Second episode. I know these are a little late compared to most recaps but maybe now that True Detective is over I can hit these a little earlier. Maybe. It seems to work better when I’ve watched the episode a few times, so given my busy work (ugh) and social (yeah, right) schedule, well, let’s just play it by ear. Ahem.
Okay, so, props to the prop department on the painful-looking skin pulling and the actor making it sound as bad as it looked. Jesus God. Reminds me of that song, “Everytime you go away… you take a piece of me with you.” But he left a lot of pieces behind.
So that’s either like the best timeiest serial killer ever, or dude’s got a motion detector in his eye-of-God-color-palette thingy. Little known fact, when I was a child, early child, we lived in a trailer next to corn fields. I don’t remember finding corn fields especially scary, but I never woke up tied up to a mass of dead people and was chased by the dude what done it to me who was sporting a rifle. But, I did lose a shoe once, which is basically the same thing. I really loved that shoe.
Maybe. I dunno. I was four.
Anyway, our pupil from the eye-of-God-color-palette thingy makes a bold escape, like, super heroic. And I’m thinking, “Darkness, yeah.” No, that was True Detective. I’m thinking, “Run like the wind! Jump like the… frog? I don’t know, jump and go tell people about this psycho! That’s what I would do!” You know, if my debilitating fear of heights and my lack of physical ability would’ve even got me that far. Probably I would’ve just laid in the middle yelling, “Help?” until the psycho showed up to give me more of that sweet, sweet drug and put me out for reals. But this guy, he’s a hero, so I know he’s going to make it!
Or not.
Man, what a great start to the show, though. And his death was not in vain. Team Sassy Science was on the case, mostly.
Meanwhile, Will’s trying this new thing: fake it until you make it. Hannibal’s hard to read, but he appears to be buying it mostly, perhaps high on this idea of being <3 friends <3. Will’s kind of a good actor and he’s been pretty easy to read for so long… and really Hannibal’s had some super-easy, trusting people to play with. Maybe he’s getting a little cocky. Maybe.
DuMaurier has hit it and is ready to quit it. Okay, I may be confused what hit it means. But she’s definitely ready to quit it. I was a little worried the first time I watched, because I couldn’t help but notice that she was in the new show Crisis on NBC. A little more discreet promo, NBC. Or not, because it added to the tension, because, “Yikes, she’s got a new job! I don’t want to see Gillian Anderson die!” Also, apparently there will be another season of The Fall. Just putting that out there. It’s BBC drama, also starring Jaime Dornan. It’s good if you like serial killer drama and Gillian Anderson.
Anyway, DuMaurier is hip to Hannibal’s game. She doesn’t even know the half of it, but the half she does know isn’t anything she wants. If nothing else, it proves that therapy isn’t working, so no referral!
Hannibal helps Team Sassy Science with the pupil body, and by help, I mean, he saw all the stuff they missed and agreed with Jack’s wrong assumptions. He did point out that they could find clues in the cracks of the weird sealant on the guy’s skin, then Beverly Katz makes an assessment about the color palette that everyone recognizes as too smart for her, apparently. Now, she is a scientist. Maybe she’s not an empath demon, but pretty much everyone’s immediately thinking, “YOU’VE BEEN TALKING TO WILL GRAHAM.” Okay there was probably a record of that, I’m not sure impugning her ability to put facts together is a one plus one situation, but whatever. Jack now knows that she’s sneaking off to talk to Will and while he’s Very Angry about it, he’s Not Against It.
We also learn that Jack, in his gut, doesn’t think Will is a psychopath. And Beverly believes he still wants to save lives. So he can’t be all bad, right?
Hannibal, however, is all bad. He has a good smell of the corpse and thinks, “Corn? When did I eat corn?” But no! He smells corn on the body that was also floating in water a while. That’s a keen nose. No wonder dogs like him.
Not that he shares this insight with the FBI.
Hannibal visits Will in his dunk tank. I’m not sure of the procedure here. I guess if you’re a psychiatrist, Will’s in the dunk tank, unless it’s a casual visit, and then you go to his cell? But for therapy purposes, it’s the dunk tank. Anyway, Hannibal questions Will’s position on them being <3 friends <3 which sounds like a casual visit, but they’ve always had trouble with boundaries. Will accepts Hannibal’s power in their relationship which seems to please Hannibal. Some of this seems a little turf war-ry, Hannibal likes playing Will Graham, though he doesn’t have the ability to gather motivations the way Will does.
Beverly visits Will to ask more about the murders. In trade, he asks Beverly to look at him without the evidence against him, start over with fresh eyes. She agrees to keep digging and he agrees to look at pictures of pupil-corpse. After a few shots, he is able to transport himself mentally to the corpse, recognizing there is no discoloration. He recognizes that the corpse wasn’t pulled free, he tore himself free, that he’d survived, probably because he had a higher tolerance for heroin. Apparently his name was Roland Umber. LOL. Umber. Anyway. Will threw a little shade on Hannibal’s assessment of the situation, not because Hannibal isn’t good at this, but just a heads up that what Hannibal said and what he thinks can be two different things. Chew on that, Katz.
In any case, Will’s given her enough information that the FBI will be able to trace the body back to the source.
However, not before Hannibal gets to Dexter up the killer. Not that he’s got Dexter’s game of moral shuffling going on, Hannibal’s just opportunistic. Dude’s going to be in jail, and his leg looks yummy.
Having sussed out the situation before the FBI, Hannibal dons his plastic killy suit and heads out to the farm to see what’s mooing. There he finds the eye in a silo and the killer moistening his creation. “Hello. I love your work.”
When the FBI does show up, Hannibal acts surprised. “Wow, this is super crazy. And huh, that’s a peculiar dude in the middle of this eye. Must be a reflection in the eye. It’s definitely not the killer. Nope. He’s still out there. These people are a means to an end. Sound familiar, Jack? Like what you did with Will? Huh?”
Jack works out his guilt with his therapist. Hopefully not another psycho therapist.
Team Sassy Science tries to figure out why John Doe 21, a guy with no records, was the replacement for Roland Umber. He’s definitely not Umbery. And why is he missing part of his leg? Like, the tastiest part of his leg? Why’s that missing? Weird, huh?
As they puzzle over what Hannibal said, “The eye looks beyond this world into the next and sees a reflection of man himself.” There wasn’t supposed to be a reflection. See, that’s tricky wording because the reflection of himself would be the killer. But no one was looking for riddles, so it’s like, “Huh, that’s weird.”
Alone, Hannibal enjoys his leg of psycho. Sad. There was enough for four.
DuMaurier makes a special point of telling Jack that she’s not going to talk to the FBI anymore. She doesn’t exactly say anything about Hannibal being a murderer, but she does plant the seed for Jack to maybe look into what happened that drove her out of practice. It further isolates her, but maybe gets the ball rolling for Will.
Beverly Katz shows up with Hannibal this time for a guided discussion of what they’re calling a “mural.” Clearly Hannibal wants to be there to see if/when Will recognizes what he does, “One things is not like the other, one if these things just does not belong.” Though he can do that under the guise of caring what it might do to Will.
But this seems like some hubris on Hannibal’s part, wanting to enjoy the satisfaction of the one person who would recognize Hannibal’s handiwork. In fact, Will sees himself as the killer being sewn into the mural. Immediately, he lets Beverly know that the killer is in the mural. Just as immediately, Hannibal says, “He must’ve had a friend!”
Interesting choice of words. Because that’s what friends do, right? Sew you into your own creation and take a piece of your leg? Sure, why not. <3 friends <3
And Will sees that.
In his own way, though, Hannibal does finish the killer’s piece in a better way that he may have finished it himself. He asks the killer what the eye he created sees. It sees nothing. Now the killer can be reflected as God. “Here, I made your arts and crafts project work. You’re welcome.”
Next up at the dunk tank is Katie Purnell, the investigator sent to spork Jack Crawford out of his job. Will recognizes right off that this is not good for him and that he is, in fact, unemployed. Katie is there to negotiate Will’s admission of his guilt, mostly to protect the FBI from a messy trial, but she offers to save him from the death penalty. But Will’s playing the long game and he’s innocent. That’s not always the best defense, as it happens, but, he was always a bit idealistic.
In his cell, he’s peacefully fishing with bodies floating by when DuMaurier shows up and introduces herself as Hannibal’s ex-therapist. She has a message for Will: I believe you.
For all the good it does him, because she flees into the night. Good for her, because Hannibal just had his plastic killy dry cleaned and he’s ready to make it rain. But all he’s left with is the smell of rain in her perfume bottle that she leaves for him. You can almost hear his stomach growling.