Hannibal Feels: Buffet Froid Recap

So many feels to start with this. Ellen Muth? Georgia Madchen? Like as in girl? Like a Lass? As a zombie? It didn’t look like anyone blamed a toilet seat for her condition but I had to imagine a world where “Dead Like Me” was just all in a zombie girl’s head. I kind of pictured that if Miriam Lass was intended to be Reggie that maybe George got to see her in the end. BUT MAYBE NOT.

Last week I was a little meh and the thing is, with a show like this, even the meh episodes are a lifetime better than 99% of shows on television. Like a friend asked me about what I thought of “Elementary” and I had to admit to her that 1. I haven’t been watching it since “Hannibal” aired, 2. I always thought the premise suffered by being haphazardly stapled to Sherlock Holmes but was otherwise decently well-acted and scripted, but nevertheless 3. every time someone said Sherlock’s name I wondered where Benedict Cumberbatch was and when we’d get more episodes of that much better adapted to the core material BBC version.

But on with the show and by show I mean recap.

Girl lives alone with a canary out in the country. It makes mes ad what kind of culture I live in where a dude living alone wouldn’t seem like an open invitation to violence, but a woman? Oh yeah, she’s going to die horribly! Like Will has basically the same setup and he’s batshitloco, yet I’m more afraid for the woman. But whatever. I guess zombiegirl came in through the roof, which lonelygirl fixes with a plastic bag for the night. When she gets back to bed, she has company. Under the bed. Who gives her a Glasgow smile from which she drowns on her own blood.

Will has a session with Hannibal. He looks a little ill and I wonder if he’s starting to think that if Will is so whiny about Abigail killing a man in self defense, maybe he’s not going to be the fun life partner he was hoping for. He looks a little tired and bored with Will not getting that everyone else in the world is prey and he should have some fun with it or just move on with it because he’s not going to be able to put the air back in the balloon anyway. This is kind of how my cats look at me. “Geez, it was just a squirrel. Why the sads?”

Basically Will feels like he’s fading. Like he’s a zombie (he doesn’t put it that way but later in the episode when he hears about zombiegirl’s symptoms he’s like, “so that’s how it works”) As a fun little test, Hannibal asks Will to draw a clock with hands pointing to the time it is now to help ground him to a certain time. Except that isn’t why Hannibal wants it and you see Will draw it out and it looks all, you know, clock-y, until Hannibal looks at it and it’s all Dali clock-y on one side. He doesn’t mention this to Will.

Will loses time while gutting a fish and comes to in lonelygirl’s room making what appears to be a real fucking mess out of the crime scene. Jack is not pleased and walks out for a talk. He has Had it, Officially, with Will being crazycakes. Only not so officially that he tells Will to take a vacation. The tissue the team finds left behind is dead.

Back at Hannibal’s office, Will explains that the grandiosity of the violence he felt in the not-real world of his reconstruction felt more real to him than his regular life. Further, he explains that the kind of crazy he knows he is isn’t the kind of crazy he’s experiencing and that he should see a doctor. Like, one that could see if there’s a tumor. Hannibal happens to have a referral for him. But! There is a but! If there’s nothing physically wrong, Will has to admit he’s crazycakes and this is life now.

Apparently this is what Hannibal wants for him because he takes him to an old colleague.

DR. SUTCLIFFE NAMED AFTER PETER WILLIAM SUTCLIFFE, BRITISH SERIAL KILLER CALLED "THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER" http://t.co/djORAEoLZz #FEEDYOURFEAR

— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) May 31, 2013

Hannibal knows that it’s autoimmune encephalitis, like swollen brain. He smelled it. Dr. Sutcliffe asks what that smells like. He doesn’t realize that when it comes to meat, Dr. Lecter is an expert. Then Hannibal shares the clock illustration and that about confirms it. Which, fair enough, but why, Dr. Sutcliffe reasonably wonders, not mention this to Will. Good question! Well, ‘cause Hannibal’s never seen anyone walking around all empathetic and encephalitic before and Will’s a close friend so he can keep an eye on it and observe until it gets too out of hand.

To be fair, this is the sort of thing that research doctors are paid to do. But, I’m thinking that maybe Hannibal needs to visit Dr. Gillian Anderson so she can tell him that the fly of his person suit is down. Even when you’re new to having friends, experimenting on them isn’t on the menu. Uh. Menu. They’re not on the menu either. Just, you know, having BFFy secrets like knowing who a young lady killed = good, keeping secrets from your BFF like that their insanity is caused by brain swellings = bad. It’s okay. We’ve all gotta start somewhere.

Oh, I should probably mention not killing doctors who help you fool your BFF but actually, that was a good call. I mean, what did Dr. Sutcliffe get out of it other than really great ham? Well and I guess that good Mengele feeling you get from experimenting on live people who don’t consent? Or maybe that he was getting uneasy about the deception and really, that ham was only so good.

Also, kids, let this be a lesson about second opinions. Especially if your doctor is later given a Glasgow smile that may or may not have happened because of a zombiegirl.

So maybe Hannibal’s feeling the heat from Will and realizing that he can’t shut it down. And if Will is struggling so hard with a self defense killing, he’s probably not going to be cool that Hannibal’s killing people for food. Either way, he’s broaching the subject with Jack that maybe Will doesn’t have the stability for field work.

Speaking of. Will goes to lonelygirl’s house to revisit the scene of the crime for his own purposes. He notes the time and place and marries himself to it and then gets a glimpse of zombiegirl. Of course, it’s hard for him to know what’s what because, crazy. He gets a zombie arm sleeve for his trouble and then loses time when he is outside. He thinks maybe zombiegirl having the same time and space issues he is and announces the time, place, and that she is alive.

Will brings Beverly Katz with him to go over the crime scene and explains what he experienced. He has no idea what he did with the body sleeve but she knows there was bloodless dead skin around the scene so now she’s just putting the facts together as to what is going on. He adds that she isn’t able to see faces and that maybe the Glasgow smile was an attempt to pull off the “mask” that zombiegirl perceives instead of a face. That’s going to work out really well for Hannibal later when he frames her for Dr. Sutcliffe’s murder by handing her the scissors. ETA, scissors? that’s some determined Glasgowing.

Apparently Will’s empathy is in overdrive because he straight up asks Hannibal if he’s working on a paper about him. His only request is that the paper be published posthumously. “Yours or mine?” “Whichever comes first.” Oh, Will. That doesn’t even make sense. What difference would it make if Hannibal was dead?

Hannibal introduces Cotard syndrome which Will learns more about when he meets zombiegirl’s mother later. Hm, the symptoms do sound like someone he knows… The worst part, though, is when the mother says that while there were several diagnoses for her daughter, no one could do much but “manage expectations.”

While Will is sleeping, zombiegirl watches. From behind the fishing lure. That we saw Hannibal fiddle with in Ceuf. Is that where/how the infection happened? Yeah I’m kinda stuck on that scene.

Jack worries now that he’s breaking his pony and it’s his lack of leadership that leads to this. But again falls short of firing Will, rationalizing to himself that he’s, uh, the stable rock which Will could trust as a foundation. Yeah. Can’t see how that could go wrong.

Will demands more tests, though not a second opinion because he goes back to Dr. Sutcliffe. While he’s in the MRI, he loses time, which is actually a blessing ‘cause that whole process is freaky. He comes out alone. No Dr. Sutcliffe. Like, at all because he’s dead in his office.

Beverly has to comfort Will that he didn’t do it. There’s more dead person on the blade. Will feels bad that he attracted zombiegirl and maybe she thought he was the doctor. Only no! It was Hannibal with a killy Dexter suit (they should share their suits, only he’s in Miami and dresses kind of like a dork.)

Zombiegirl winds up under Will’s bed (seriously, waterbeds from now on) and the dogs aren’t upset until midnight exactly. That’s when Will wakes up and notices anyway. He jumps down and explains to her that she’s alive, you know, other than her skin and he gets some help and they put her in a big chamber like a burn victim. Hannibal prepares a report for Jack and hopes that zombiegirl doesn’t come to. ‘Cause then he’ll have to murderate her and she won’t taste very good. But I’m sure he’ll figure something out. Not that he has much to worry about. She can’t see faces.

Next week, Dr. Gideon returns! Well, escapes which is a return for us. Hannibal sics her on Dr. Bloom. He really needs to work on this friend thing.