibal’s effect vs Jack’s effect on Will/Abigail. Although Hannibal is supposed to be the so-called ‘villian’ in this show, the serial killer, the cannibal, the person who drives people’s minds off the edge, the person standing opposite of law enforcement; he has a moral code. A code that is very different from the consensus but nevertheless, a code. And all the mind games he plays with Will and Abigail are meant to serve a purpose of helping them achieving their highest selves. Not forcefully making them into someone they are not, not harming them of out nowhere, but watering the seed of whatever it is inside them. To his thinking, he is elevating them. Helping them. On the contrary, Jack being one of the good guys in the show, the FBI director, the voice of justice; he manipulates and uses Will and Abigail never having their best interest in his mind. The only thing he cares about is the crimes and criminals; and everyone else’s stability and sanity, if lost on the way, is considered collateral damage. Unlike Hannibal, he does what he does to Will and Abigail knowing that it might end up harming them. So it is open to discussion, if Jack’s morality is any better than Hannibal’s. Or if his even is half consistent as Hannibal’s. I will come back to that in the coming episodes.

While still in the office and the four are talking, we learn that Jack’s motivation to take Abigail home is about gaining information about the Copycat. That is probably when the wheels started turning in Hannibal’s head about diverting FBI. Hannibal’s acts are never well-planned or calculated until the moment of actually killing someone. Although he is spotless on his murders, he rolls the dice and works with the material he is given on the events that lead up to those murders. Yes, he has one great big plan that consists of bloodshed, severed limps and a few people on specific positions; but he does not have one definite way to reach that. He goes with the flow placing the pieces into their places, which is what makes him that exciting: His unpredictability. 

The short conversation happening between Will and Abigail about Will’s empathizing and his putting himself in her father’s shoes are seemingly pleasing for Hannibal. Afterall, more bonded they become, greater the chance of Will protecting her on all costs and consequently that cost being slipping away from the light side into Hannibal’s lap (sigh). When the topic of why they came there (to find out about the man who called the house that morning) comes up and Will asks her about the caller, she throws a very quick glance at Hannibal while saying that she did not recognize the caller’s voice, which suggests that it is a lie. Hannibal looks a little surprised, either for the fact that she remembered his voice, or that she did and did not blurt it out. Considering Hannibal’s thick accent, it is unlikely that someone would not recognize it after hearing it. So the second option weighs more heavily, just as her suggesting Hannibal being the man on the phone on a reenactment proves it so.

“One cannot be delusional if the belief in question is accepted as ordinary by others in that person’s culture or subculture. Or family.” 

says Hannibal and it says a lot. Is not this the very thing Hannibal is trying to do? Putting together a family where his beliefs will be accepted as ordinary? Providing the same freedom to other members of his family as well? Making a family to set them all free, along with himself?

When Marissa shows up and somewhere in between the events calls her mom a bitch, considering the look Hannibal gave her (a very similar look he had given to Franklyn after he blew his nose and placed the dirty napkin on the table), her death was expected. The combination of that and finding the stone stained with Nicholas Boyle’s blood would be an obvious one-stone-two-bird solution to Hannibal’s diverting FBI from the Copycat Killer plan.

The second time Will dreams about the stag is at least as illuminating as the first one. He dreams about the stag right after the Copycat Killer kills someone. The first time, he saw it after Hannibal killed Cassie Boyle. And this time, we will learn that he sees it after Marissa was killed. I do not think that is a coincidence. This time though, as a difference, Will sees himself as the stag getting into a defensive position against Abigail’s throat being cut, again by himself. So he has no way out, either he is the guy killing Abigail or he is the stag who we already know is a killer, although is in defense right now. This almost suggests that deep down he knows regardless of the path chosen, there is no escape from blood. There is only a lesser evil, maybe, and that is killing to save. And the stag is the representative of this lesser evil in the dream, which is interesting because well, we know the stag will turn into Hannibal. Almost to suggest that, Hannibal’s true evil self without the person suit and Will’s maybe acceptable lesser evil sides will be one, to complete one another. (I may be reaching with that one…)

When Alana, Abigail, Will and Hannibal reach to cabin; the look on Hannibal’s face when Will asks Abigail if there is anyone else beside her and her dad who has been to the cabin and she says no, suggests that it is not true, although she is not aware of it and it also suggests that the plan of Hannibal is put into motion. In a little while, he also loudly accuses of Nicholas to kill his sister and Marissa, suggesting he is the Copycat Killer. 

While Hannibal is making remarks about this killer not being Garret Jacob Hobbs because of leaving a body behind and not eating all of it, Will gives him a little disturbed look. Either because Hannibal looks too certain speaking, or because deep down, Will is smelling something suspicious. He actually gave a very similar look to Hannibal when he came into his classroom in between his lecture about the Copycat Killer. I do not think it is a coincidence, but it is very arguable to what degree Will’s awareness was at that point, even on a subconscious level. (There is another possibility that Will’s looks at Hannibal are just/also because he finds Hannibal glamorous with the way he thinks and everything ;)) )

Hannibal, hearing Freddie talk about someone else lurking around the house, asks her if she saw Nicholas. So we conclude that by putting the blame on Nicholas, what Hannibal hopes to achieve is to draw him out to the house to talk to Abigail to clear his name and… Well, there is no “and”. That is probably as far as his plan went and Hannibal did not know that Abigail would kill Nicholas but we can say he hoped she would. Creating a bond (preferably) and/or leverage (that can be used if Abigail did not turn out to be compliant) between them perfectly.

After Abigail escapes from the hospital and comes to Hannibal’s office, in between the conversation Hannibal says, you climbed over the wall, which means, apart from its literal meaning, that after she killed Nicholas, she is now free. By killing him, she broke her restraints and now in new territory. Then, he tells her to come down from there, suggesting after climbing over the wall, what you do is to come down, where Hannibal is also standing. Meaning, Hannibal also had climbed over the wall and now they are at the same side, so she can relax. This is the family where the belief is accepted as ordinary.

While Hannibal convinced her that if she did not hide the body, nobody would believe her innocence right after she killed Nicholas, insinuating she had no choice but to ask for Hannibal’s help; now that it is all over, he tells her that most people actually would believe that she was innocent. Abigail who understands that she has been manipulated, puts the pieces together and reveals that she did know Hannibal was the one who called the house. Not trusting her enough yet, Hannibal does not deny what she is saying so that she would feel let in, but not so much to let her in all the way either, creating a balanced relationship dynamic (of course, in the eyes of Abigail) between them. Then, by saying “No more climbing walls, Abigail, he makes sure she understands they are in the same side now, as equals (he lets she thinks) and there is no going back.

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 2, Season 1 (Amuse-Bouche)

Episode starts with Will dreaming about practice-shooting in a range, a place where he is actually allowed to shoot guilt-free. Where shooting is justified, just like the field. He seems to miss his shots though, resulting in shooting again and again. Just like he shot Garret Jacob Hobbs again and again, but was it because he missed his shot then too? It looks like he is trying to convince himself so, since the shooting target turns into Hobbs in the dream. And if he truly felt bad about shooting Hobbs and regrets doing so, why keep shooting him repeatedly even after hitting him in the dream too? Since he goes to the shooting range after the dream for real too, all of this has little to do with his being traumatized and a lot to do with him missing that feeling.

When in the Hobbs’ cabin, the first thing that comes out of Will’s mouth after seeing tens of antlers all over the room is a comment about how well this would fit in Evil Minds Research Museum. Despite being sarcastic, seeing a crime scene where teenage girls have been mounted on antlers and swiftly thinking that kind of thing to say may suggest that he deep down considers it as a precious and beautiful piece of art that belongs in a museum. Short after, we hear about the possibility that Abigail might be a suspect. For the first time, Will rules out that possibility and defends her blindly.

As soon as Will enters the classroom to give a lecture, the students start applauding. First, he says “thank you” and right after that, “stop that”. He does not know how to react but I do not think that’s because he does not know how he feels about it. It is normal to be applauded for saving someone’s life. So why to accept the compliment and then feel not comfortable about it? Maybe it is because, his initial thought was that the applause was not for saving a life but for taking one. And he gave in quickly and said thank you. Then he noticed this was not appropriate at all so he decided to tell them to stop.

When Alana and Jack comes to talk to Will, he states that he found the students’ applause for his ‘success’ inappropriate. Although he saved the life of Hobbs girl and many that could follow, he does not deem killing someone a success under any circumstances. Later in the conversation, we also learn that Will used to work homicide and the reason why he no longer does is that he was never comfortable pulling the trigger. No law enforcement agent is ever comfortable with it though, killing is killing. But sometimes the end justifies the means. So maybe he could never pull the trigger because he knew that if he did, it would lead him in a path that he could not come back from for many different reasons other than a normal person would have. But that is in the past now, he did pull the trigger. So for stabilizing this change, he is unknowingly pushed into the den of the lion: Hannibal’s couch.

The first thing Hannibal does is to rule out the formalities and responsibilities that having Will officially as a patient would bring along. He rubber stamps Will to keep his days full of crime scenes, ensuring the trigger for his instability as well as his requirement to come and see Hannibal. He wants to play Will’s friend more than he wants to play his therapist. So he does that by alienating Jack and making use of their now common denominator, Abigail. He uses the phrase “surrogate daughter”, reinstating the thought of Will’s responsibility of Abigail. A responsibility that may weigh as heavy as a father’s. By telling Will how he feels obligated against the girl, Hannibal hopes his declared feelings about Abigail to awaken the ones in Will. While doing that, Hannibal is not exactly trying to paint a spotless, pretty picture. He is combining what he wants Will to think and what Will wants to hear. While talking about feeling responsible for the girl, Will suddenly brings out the fact that Jack has doubts about the girl’s involvement in her dad’s crimes.  Hannibal not wanting Will to embrace Abigail only under the assumption of her total innocence, he is telling Will that he does feel responsible for Abigail and that it is also possible that she took part in her dad’s murders, implying he can be protective of Abigail and not be so sure about her involvement in the crimes at the same time. Almost to suggest that regardless of Abigail’s innocence or otherwise, she deserves to be protected. To be cared for. To be loved. If Will can protect and embrace a killer now, why could not he do the same again for somebody else?

“The mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, not the worst of someone else.” 

I listened to, read and repeated this quote of Hannibal tens of times until it lost all its meaning. What I think he is saying is that empathizing is about the empathetic as much as it is about the person being empathized. That, Will’s mind’s reflections of someone else’s cannot be truly detached from his own. That, Will’s own not-that-bad mind’s mental limits make it not possible to comprehend the worst of someone else to his limits. Because his identity is restrictive about what it is not familiar or comfortable with. But whatever he empathizes, it will be the best version there is for him. Because that will be within his mind’s limits and not restricted by anyone else’s.

Hannibal, in a conversation, suggests that Hobbs is Will’s victim. The use of the word ‘victim’ here is so deliberate since it brings a sense of guilt together, a sense of wrongdoing, an ill-intent. If there is a victim, there is a question of the justness of the act. But to kill a serial killer attempting to murder someone is not that kind of an act. There is no need of questioning the motive because it is so out there and it is okay. But Hannibal needs Will to question. He wants Will to think there may be an another reason or angle to what happened. Then he drops the bomb by asking Will if putting himself in the killers’ shoes and imagining their thrill is now harder, since he is now a way too familiar to the feeling and has very little space to estrange himself from it?

During the dinner of Jack and Hannibal, we learn that Jack is doubting the purity of Will’s mind. Hannibal, in return, calls the way Jack treats Will “delicate” while he is well-aware that it is not, encouraging it with an understatement. He does that while asking Jack if his doubts are about Will’s trustworthiness or the risk of Will breaking in the field, also insinuating that he finds Jack’s doubts unnecessary, but any answer Jack may give to that would promote either distrust against Will or would give Jack the idea that there is still more room to push Will.

Alana and Will meet each other in the hospital room of Abigail. Will suggests that Alana may be reading to a killer, while he is sleeping on the couch and practically in the same position as her. So if he is accepting the possibility but still is here, he may be submitting to that possibility too. Will is obviously trying to flirt with Alana and she kind of reciprocates it with trying to comfort him. She tells him that Abigail is a success for him. He replies saying that she does not look like a success. That, he does not feel sorry but good. He does not feel good because he saved her life, if that was the case he would call it a success. So there must be another reason to why he feels good. And the torment he goes through is of feeling good, not of feeling sorry. Good about a surrogate daughter who he orphaned in the first place and maybe good about killing her father too.

In the last scene of the episode, we see Hannibal playing his card open for the first time. He starts off by justifying feeling good about killing if the person being killed is bad enough. Will differentiating between good and just, Hannibal draws Will’s attention to that his coming to therapy is an attempt to convince himself that he feels good about only saving Abigail and not killing her father as well. Will objects saying if this was true, he would feel the same way about shooting Stammets too. Hannibal reminds him that he did not kill Stammets, so he cannot compare. Then, Will spills out that he is not even sure if he was not trying to shoot Stammets to kill. Hannibal pealing his person mask a little off, tells Will even if he wanted to kill Stammets, that would be understandable since he would do it anticipating the killer’s capabilities, boldly calling it “beautiful” even. Hearing his darkest fantasies he did not even admit to himself spoken out loud, almost with vanity, Will freaks out a little and changes the topic. However, Hannibal does not let him out that easy, not when he got Will right where he wanted him. He speaks clearly now, asks him if the reason he has been feeling down is that he killed a man, or that he killed a man and liked it. Finally, Will breaks and admits to feeling good about killing Garret Jacob Hobbs. Hannibal, then, swifts in with the simplest yet greatest justification of killing: that God does it all the time. That it is not about feeling good but about feeling powerful.

It is thought-provoking to consider how early in the series Hannibal actually reveals his tainted mind to Will, but it takes him a whole season and a too high of a number of obvious moves to see Hannibal’s real face that, it makes one wonder if he actually did see Hannibal’s face around this time, but his subconscious longing to be understood chose to sweep it all under the rug.