Will, Hannibal, Jack, and the rest of the ensemble deal with a case involving a corpse found inside of a dead horse’s womb. Yes, you read that correctly.
The first scene in tonight’s episode is of Will and Jack going ice fishing, but their conversation about the outing is very clearly laced with a double meaning. Will explains that it’s harder to catch the fish when it’s cold and their metabolism slows down, and Jack asks how you catch a fish if it isn’t hungry.
They’re actually talking about how to “catch” Dr. Lecter, and Will says they need to change tactics, “make him bite,” in order to get him. “You hook him, I’ll land him,” Jack states. These two working together to catch the doctor should be very interesting to watch in the next couple episodes.
No Hard Feelings
That scene leads into one showing Hannibal gutting and preparing a fish to cook, and seriously? Why is it that with everything that happens on this show, seeing a fish get gutted affected me so strongly? Ugh.
Anyway, Hannibal prepares the meal in question for Jack and Will, who are visiting, and it was Will who provided the fish for it. Hannibal says that he hopes they don’t still have doubts about him and…well, where he gets his meat from usually, and they all agree they need to move past their doubts.
Weirdest C-Section Ever
Onto the case of the week! Like I said before, this week involves the gang investigating a dead corpse inside the womb of a dead horse. Just when I thought Hannibal couldn’t get any more bizarre, too!
The horse the corpse is found in had given birth to a foal just days before, and was depressed when the baby was born dead. The man examining the horse after it was found dead is the one who discovers the body inside of it, and the scene is just as insane to watch as you might imagine.
The woman found inside was Sarah Craver, and after the discovery, Hannibal examines the scene with Jack standing over him asking questions. The team determines that the victim was dead before she was inside the horse, and that she put up a fight. Hannibal states that the whole thing was meant to be a rebirth for her, and that the killer doesn’t think like anyone else, so they need someone who also thinks differently to examine the scene and figure out what happened.
Sound like someone else we know on this show?
Alanaibal? Hannilana?
Okay, so I don’t know what the couple name for Hannibal and Alana is. Frankly, their relationship weirds me out, so I haven’t looked into it.
There’s a scene in this episode showing the two of them having sex, then chatting afterwards about Will’s therapy and why Hannibal resumed doing it. The two of them sure talk a lot about Will during their exchanges, don’t they?
Hannibal thinks it’s healthy Will is back in therapy with a “good” therapist (ha!), and explains that the reason he tried to kill Hannibal was ultimately to protect Alana. I guess that’s…flattering, or something?
Meet Margot
There’s also a few scenes this episode depicting Hannibal in therapy with a woman named Margot who has some serious anger issues regarding her brother. It’s not totally clear why, just that he did something bad to her, and it’s implied that he’s a murderer, so she has dark feelings about wanting to kill him. I recognize the actress as Ava from Supernatural, and it’s great to see her on my screen again!
Hannibal screws with her and basically encourages her to want to kill him, but, as he states, “when you can get away with it.” I’m not even kidding, that’s the advice he gave as a therapist to his patient. He also reassures her that it’s okay to be weird, and suggests that she could also get someone else to kill her brother for her. That’s pretty much the gist of their conversations this episode.
The Investigation Continues
Thing One and Thing Two (that’s officially what I’m calling them now, I can’t remember their names) examine the dead woman and find that she has soil in her throat. During their examination, one realizes that she has a heartbeat, but then it appears that the movement in her chest was actually from a freaking bird that was stuck in there! It flies out, and the whole thing is very, very strange.
Will does his re-enactment thing at the stable, and thinks the whole thing was about trying to give back a life taken away, and symbolizes a coffin birth — when a dead fetus is “born” of a corpse. He thinks the person involved with stuffing the body inside knew the horse, and maybe Sarah Craver, and probably used to work at the stable.
Meet Peter
Will and Jack go to meet Peter, a man who works — or used to work? I didn’t quite catch that — at the stable, and who takes care of a lot of animals in cages where they go to meet him. He’s nervous when they question him, and won’t make eye contact with them. He’s particularly concerned about whether the bird in Sarah’s body escaped unharmed, however.
Will realizes that he was kicked by a horse, and has brain damage as a result that makes it so he can’t look at someone in the eye and touch something at the same time. I think that’s how it was explained, anyway. Hence why he couldn’t look at the two men when he was looking at a photo of Sarah he was handed.
Basically, the visit leads Will to believe that Peter didn’t kill Sarah, but that he probably knows who did. He’ll prove to be important later.
“Don’t Lie to Me”
Will and Hannibal talk about rebirth in therapy, and Hannibal asks him how he feels to be consulting again after everything that happened. Will makes it clear that he still believes Hannibal tried to destroy him, and that he isn’t about to pretend otherwise.
Will asks Hannibal to not lie to him, and Hannibal requests the same in return. He then asks his patient a series of questions: “Do you fantasize about killing me?,” for one. Will answers yes to that, and when asked how he would do it, he replies, “with my hands.” We’re getting into some seriously dark territory, here, people.
But when Hannibal asks whether Will is going to try to kill him again, Will declines. Why? Because, Will now finds him interesting. I’d just like to note that Hannibal tends to refrain from killing those he finds interesting as well…
Will Believes Peter
The soil found in Sarah Craver was linked to her grave, and when the team investigates there, it is of course empty. Will then goes to Peter and tells him they found her grave, and questions him a little bit.
Peter still denies having killed Sarah, and Will believes him. He understands that Peter was grieving her, and the rebirth was his way of bringing poetry to her death. When he presses further about Peter knowing who killed her, Peter will only say that no one will believe him if he says who it was. Will promises to make sure that this time, they do.
Questioning the Social Worker
Alana questions Peter’s social worker while Will, Jack and Hannibal watch from behind a one-way viewing glass, and we learn that Peter has accused the man, Ingram, of killing sixteen different women. She tries to touch his hands and he pulls away, and Will recognizes that Alana is trying to gauge how comfortable the man is with emotion. It’s suspected that he is actually a psychopath or sociopath.
Ingram says Peter talked about Sarah a lot, and when Alana implies that he isn’t a person who cares about people enough to have become a social worker, he becomes defensive and says there’s no evidence he was the one that killed Sarah. It’s true, so Jack instructs Alana to let him go, and Will warns him that he’s making a mistake.
“I know what it’s like to point at a killer and have no one listen,” Will states, and he’s obviously talking about Hannibal, who is in the room with them. Jack replies that Will pointed in the wrong direction, but we know he’s just playing the game to try to “land him.” Remember that whole ice fishing scene?
Another Kill
As Will and Hannibal are heading back to talk with Peter some more, Peter is dealing with some really upsetting stuff. Someone let all the animals in their cages out, and he’s absolutely devastated by the act. Poor guy.
He finds another dead horse in the stable, and Ingram standing over it with a bloodied hammer. He states that the horse is the one that kicked Peter in the head, so he’s obviously trying to set up Peter to take the fall for the kill.
When Will and Hannibal arrive, they find the empty cages, and Peter sewing up the dead horse. Will asks Peter if his social worker is in the horse, and Peter replies in the affirmative. Ew. I can’t believe this episode got even weirder.
As Will quietly questions Peter, Peter states that he thinks Ingram deserved to die for what he did, and Will replies that that doesn’t mean Peter deserved to kill the man. He asks Peter to come with him and gently pulls the man up from the horse’s side, and he’s so calm and understanding with Peter, it’s very touching to see.
Peter’s Confession
Will leads Peter away, and the other man reveals that he thinks he hates Ingram. Will tells him he envies him for at least knowing what to feel; he’s of course referring to himself and his confusion with the Ripper situation, and I like that we’re exploring this with Will in such a subtle way.
Then Peter tells Will that he didn’t kill Ingram, he just wanted him to experience what it was like to feel that sort of suffocation. And all of a sudden, this episode gets even weirder, because yes, the dude is still alive inside that horse.
Hannibal witnesses Ingram crawling out of the horse, covered in some really nasty stuff I don’t even want to think about, and out come a bunch of the horse’s guts with him. Yuck.
Will’s Choice
Hannibal warns Ingram that he might just want to crawl back in the horse, and just then Will approaches the man, gun raised. Ingram tries to tell Will that Peter is just confused, but Will replies that he is not. Hannibal recognizes that Will wants to kill Ingram to fill in for killing Hannibal, and tells him that it won’t feel the same.
In the end, Hannibal keeps Will from shooting Ingram, and Hannibal smiles and pulls him to him to confess that he could never truly predict what Will would do next. The whole thing is very intimate, and I can just sense the slash art that will be created following the scene.
The episode kind of just ends after that, but I guess we can assume Ingram was taken in for Sarah’s murder. But what about the whole thing with Margot? I guess that’s a story for another episode.
Hannibal airs Friday nights at 10pm on NBC.
(image courtesy of NBC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
