#potage

[hughdancybabyface]

"I need you, Hannibal."

[pesky--dust]

Will, honey, why are you so angry about that?

Can you blame her? The first time she have seen the both of you together, you have already been acting like an old married couple:

And then again in the same episode:

Do you see how she is looking at them? I can hear her thoughts (I know what you two are. GAYS.)

[mistikfir]

1X03 "Potage"

- Giving a lecture on Hobbs's copycat? - Well, we need every good mind we can get on this.

[grahamdolce]

Hannibal 1.03 Potage | 2.08 Su-zakana

[inthedarktrees]

“Potage” | Hannibal

[super-who-locked-me-in-here]

I think it's so funny that throughout the episodes that focused on Abigail and GJH, they were always like "Hobbs' victims all fit the same profile, the same hair color, eye color, height, etc so they look like his daughter" and then when Will is giving a lecture and this is a picture of one of the victims:

Girl Abigail's eyes are blue wtf were you doing on Hobb's laundry list

[craqueluring]

1.03 | 2.13

"You say he was loving, I believe it. That's what you brought out in him."

[thedarkmongoose]

[mymadsmmindplace]

Hannibal | Potage | 1.03

[kawaii-foodie]

rincafe_03

[theoraclephobetor]

Abigail is such a fascinating character to be placed between Will and Hannibal. She's so good at seeming unstable enough to avoid suspicion, but she still has micro-tells when she's trying to lie.

Long before she pulls the "you be the man on the phone" line with Hannibal, you can see her eyes flick over to him as she tells Will that she didn't recognize the voice of the person who called.

But she seems genuinely shocked and distressed when she realizes that her father had been feeding his victims to his family. And she's utterly horrified when she finds the girls' hair in the pillow.

Abigail is such an interesting mix of manipulation, survival skills, guilt, and high-key anxiety after she kills Nicholas Boyle. But she is still one of the smartest people in the room at all times. Unlike the analytic Will or the ruthlessly pragmatic Hannibal, Abigail has such a high degree of emotional intelligence that she can stay in the good graces of two serial killers. She can call out the fact that Hannibal is happy she killed Nicholas Boyle, that he called the house, that he has something to hide and reeks of danger, but she's also smart enough (or traumatized enough) to know not to press the issue.

There's a lot made of Abigail's constant victimization (by Hobbs, by Hannibal, by Jack, by Freddie Lounds, and arguably by Will), but this girl knows damn well how to survive. The first time I watched Hannibal, Abigail seemed like a set decoration. I didn't know how to look at her back then, because she spent so much time making herself subservient to the whims of the people around her. It's possible that only Alana was honestly trying to know her, while everyone else was casting her as a paper doll in their own emotional dramas.

At every point in the series, Abigail is fighting for a piece of stable ground. She had stability with her father, before Will tracked him down, and she finds it again with Hannibal, before Will betrays him (and Abigail - she would have been part of their new life as well).

But that's the thing - Abigail exists past season 1 because she is a figure in the life the Hannibal wants with Will. She has bent to the will of the people around her time and time again, and in the end, she becomes no more than a piece of set dressing for an imaginary life that Hannibal has been preparing for Will. For all that she has been fighting for stability, she doesn't know enough to ensure that her stability is not tethered to the decisions of someone else. She's smart and traumatized and naive enough to think that Hannibal is her only way out.

(that's the trick though - Hannibal makes himself the only way out. He does this for Abigail, for Will, for Margot Verger, for Bedelia du Maurier, and for anyone else he thinks he can get away with. Whether he truly wants connection with these people or just dominion over their lives is fodder for another post.

But I'm a romantic when it comes to Hannibal's feelings for Abigail - I think he truly cares for her in the only ways he knows how. I think he sees her as a surrogate daughter, and I think he shares more with her than he does with anyone else in the first 2 seasons. Unfortunately, he doesn't want a daughter. He wants a partner, and he wants that partner to be Will.

And once again, Abigail's world collapses.)

[hughdancybabyface]

Hannibal and Will in the romantic era

[pesky--dust]

Hannibal season 1: Potage, Rôti, Savoureux

[mistikfir]

1X03 "Potage"

[grahamdolce]

Hannibal 1.03 Potage | 1.07 Sorbet | 3.06 Dolce | 3.09 And the Woman Clothed with the Sun

[nonbaznary]

not stopping with the weird experimental abigail hobbs art

18.04.23, 10 years of potage!

[ more episodes ]