ETA: I noticed a lot of people wound up here searching for the perfume that Hannibal was talking about Bella wearing. Husband suggested it was Bolt of Lightning by Jar.
The episode starts with Will Graham sleepwalking, nudged on by his imaginary buck. I suspect psychedelic mushrooms may be involved. That is, after all, Hannibal’s MO, but Will is an emotionally distressed man being effortlessly puppeted by a psychopath and used by the FBI. Other than that, I don’t see what’s so stressful about his situation.
The next morning, Will checks in with Hannibal who again points out that no one cares near as much as about Will as Hannibal. That may be true. He’s just leaving out that no one wants to EAT him as much as Hannibal.
Meanwhile, in the morning, a man in a hotel getting ice sees everyone with their heads on fire. That rarely leads to anything good.
In fact, it leads to quite a lot of bad.
Now, in the missing week’s episode, we did get to finally see Jack’s wife. This week Hannibal meets her. He serves foie gras, which she turns down. Also in last week’s episode, we got a flash on the fact that Hannibal is, indeed, serving up people, or it’s certainly being heavily implied. So when Hannibal assures her that the next course is a supercilious pig, I imagine he’s been driving in Austin traffic and found himself a winner.
Things are obviously not going so well in Jack’s marriage. His wife seems a little toned down. Hannibal sniffs her, remarks on her perfume, then sniffs Jack. The implication is confusing but a suspicious person like me thinks, “Oh, is he smelling someone else on her?”
But then Hannibal makes an interesting remark about how he smelled stomach cancer on a professor before he was properly diagnosed. As it turns out, the wife has lung cancer and has been keeping it from her husband, which she reveals to Hannibal in a counseling session.
The man who has been seeing Ghost Rider people, it turns out, has a sort of supernatural ability to see who is evil. And in his Dexter way is killing killers but beyond that, cuts their back skin into flaps and strings them up with fishing line to make them appear as angels. As such he transforms them from demons to angels.
However, he is a man who has cancer who is dying and his mind has apparently turned against him. Now, this is where it gets dicey and I may have to rewatch to sort this out. But somehow this man manages to cut his own back into wings and string himself up. I kind of suspect intervention but if Will thinks that, he isn’t saying. At least, not yet.
And in truth, Will is pretty distracted. He’s sleepwalking. He wakes up standing on his roof with his dogs barking at him that life is still worth living. That doesn’t indicate the best night’s sleep.
In the midst of trying to resolve the case, Will stopped by Hannibal’s office and after a quick whiff, Hannibal suggests that Will invest in a better cologne. He keeps getting the cologne he’s wearing for Christmas which means either he has someone who really doesn’t like him on his Christmas list, or, knowing that Hannibal has been house sitting for Will, perhaps he has dosed the cologne with something. We know that he has given Abigail Hobbs shrooms. Is he experimenting with this therapy with Will? Or is someone else messing with Will? Freddie Lounds?
Feeling paranoid now, which is a great way to feel when you’re watching Hannibal. I’m very excited for where this is going, seeing the building dread and the way that the story is building between the Hannibal cannon that I at least vaguely remember and how this is playing out.
