I'm not even gonna try to parse the Who Knows/Believes What When and Why (if I wanted to think that hard I wouldn't have dropped out of grad school), but I did find the scene with Will watching Hannibal on the stand to be fascinating, because it felt to me as if Will was, to some extent, realizing (feeling?) his complicity in some of this. Much as he kept Abigail's secret, and supported her even though he's LAW ENFORCEMENT DAMMIT even if he technically isn't but you know what I mean, if he thinks Hannibal had something to do with the death of the bailiff, but is willing to sit quietly and let the case against him be undermined by false testimony, I think that says a lot about Will. It reaches back to the Darkness Within motif we've been seeing with him (and which Hannibal sees in spades; he may be a psycho but he's not an idiot) - how far is Will able to justify this sort of thing and still be the person he is...was...is. The 'I felt the killer was walking out (of the courtroom) with me' may also have relevance - whether or not it's the literal Lecter or orderly or what have you, the deaths of the bailiff and the judge are specifically to serve the purpose of Will Graham. So even though he's not the killer, he's part of the chain of justification which leads to the killings.
" (I'll spare you the Bon Jovi earworm I was just seized by.) "
I'm not trying to say it's his fault per se, or that he should have leapt out of his seat (and you're absolutely right, he couldn't have stopped Hannibal from saying whatever he liked, he doesn't even really have control over his own defense). I just think he's involved in a web of activity, not all of it savory (so to speak), which is pretty complicated, and he's making some choices which may be drawing him in, rather than entirely freeing him.
I'm sure. But just because it's happening around him doesn't mean he's complicit. Exhibit A, in my opinion: having horrible, unwanted admirers. He really shouldn't be blamed for that.
I don't think it's a cold hard "complicity," but he definitely protested, "that would be a lie," but then apparently (implicitly?) agreed that they shouldn't let "his love go to waste" after all. I feel like it's more of an internal conscience-questioning than "we the viewers should judge him," if that makes any sense. Like, that's what makes Will a good person to me, that he has a strong moral compass and actually worries about compromising it.
That's true, and I noticed that -- he did go and change his defense. -- Then again, he's basically not allowed to plead "Innocent Cause Hannibal Lecter Planted Evidence" so he's got to plead something else, whatever it is, and, well ... reasonable doubt by way of similar murders is no more untruthful than "unconsciousness."
I sort of assumed he'd go right back to telling the FBI the truth once he got out of court, though.
Agreed - and the fact that he CAN struggle, and does, is one of the things that makes him so different from Hannibal, even though some of the choices he makes might appear to parallel things Hannibal would do (like, both of them concealed Abigail's involvement in the killing of the guy whose name I can't recall...for entirely different reasons). Will doesn't find that kind of choice easy, whereas Hannibal does - but Hannibal seems to think that Will can be persuaded to see things the way he does. Or maybe not; I go back and forth on whether Hannibal really recognizes that Will and he are so different that no matter what he may *think* Will has signed on for, that doesn't change Will's fundamentally good nature.
" (I'll spare you the Bon Jovi earworm I was just seized by.) "
DAMN YOOOOOOOUUUUUU!!
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I sort of assumed he'd go right back to telling the FBI the truth once he got out of court, though.
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