Hannibal 2x04: "Takiawase"
Super late once again--there are some issues going on that I'll probably end up writing a separate entry about. Additionally, there was a subplot in this episode that was tough to approach (and probably not the one you're thinking). But you'll see.
PREVIOUSLY ON: EMPATH AND CANNIBAL: Everyone was super confused to realize that Hannibal was not the one who killed a bailiff for love of Will, although he was perplexed to discover that Will does not understand that gifts of body parts signal affection; he (and the wendigo) then swore to their everlasting friendship on a Bible before the court, while Will stared at him like well that's a thing that's happening; then Hannibal's testimony was struck from the record and the judge turned up poetically dead. We're pretty sure he did that. Mostly.
Also, I was on the corresponding A Matter of Taste podcast to discuss this episode. Includes an unusual number of strange noises from me, plus my usual alternating wheeze/cackle laugh. Hang in there for "Did I ever tell you about the most traumatizing fanfic concept I ever heard?" Because I'm a terrible grief counselor. }:D
@lethallyfab: I discovered a cocktail called the Bee's Knees and it is AMAZING & I highly encourage it as recap fuel.
@lethallyfab: Mr Boston's says: gin, fresh lemon & honey syrup. @CityTavernDTLA does a yum variation w/lavender-infused honey.
Make it. You'll need it. Whole bunch of warnings tonight: bees, massive eye squick, and a pretty intense attempted/assisted suicide subplot; NBC even warned for strobing lights right before the show started.
@HettiennePark: Is #HANNIBAL in the mood for Korean tonight? #FeedYourFear #EattheRude #WhoisHungryforHANNIBAL #SayNo2BeverlyBulgogi
Ma'am!
To begin: Will's in his Fishing Palace, explaining how to tie a lure: "Wrap the leader around the tippet. Four... five... six times. Tuck the end between the lines..." And then we see that he's showing this to... Abigail.
@BryanFuller: TONIGHT @KaceyKadoodles RETURNS TO #HANNIBAL [flower crown!]
@DireRavenstag: The fleshmeat called Abigail is keeping my Will company. In OUR river. I'm not sure how I feel about it. *stomps and huffs*
"Tighten, and... trim. It's called a blood knot." (But why? The answer I found: "A wise old man told me that the name came from pushing your knife through the string into your finger. Everybody has done it.") "Your father taught you how to hunt; I'm going to teach you how to fish." "Same thing, isn't it? One you stalk, the other you lure?" says Memory Abigail, echoing the last conversation they ever had (*sob*). "One you catch, the other you shoot," he finishes. "What are you trying to catch?" she asks. "The one who caught you," he says, surprisingly casual. Abigail, with a friendly sigh: "The one that got away." "Catch a fish once and it gets away, it's a lot harder to catch again," he says, and pats her hand as he gives her the fishing rod and they both laugh a little and it's killing me inside. "Everybody thinks you're lying about the one that got away," she says, more wistfully now. "That's why I have to catch him," he says, and they smile at each other. "Last thing before casting a line: name the bait on your hook after somebody you cherished." oh no. "To say goodbye?" "If the person you name it after cherished you, as the superstition goes, you will catch the fish." oh nooooo. "What did you name it?" she asks.
nooooo
"Abigail," Will says softly.
Leave me. Just leave me here under my desk. Go.
Standing in his cell, he looks up--there's jarring music as Beverly strides down the hall; now he's imagining the God's-eye reflection of the human mural. In the visitation room, "you were right," Beverly tells him as he goes through the crime scene photos again. "Killer was in the mural just where you said he'd be. Enough DNA on the bed of his truck for us to be confident he's the Muralist." "You found as much evidence on him as you did on me," points out Will (which is to say, pretty damn circumstantial evidence). Beverly: "I'm glad you said it." They haven't yet figured out who stitched him into his own mural, though: "He may have had a partner" (Will's giving her this look like OH COME ON NOW), "another killer, maybe they had a suicide pact--?" "There was no partner," he insists--"This artist worked alone until he was stitched into his own creation." But there were no signs of a struggle? "No. So, this second killer--whoever he is--understood the Muralist well enough not just to find his canvas, but well enough to convince him to be part of it." Beverly: "You have an idea who that might be?" YEAH HE D-- "Don't say Hannibal Lecter." Will: "I'm saying Hannibal Lecter." "Didn't you stop ringing that bell?" (Thanks, Beverly, I'm gonna have disco stuck in my head all day. No, I mean that--thank you, I needed that.) "I'm not asking you to believe anything you can't prove," Will says, not unreasonably. "I'm just asking you to prove it." Beverly all but shouts, "Hannibal Lecter has no reason--" and Will breaks in, "That is exactly right. He has no discernible reason other than his own amusement and curiosity." Well, that's nice and all, but "that's hard to prove," she says. But Will tells her, "There will be a very clever detail to find on James Gray--he wouldn't be able to resist it. Probably something that was overlooked. Something hidden."
"I'll look for clever details," she says. "But I'm not looking for Hannibal." "Just as long as you're looking," he says. "You look out there. I'll look in here."
Out there: look, it's a lush sunlit meadow! On this show, it's exactly the kind of place where terrible things happen! Indeed, the camera follows a buzzing bee through the grass and wildflowers and underbrush into its hive, and thence through the tunnels of honeycomb and out the empty eyesocket of a decayed grey corpse covered in beeswax, because: This Show.
Meanwhile, over at the Baltimore State Dungeons, Will's in his therapy cage telling Chilton, "I'll give you the same deal that I gave Beverly Katz. I know you know what it is; you've been recording our conversations. Or--are we pretending you didn't?" "What this are you offering in exchange for my that?" " I'm quite the topic of conversation in psychiatric circles," Will reminds him. Chilton laughs: "I shared my diagnosis of you on the witness stand," and it was so gross. "Your personality disorders... neuroses... all forgeries." "Even if that were true," says Will, "I'd still be a psychopath of some interest." "Mm. Quite a manipulative one at that!" says Chilton, circling the cage mockingly, like Will's the creeper here. "Poor confused, wounded bird for Agent Crawford and Doctors Lecter and Bloom. And for me, well, I get the psychopath's triumvirate: charm... focus... and ruthlessness. The charm being debatable, of course."
"So, either I'm a psychopath or I am delusional. Or--I'm right about Hannibal Lecter. Aren't you curious which one it is?"
And Chilton narrows his eyes. Dare he dream? "Will you allow me to test you?" Careful how you answer, Will--you're about to enter a whole new world of blood-pressure cuffs. "Test me? I'll take 'em all," he replies, grinning. "You will be the first and last word on the mind of Will Graham."
@ScottThompson_: When Will says his own name you have to finish your drink. #HANNIBAL #drunk #fannibals
And that's the quid for his quo: "God--you could dine out on that for years." But Chilton is wary: "What about Dr. Lecter?" Who had previously asked Will if he could publish anything " of therapeutic value"--posthumously, of course. Replies Will, "Shouldn't you be my one and only psychiatrist, Dr. Chilton?" "Ideally." "Well then, as to your that--"
(I get that Will's sort of performing the sociopath here, but Chilton is hilariously skittish)
(samanthasgroves.tumblr.com)
"--for my this. Do not discuss me, or my therapy, with Hannibal Lecter." (Chilton's giving him a dark and greedy look.) "Tell him that you've decided I am no longer any of his business. I am now under your exclusive care." Yeah, okay, YOU tell Hannibal Lecter that he can't see his best murder friend anymore. I'll just stand back over here, far far away. Also: man, you know you are walking a rough path when Frederick Dumbass Chilton, Mail Order M.D., is your best option.
@BryanFuller: TONIGHT GINA TORRES RETURNS TO #HANNIBAL #HEARTBREAKING #BELLABELLABELLA [flower crown!]
Over at The Best Office Ever, Bella and Hannibal are looking at Rembrandt's The Raising of Lazarus in one of Hannibal's books. "Lazarus had it good," she says wryly. "My social circle doesn't include a friend with power over death." Yeah, about that... "I suppose I should've embraced Facebook while I had the chance." (Does Hannibal have a Facebook account, I wonder? Is that where he goes grocery shopping these days?) (Given our discussion of the blood red/light blue motif, I'll note here that they're both wearing light blue.) And as Bella runs her fingers through her hair, a strand of it falls out; she manages to laugh. "I never should have let Jack talk me into taking chemo."
"He's trying to extend your life." "Quality of life that's not worth the effort," says Bella. "I'm vomiting my stomach lining. On a good day, I sleep fifteen to eighteen hours. On a bad day, I don't sleep. My best-case scenario is prolonged pain management." "Jack will help you manage. He loves you, Bella," Hannibal reminds her: "When you are gone, he will feel your silence like a draft." I hope he'd feel it a bit more than that, but point emotionally taken. Bella counters, "My silence is inevitable. The war is over." (Gina Torres manages to look haggard without your usual overdone Imminent Death makeup; it's more like an exhaustion of spirit.) "The cancer is an occupying force. I want to surrender. While I still have my dignity." And this is where the discussion of euthanasia/suicide starts up: "You are considering ending your life?" "Suicide seems like a valid solution to my problem," she says.
Honestly, this is a really complicated, sensitive issue, which is why I wanted to preface it with trigger warnings (including a warning for this paragraph, even--skip down to the paragraph above the next picture, if you'd like). I really tend to feel, as someone who is bipolar and has experienced some really, really deep depression, that assisted suicide in the context of terminal illness is a very different thing. It's a situation where "to be or not to be" really isn't the issue; the terminally ill patient is going to die. That's not negotiable. It's not a choice. At that point, it's about choosing how and when, and I feel like people have a right to do that. But with severe depression and/or the distress of other mental illnesses--you can get to a very, very bad place sometimes. A place where "death is a cure" is not something you need to hear; it's a perilous mindset. So between this subplot and last week's " magic door"--I want to give people a heads up about the Bella subplot, because the train of logic in their discussion of euthanasia is not entirely foreign to other kinds of suicidal thoughts.
In conclusion: Hannibal Lecter is not the ideal counselor for this situation.
"How does that make you feel?" he asks (we'll leave off the drinking game this time). A long pause. "Alive," she says, with a smile (he smiles back in a way I don't like. Again). "How does it make you feel?" she asks in turn. "The thought that my life could end at any moment... frees me to fully appreciate the beauty, and art... and horror of everything the world has to offer," he says. I think Hannibal Lecter should write greeting cards. "A death benefit?" she asks, confused, or maybe intrigued. Hannibal replies, "Upon taking his own life, Socrates offered a rooster to the god of healing, Asclepius, to pay his debt." "What debt might that be?" "To Socrates, death was not a defeat... but a cure." There's a look of--pain? confusion? consideration?--on Bella's face; this thought is doing something to her, changing her in some way. And that's the train of logic that made me uneasy.
Meanwhile, Jack's ambling through that meadow towards what's now a crime scene--and, God bless, the Bureau actually has officially-issued beekeeper suits with "FBI" emblazoned on the back. "Gentlemen" (it's just the Investigators Dude today) "local police were supposed to exterminate the bees so we could work the crime scene--apparently someone shut that down."
"Jimmy?" Explain yourself? "Well, I love bees," says Jimmy. "Did you know that the drone is nature's most talented suicidal swordsman? When the drone mates with the queen, his ejaculation is so explosive, it's audible to the human ear."
@MrAaronAbrams: Fun Fact: My subtext for this scene was UGH IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS GUY TALK ABOUT BEE EJACULATE ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR TO GOD.
(drunkbedelia.tumblr.com)
LOOK HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN OUT HERE OKAY. "Ah, from decomp, I'd estimate two weeks," says Brian. Jack: "Do bees naturally hive in human carcasses like this?" "No, the victim was purposely repurposed as a human apiary," says Jimmy. Brian, still examining the body, concurs: "Somebody removed the eyes and part of the brain to make room for the hive."
I'm sure we're going to enjoy finding out more about this.
Back at the forensics lab, from the POV shot of a morgue drawer itself, BEVERLY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? "Zeller's out in the field, otherwise I'd ask him to help me with this. You were a surgeon, right?" she asks HANNIBAL, INVITING HIM TO COME LOOK AT THE DUDE THAT HE TOTALLY KILLED. " I was a surgeon and a doctor, yes. Have you found any evidence on the Muralist's friend?" "That's what I need your help with," says Beverly. "Might not have been a friend. Might not have even been an acquaintance. Whoever killed him understood him."
"So often you open your mouth and I hear Will Graham's words come out," he says, with a "friendly" smile. She admits, "I have an arrangement with Will. He's agreed to consult with me on cases, if I keep investigating the murders he's accused of." BEVERLY WHAT NO DON'T FUCKING TELL HIM THAT! "I'm happy to hear that," he says, which I totally, totally believe. "Will needs a champion now more than ever." Beverly: "He has you, doesn't he?" (*DELIBERATE HEAD TILT*) "You think there's a chance he could be innocent because you did it, I know you do." Well, since we're here half-truthing at each other anyway, Hannibal replies, "I believe there is a possibility." "I'm just relieved he's not saying the killer is you anymore," she says, a little too obviously (Will is definitely, definitely not telling people that you are the fleshly incarnation of Satan). Hannibal: "... At least not to me." (AHHHHHHHH.) "Who does Will believe killed the Muralist?" Oh, Will? That guy who doesn't think you did it? He's certainly got no idea. "He thinks if James Gray's killer hid him in the mural, he may have hid something else," says Beverly.
"A signature." ohhhhh nooooo he's guiding her towards the truth which can't be for good reasons and she's falling for it. And Hannibal actually examines the stitches on the Muralist's shoulder with a magnifying glass--you'll see later that he is actually suggesting what she should look at. "What kind of killer seeks to depict the unconscious, instinctual striving of his victim by sewing him into his own human mural?" he asks rhetorically. "It wasn't just for appearances," says Beverly. "You have to get to the truth beneath the appearances," Hannibal tells her, because obviously he enjoys living dangerously. "Only by going deep beneath the skin will you understand the nature of this killer's pathology."
And Beverly kind of nods to herself like she's picking up what he's putting down, but--Beverly! Think! Why would he put it down for you?! Once again, he's laying out a test for someone. I have really come to believe that, in " Apéritif," he took a moment before letting Jack into The Best Office Ever so that he could lay the Wound Man sketch out to see, scalpel in hand, if Jack would react to it the way Miriam did. But it turned out Jack was there for a totally different, Ripper-unrelated reason and didn't notice it at all. So now, Hannibal's testing Beverly to see if she's smart enough, and suspicious enough, to need... managing.
@cleolindajones: NOT FOR EATING GDI
Back at the dungeons, Will's strapped into an elevated torture chair while a nurse wheels in an IV stand, because obviously this is going to end well. "Before I start asking you questions," smarms Chilton, "I need some confidence that you will be telling the truth when you answer." Also, please sign this consent form: "You're agreeing to a narcoanalytic interview. You. Me. And our old friend, sodium amytal." Will: "A little something to loosen my tongue?" (Why does this whole conversation look really flirty in text form?) Excuse you, that's "something lawfully used in the evaluation of psychotic patients," and I am sure Chilton uses it lawfully as fuck. And then Will has a thought: "What would you use to induce memory loss in a patient, psychotic or otherwise?" "The protein synthesis that moves memories from short-term to long-term can be interrupted, but that requires tools and skills. And a certain level of unorthodoxy--" "Does Hannibal Lecter possess those tools and skills?" asks Will, but I'm pretty sure he already knows the answer. "Dr. Lecter has indicated to me that he is open to the unorthodox when it comes to treating patients. And then he threatened me with grapes," says Chilton. Will, pointedly: "Oh, I wonder how that subject came up... sharing stories of the unorthodox." Chilton being a dumbass, that's how.
(Side note: Will signs his name kind of the way I sign my real name, which is to say, "Big capital letter GAH WHATEVER SWOOSH.")
(Oh my God--idontfindyouthatinteresting points out that he signs his name with an unusual backwards flourish... "like casting a line back into what was done to him, seeing if he can get a bite.")
The drug enters the IV tube, and you know it's strong because the jarring music starts up before we even get to the closeup of his blood cells. Will's pupil contracts, and... the panel lighting above begins to flash on and off? Ah, here's why we got an epilepsy warning at the beginning of the show. And Will looks up into the flashing lights with an almost beatific expression--and finds himself back in episode 10? Here's what the "draw me a clock" scene looked like in " Buffet Froid":
Here's what it looks like now:
Will's slumped down, twitching and damp, and Hannibal's just chillaxing there in his chair across the way, practically whistling to himself while he runs Will's brain through the wringer. Like, no big deal, I'm just gonna park you beside a strobe metronome for an hour while I shoot you up with barbiturates,
BECAUSE I'M SATAN
(OH MY GOD, THAT'S WHERE THE GOOD CLOCK CAME FROM
WILL REALLY DID DRAW A GOOD CLOCK
AND THEN HANNIBAL TOOK IT UPON HIMSELF TO BE A HEINOUS MOTHERFUCKING CLOCK RUINER)
@cleolindajones: OKAY HOLD UP WE SAW THIS SCENE AND THAT'S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED
@beamish_girl: That's not how Will perceived this scene, which suggests all of S1 is now told by an unreliable narrator.
I'M SO PISSED OFF RIGHT NOW
LIKE IN A GOOD WAY?
" Sakizuke": "I've lost the plot. I am the unreliable narrator of my own story."
THIS FUCKING SHOW
@manatee73: BTS #Hannibal fact: syncing multiple strobe lights to multiple cameras is a technical nightmare.
Hannibal, helpfully explaining his murder therapy in Will's echoing memories: "The strobe causes neurons to fire en masse, like striking many piano keys at once..."
@aMoTPodcast: Score here has a real Trent Reznor, cats left alone in a room full of industrial xylophones vibe. I dig it.
@beamish_girl: Dire calliope?
@DireRavenstag: Do you enjoy the song of my people? *goes back to maiming accordions*
"The dissonance might foster a change in your mind," and then Hannibal's FACE STARTS REARRANGING ITSELF and Will goes into a seizure, which is really only to be expected once you're faced with THIS. "Is something wrong?" asks Picasso Hannibal in a deep nightmare voice. YES, EVERYTHING.
Back in reality, an uneasy Chilton realizes that a treatment of his has actually worked, which means he has no idea what to do next: "Will...?"
"He was inducing seizures," Will manages to whisper. "He was encouraging them--the blackouts--the lost time--it was strategic, it was planned." "You would only see a seizure response in a brain afflicted with photosensitive epilepsy," says Chilton says--dismissively, but with surprisingly little smarm. "Or afflicted by something just as damaging," says Will, patiently coaxing Chilton towards the obvious. "Like encephalitis?"
@cleolindajones: #dumbass RT @aMoTPodcast: "Like encephalitis" WELCOME TO HALF A SEASON AGO, CHILTON
"That would suggest a radically unorthodox form of therapy," Chilton says, in a very, very low voice.
"YES IT WOULD," says Will.
Oh, look, here's Hannibal to visit his favorite patient. "Dr. Lecter, I am so embarrassed," says Chilton, meeting him down an endless set of staircases through an endless set of gates. Like, seriously, I think I just saw Jareth walk past on the ceiling. "You didn't get my message? I canceled your appointment with Will Graham." And he can totally, totally explain, he says, leading Hannibal away from Will's dungeon block (Hannibal casts a longing look towards the guard room leading to it) (no, he does), and up further into the building. "Will is at a delicate point in this therapy. I--don't want to confuse him more than he already is." "Confuse him? Isn't it your opinion he's an intelligent psychopath?" "It was--but my opinion is evolving. After administering a narcoanalytic interview--therapeutically vital information has come to light." Son, Fancy Cannibal will rip that automated gate off its hinges and beat you down with it to get to Will. I don't think you realize the game you're playing here. Dumbass. "What Will Graham suffers from," Chilton continues, "may not be a single condition, but a continuum of illnesses, all with different neurological mechanisms--some naturally occurring, others appear" (*DRAMATIC SIDE-EYE*) "TO HAVE BEEN INDUCED." So you're just gonna flat-out play the I Know What You Did Last Season card? I don't know what you think you're doing, Chilton, but you are way not smart enough to enter this game.
"Induced? Induced by whom?" asks Hannibal, just the picture of innocent concern. Chilton: "Did you ever use any kind of light stimulation in your treatment?" "Light stimulation is a standard tool for neurotherapy," Hannibal says, completely "perplexed" as to why this would be "bad" and he should "feel bad." Well, "evidently, it was overloading his visual cortex. Creating seizures, time loss, gaps in his memory... almost strategically, it seems." (How does Chilton manage to sound like he's whispering dirty secrets?) "You're suggesting it was intentional?" Hannibal asks blandly. "All our conversations about psychic driving," says Chilton ( how many where there?), "you were so curious and eager to hear what I had to say while saying very little yourself." "I had very little to say," because we were talking about what a fuckup you were at the time, Chilton. Who replies: "I have been thinking about the possibility that you may have been psychic driving Will Graham all along." And Hannibal gives him just the best--subtle, but best--look of Oh, so we're doing this now: "A bold accusation, Frederick."
AND THEN CHILTON SAYS, " You are not the only psychiatrist accused of making a patient kill... we have to stick together."
One of these days, Frederick, he is gonna eat you, and I am gonna laaaaaugh.
@manatee73: @RaulEEsparza is so good at being a massive tool. But a total gent on set.
@BryanFuller: GENTLEMEN CONSPIRATORS [set pic]
@MrAaronAbrams: True Detective Season 2.
@DennisPerkins5: Gina Torres and Gillian Anderson for #TrueDetectiveSeason2. There--I've locked it. That is the only thing that should happen.
I'd watch it.
(I'm guessing this is also the set they danced around between takes.)
Meanwhile, at the Crawfords', Bella is grinding up marijuana and packing it into a-- what is that, a vaporizer?
@HettiennePark: Yassss #burndown #HANNIBAL #Crawfords #KatzandMouse
"Last time I did this, this isn't how I did this," she tells Jack. "The young man at the dispensary calls this 'purple kush.' He says that all his cancer patients love its deep body stone." Oh my God, Gina Torres is the best. Also, Jack would appreciate her passing the vaporizer on the lefthand side. "Do you still get drug tested?" she asks. "OH COME ON, GIMME THAT THING. I'm supporting my wife" (this over a mouthful of smoke). "I filled out my advance directive today. I added a DNR," she tells him, patting his shoulder like she didn't just totally bring the room down. "Ohhhh, you are harshing my buzz right now," sighs Jack, adding, "I read an article the other day about magnetic hyperthermia. It's looking promising as a treatment for lung cancer," as they get in bed, and Bella just looks soul-tired. "I know what to expect from lung cancer," she says quietly. "I am my mother's daughter, and I watched her go through exactly what I am going through now. I remember sitting by her bed when she woke up in so much pain that all she could do was scream my name. I didn't know how to help her. So I did nothing."
@ScottNimerfro: Bella's story about her mother is loosely based on my own experience with my father's death. Life and art intertwined.
"There was nothing you could do." "And there will be a time when there is nothing you can do. And I don't want you to remember me pleading with you to make the pain go away." "Oh, I'm not going to remember you that way," says Jack. "First of all, I'm going to remember you walking along the quays of Italy in the sunshine with a trail of signori behind you shouting bella, bella, bella. And I'm going to remember that your hands... that they smelled of thyme when you came in from the garden. And garlic and onions every time you left the kitchen," and she laughs as he holds her hands to his nose. More seriously: "I'm going to remember you as beautiful as you are right now."
"Well, good," she says, struggling to sound cheerful. "Good." And then she curls up against his shoulder and this is gonna be so, so rough.
At the lab, the victim turns out to be one "Duncan Halloran, fifty-two, divorced, bankrupt. Reported missing six months ago," says Brian. Unlike most of the cadavers at the BAU, this one's still clothed and, indeed, frozen in position, because they're still pulling honeycomb off him. "Considering any post-mortem morphological changes, this guy's white blood cell count was through the roof when he died." "You're telling me his killer was a fever and/or a massive infection?" demands Jack. Brian: "Lock 'em both up." (Heh.) "No family. No money. No reason to live," Jack presses-- "Alive, dead, or dying, who put him under the tree?" "It's possible we're dealing with a highly motivated religious individual here," says Jimmy, always the team's font of socio-historical trivia. "In Hinduism, honey is one of the five elixirs of immortality. In Christianity, the bee is considered to be an emblem of Christ--his mildness and mercy on one side, his Old Testament justice on the other."
My first thought, when we originally heard that there'd be a bee-themed episode, was the mellified man (partly thanks to the SCP Foundation). Except this isn't "a human cadaver steeped in honey"--it's the other way around, honey inside a cadaver. (Which in turn makes me think of a different quote from the Hannibal book.) But there's an interesting element of free will involved with mellification: "[it] differed from a simple body donation because of the aspect of self-sacrifice; the mellification process would ideally start before death. The donor would stop eating any food other than honey, going as far as to bathe in the substance.... When this diet finally proved fatal, the donor's body would be placed in a stone coffin filled with honey. After a century or so, the contents would have turned into a sort of confection reputedly capable of healing broken limbs and other ailments." So someone would be sacrificing themselves to heal others--whereas (you'll see) the Honey Is People process involves having their own "healing" forced on them. I suspect this storyline didn't come from the mellified man idea-- that it was inspired by something else--but it's interesting that honey has all these historical connotations of healing, mercy, and sacrifice, all of them subverted in this episode.
Because yeah... it ain't merciful: "The orbital bone, his sphenoid behind where the eyeballs would usually be, there's tiny punctures," Brian points out as Jack pulls over a lamp. "Something long and sharp was pushed in his brain. Jack, this guy was lobotomized."
@MrAaronAbrams: To catch this honeybee killer may I suggest a sting operation omg what is happening to me I didn't used to be like this I swear.
Speaking of which LET'S NOT SPEAK OF WHICH NO I DON'T LIKE THIS Amanda Plummer is acupuncturing a cranky old man who is not feeling well today, or perhaps ever: "My arthritis is killin' me. I can't take much more of it." "A course of bee venom therapy would soothe the inflammation," she tells him sweetly (I'm sorry), and it is perhaps worth noting that her therapy room has a big lovely window filled with shelves of potted plants and JARS OF HONEY. "I can barely afford this treatment," he grumps. Ah, but "that's a problem for another day," because you are about to have much, much bigger problems right now. "Now, you just quiet your mind. Just live in the present." And she starts putting acupuncture needles in his forehead, which seems harmless enough: "You feel that?" No." "Good. You feel that?" "No." "Good." Now, one somewhat below his ear: "Feel that?" "I can't... feel anything." "Good. Then you won't feel this..."
@cleolindajones: AHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO
@cleolindajones: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE #Hannibal #EYESQUICK #NOTLOOKING #WHY
@DireRavenstag: One opens the door to the mind any way one must.
Show? You broke me. I've made myself watch every single bit of this series, even if I had to do it through my fingers or work myself up to it on a rewatch, because that's the bullet you take when you recap. Even when it was eye-gouging in "Entrée," my personal particular squick. Even when it was Roland Umber ripping himself out of the mural. Even when it was Dr. Pez Head. Even when it was Meat Wings (MEAT WINGS!!). But I can't watch this. You broke me. I can't do it. So all I know about this scene is what I saw on Twitter about it:
@MrNickCharles: But you could still hear the TAPPING!
@DeLaurentiisCo: 3 taps and a twist.
@E_VanEvery: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
@aMoTPodcast: ....adding that to the list of "Horrors #Hannibal is responsible for me enduring on network television"
@aMoTPodcast: It... it's not a short, list, you guys
@BryanFuller: LOCATION BOARD FOR KITTY PIMM'S "HEALING" CENTER [floor plans]
@BryanFuller: AMANDA PLUMMER HAS A POINT TO MAKE WITH YOU [set pic of acupuncture couch]
@BryanFuller: ACCUPUNCTURIST'S TOOL TRAY [set pic]
@BryanFuller: BANG BANG KITTY'S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWN UPON HIS HEAD [NO]
@MrAaronAbrams: Amanda Plummer is amazing in this creepy re-imagining of her role as "Honey Bunny". #Hannibal #PulpFiction
@mstherestofme: Any of you fucking pricks move and I'll lobotomize every last one of ya!
Sometime later, a young girl runs up to a man just standing there in a park, staring into the distance (you know where this is going): "Hey, mister! You're not supposed to stare at the sun. It'll hurt your eyes." But of course it's Kitty's patient, milling around mindlessly (literally), and when he turns around, there's just black emptiness behind his open eyelids, and everything is, in fact, terrible.
@ScottNimerfro: The scene in the park was the initial inspiration for the episode. #heymister!
Later, Brian's examining him at the OH MY SWEET LORD JESUS I MISSED THE EXTREME SPELUNKING CLOSEUP OF THE EYE SOCKETS THE FIRST TIME AROUND, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU with a flashlight: "Multiple holes on this guy. Over a dozen. Both eye sockets--the lesions have severed most of the nerve tract to the frontal lobe." The guy's still alive, by the way. Yeah. Just sitting on the lab table in a hospital gown. Aaron Abrams referred to this as "the living autopsy," if that tells you anything. "He's covered in bee stings like he got swarmed," Jimmy observes. "Must be floating in apitoxin--he doesn't feel a thing." "Yeah, the not feeling anything has got nothing to do with bee stings," says Brian. "Welcome to the world of the living dead." But! "There's a pattern," Jimmy says, surprised, looking up with Beverly walks in: "Hey! Look what the Katz dragged in."
@aMoTPodcast: "Look what the Katz dragged in" Ian! It's you, but, like, in the show!
"What are you looking at?" she asks. "A pattern," the Investigators Dude answer together (bless). "See, some of the bee stings triggered an allergic reaction, others didn't," Jimmy explains--and then Brian realizes: "The inflamed bee stings were all in line with the body's meridian, on acupuncture points. The bee stings are hiding the needle marks."
Beverly, startled: "What did you say?"
"Uh... the bee stings are hiding the needle marks...?"
Beverly stares at Brian for a moment. And then she goes back to the morgue to look at the Muralist's body again, and that's when she figures it out: "Stitches are hiding stitches." Hannibal's voice in her head: Only by going deep beneath the skin will you understand the nature of this killer's pathology. She snips open the stitches and feels around inside the body: "He took his kidney," she says aloud.
@aMoTPodcast: "He took his kidney" Don't judge, Bev, he needed *something* for the quiche.
@DeLaurentiisCo: Wait, did she say kidney? Remember that.
Don't worry. You won't be able to forget.
CONTINUE: PART TWO.
PREVIOUSLY ON: EMPATH AND CANNIBAL: Everyone was super confused to realize that Hannibal was not the one who killed a bailiff for love of Will, although he was perplexed to discover that Will does not understand that gifts of body parts signal affection; he (and the wendigo) then swore to their everlasting friendship on a Bible before the court, while Will stared at him like well that's a thing that's happening; then Hannibal's testimony was struck from the record and the judge turned up poetically dead. We're pretty sure he did that. Mostly.
Also, I was on the corresponding A Matter of Taste podcast to discuss this episode. Includes an unusual number of strange noises from me, plus my usual alternating wheeze/cackle laugh. Hang in there for "Did I ever tell you about the most traumatizing fanfic concept I ever heard?" Because I'm a terrible grief counselor. }:D
@lethallyfab: I discovered a cocktail called the Bee's Knees and it is AMAZING & I highly encourage it as recap fuel.
@lethallyfab: Mr Boston's says: gin, fresh lemon & honey syrup. @CityTavernDTLA does a yum variation w/lavender-infused honey.
Make it. You'll need it. Whole bunch of warnings tonight: bees, massive eye squick, and a pretty intense attempted/assisted suicide subplot; NBC even warned for strobing lights right before the show started.
@HettiennePark: Is #HANNIBAL in the mood for Korean tonight? #FeedYourFear #EattheRude #WhoisHungryforHANNIBAL #SayNo2BeverlyBulgogi
Ma'am!
To begin: Will's in his Fishing Palace, explaining how to tie a lure: "Wrap the leader around the tippet. Four... five... six times. Tuck the end between the lines..." And then we see that he's showing this to... Abigail.
@BryanFuller: TONIGHT @KaceyKadoodles RETURNS TO #HANNIBAL [flower crown!]
@DireRavenstag: The fleshmeat called Abigail is keeping my Will company. In OUR river. I'm not sure how I feel about it. *stomps and huffs*
"Tighten, and... trim. It's called a blood knot." (But why? The answer I found: "A wise old man told me that the name came from pushing your knife through the string into your finger. Everybody has done it.") "Your father taught you how to hunt; I'm going to teach you how to fish." "Same thing, isn't it? One you stalk, the other you lure?" says Memory Abigail, echoing the last conversation they ever had (*sob*). "One you catch, the other you shoot," he finishes. "What are you trying to catch?" she asks. "The one who caught you," he says, surprisingly casual. Abigail, with a friendly sigh: "The one that got away." "Catch a fish once and it gets away, it's a lot harder to catch again," he says, and pats her hand as he gives her the fishing rod and they both laugh a little and it's killing me inside. "Everybody thinks you're lying about the one that got away," she says, more wistfully now. "That's why I have to catch him," he says, and they smile at each other. "Last thing before casting a line: name the bait on your hook after somebody you cherished." oh no. "To say goodbye?" "If the person you name it after cherished you, as the superstition goes, you will catch the fish." oh nooooo. "What did you name it?" she asks.
nooooo
"Abigail," Will says softly.
Leave me. Just leave me here under my desk. Go.
Standing in his cell, he looks up--there's jarring music as Beverly strides down the hall; now he's imagining the God's-eye reflection of the human mural. In the visitation room, "you were right," Beverly tells him as he goes through the crime scene photos again. "Killer was in the mural just where you said he'd be. Enough DNA on the bed of his truck for us to be confident he's the Muralist." "You found as much evidence on him as you did on me," points out Will (which is to say, pretty damn circumstantial evidence). Beverly: "I'm glad you said it." They haven't yet figured out who stitched him into his own mural, though: "He may have had a partner" (Will's giving her this look like OH COME ON NOW), "another killer, maybe they had a suicide pact--?" "There was no partner," he insists--"This artist worked alone until he was stitched into his own creation." But there were no signs of a struggle? "No. So, this second killer--whoever he is--understood the Muralist well enough not just to find his canvas, but well enough to convince him to be part of it." Beverly: "You have an idea who that might be?" YEAH HE D-- "Don't say Hannibal Lecter." Will: "I'm saying Hannibal Lecter." "Didn't you stop ringing that bell?" (Thanks, Beverly, I'm gonna have disco stuck in my head all day. No, I mean that--thank you, I needed that.) "I'm not asking you to believe anything you can't prove," Will says, not unreasonably. "I'm just asking you to prove it." Beverly all but shouts, "Hannibal Lecter has no reason--" and Will breaks in, "That is exactly right. He has no discernible reason other than his own amusement and curiosity." Well, that's nice and all, but "that's hard to prove," she says. But Will tells her, "There will be a very clever detail to find on James Gray--he wouldn't be able to resist it. Probably something that was overlooked. Something hidden."
"I'll look for clever details," she says. "But I'm not looking for Hannibal." "Just as long as you're looking," he says. "You look out there. I'll look in here."
Out there: look, it's a lush sunlit meadow! On this show, it's exactly the kind of place where terrible things happen! Indeed, the camera follows a buzzing bee through the grass and wildflowers and underbrush into its hive, and thence through the tunnels of honeycomb and out the empty eyesocket of a decayed grey corpse covered in beeswax, because: This Show.
Meanwhile, over at the Baltimore State Dungeons, Will's in his therapy cage telling Chilton, "I'll give you the same deal that I gave Beverly Katz. I know you know what it is; you've been recording our conversations. Or--are we pretending you didn't?" "What this are you offering in exchange for my that?" " I'm quite the topic of conversation in psychiatric circles," Will reminds him. Chilton laughs: "I shared my diagnosis of you on the witness stand," and it was so gross. "Your personality disorders... neuroses... all forgeries." "Even if that were true," says Will, "I'd still be a psychopath of some interest." "Mm. Quite a manipulative one at that!" says Chilton, circling the cage mockingly, like Will's the creeper here. "Poor confused, wounded bird for Agent Crawford and Doctors Lecter and Bloom. And for me, well, I get the psychopath's triumvirate: charm... focus... and ruthlessness. The charm being debatable, of course."
"So, either I'm a psychopath or I am delusional. Or--I'm right about Hannibal Lecter. Aren't you curious which one it is?"
And Chilton narrows his eyes. Dare he dream? "Will you allow me to test you?" Careful how you answer, Will--you're about to enter a whole new world of blood-pressure cuffs. "Test me? I'll take 'em all," he replies, grinning. "You will be the first and last word on the mind of Will Graham."
@ScottThompson_: When Will says his own name you have to finish your drink. #HANNIBAL #drunk #fannibals
And that's the quid for his quo: "God--you could dine out on that for years." But Chilton is wary: "What about Dr. Lecter?" Who had previously asked Will if he could publish anything " of therapeutic value"--posthumously, of course. Replies Will, "Shouldn't you be my one and only psychiatrist, Dr. Chilton?" "Ideally." "Well then, as to your that--"
(I get that Will's sort of performing the sociopath here, but Chilton is hilariously skittish)
(samanthasgroves.tumblr.com)
"--for my this. Do not discuss me, or my therapy, with Hannibal Lecter." (Chilton's giving him a dark and greedy look.) "Tell him that you've decided I am no longer any of his business. I am now under your exclusive care." Yeah, okay, YOU tell Hannibal Lecter that he can't see his best murder friend anymore. I'll just stand back over here, far far away. Also: man, you know you are walking a rough path when Frederick Dumbass Chilton, Mail Order M.D., is your best option.
@BryanFuller: TONIGHT GINA TORRES RETURNS TO #HANNIBAL #HEARTBREAKING #BELLABELLABELLA [flower crown!]
Over at The Best Office Ever, Bella and Hannibal are looking at Rembrandt's The Raising of Lazarus in one of Hannibal's books. "Lazarus had it good," she says wryly. "My social circle doesn't include a friend with power over death." Yeah, about that... "I suppose I should've embraced Facebook while I had the chance." (Does Hannibal have a Facebook account, I wonder? Is that where he goes grocery shopping these days?) (Given our discussion of the blood red/light blue motif, I'll note here that they're both wearing light blue.) And as Bella runs her fingers through her hair, a strand of it falls out; she manages to laugh. "I never should have let Jack talk me into taking chemo."
"He's trying to extend your life." "Quality of life that's not worth the effort," says Bella. "I'm vomiting my stomach lining. On a good day, I sleep fifteen to eighteen hours. On a bad day, I don't sleep. My best-case scenario is prolonged pain management." "Jack will help you manage. He loves you, Bella," Hannibal reminds her: "When you are gone, he will feel your silence like a draft." I hope he'd feel it a bit more than that, but point emotionally taken. Bella counters, "My silence is inevitable. The war is over." (Gina Torres manages to look haggard without your usual overdone Imminent Death makeup; it's more like an exhaustion of spirit.) "The cancer is an occupying force. I want to surrender. While I still have my dignity." And this is where the discussion of euthanasia/suicide starts up: "You are considering ending your life?" "Suicide seems like a valid solution to my problem," she says.
Honestly, this is a really complicated, sensitive issue, which is why I wanted to preface it with trigger warnings (including a warning for this paragraph, even--skip down to the paragraph above the next picture, if you'd like). I really tend to feel, as someone who is bipolar and has experienced some really, really deep depression, that assisted suicide in the context of terminal illness is a very different thing. It's a situation where "to be or not to be" really isn't the issue; the terminally ill patient is going to die. That's not negotiable. It's not a choice. At that point, it's about choosing how and when, and I feel like people have a right to do that. But with severe depression and/or the distress of other mental illnesses--you can get to a very, very bad place sometimes. A place where "death is a cure" is not something you need to hear; it's a perilous mindset. So between this subplot and last week's " magic door"--I want to give people a heads up about the Bella subplot, because the train of logic in their discussion of euthanasia is not entirely foreign to other kinds of suicidal thoughts.
In conclusion: Hannibal Lecter is not the ideal counselor for this situation.
"How does that make you feel?" he asks (we'll leave off the drinking game this time). A long pause. "Alive," she says, with a smile (he smiles back in a way I don't like. Again). "How does it make you feel?" she asks in turn. "The thought that my life could end at any moment... frees me to fully appreciate the beauty, and art... and horror of everything the world has to offer," he says. I think Hannibal Lecter should write greeting cards. "A death benefit?" she asks, confused, or maybe intrigued. Hannibal replies, "Upon taking his own life, Socrates offered a rooster to the god of healing, Asclepius, to pay his debt." "What debt might that be?" "To Socrates, death was not a defeat... but a cure." There's a look of--pain? confusion? consideration?--on Bella's face; this thought is doing something to her, changing her in some way. And that's the train of logic that made me uneasy.
Meanwhile, Jack's ambling through that meadow towards what's now a crime scene--and, God bless, the Bureau actually has officially-issued beekeeper suits with "FBI" emblazoned on the back. "Gentlemen" (it's just the Investigators Dude today) "local police were supposed to exterminate the bees so we could work the crime scene--apparently someone shut that down."
"Jimmy?" Explain yourself? "Well, I love bees," says Jimmy. "Did you know that the drone is nature's most talented suicidal swordsman? When the drone mates with the queen, his ejaculation is so explosive, it's audible to the human ear."
@MrAaronAbrams: Fun Fact: My subtext for this scene was UGH IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS GUY TALK ABOUT BEE EJACULATE ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR TO GOD.
(drunkbedelia.tumblr.com)
LOOK HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN OUT HERE OKAY. "Ah, from decomp, I'd estimate two weeks," says Brian. Jack: "Do bees naturally hive in human carcasses like this?" "No, the victim was purposely repurposed as a human apiary," says Jimmy. Brian, still examining the body, concurs: "Somebody removed the eyes and part of the brain to make room for the hive."
I'm sure we're going to enjoy finding out more about this.
Back at the forensics lab, from the POV shot of a morgue drawer itself, BEVERLY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? "Zeller's out in the field, otherwise I'd ask him to help me with this. You were a surgeon, right?" she asks HANNIBAL, INVITING HIM TO COME LOOK AT THE DUDE THAT HE TOTALLY KILLED. " I was a surgeon and a doctor, yes. Have you found any evidence on the Muralist's friend?" "That's what I need your help with," says Beverly. "Might not have been a friend. Might not have even been an acquaintance. Whoever killed him understood him."
"So often you open your mouth and I hear Will Graham's words come out," he says, with a "friendly" smile. She admits, "I have an arrangement with Will. He's agreed to consult with me on cases, if I keep investigating the murders he's accused of." BEVERLY WHAT NO DON'T FUCKING TELL HIM THAT! "I'm happy to hear that," he says, which I totally, totally believe. "Will needs a champion now more than ever." Beverly: "He has you, doesn't he?" (*DELIBERATE HEAD TILT*) "You think there's a chance he could be innocent because you did it, I know you do." Well, since we're here half-truthing at each other anyway, Hannibal replies, "I believe there is a possibility." "I'm just relieved he's not saying the killer is you anymore," she says, a little too obviously (Will is definitely, definitely not telling people that you are the fleshly incarnation of Satan). Hannibal: "... At least not to me." (AHHHHHHHH.) "Who does Will believe killed the Muralist?" Oh, Will? That guy who doesn't think you did it? He's certainly got no idea. "He thinks if James Gray's killer hid him in the mural, he may have hid something else," says Beverly.
"A signature." ohhhhh nooooo he's guiding her towards the truth which can't be for good reasons and she's falling for it. And Hannibal actually examines the stitches on the Muralist's shoulder with a magnifying glass--you'll see later that he is actually suggesting what she should look at. "What kind of killer seeks to depict the unconscious, instinctual striving of his victim by sewing him into his own human mural?" he asks rhetorically. "It wasn't just for appearances," says Beverly. "You have to get to the truth beneath the appearances," Hannibal tells her, because obviously he enjoys living dangerously. "Only by going deep beneath the skin will you understand the nature of this killer's pathology."
And Beverly kind of nods to herself like she's picking up what he's putting down, but--Beverly! Think! Why would he put it down for you?! Once again, he's laying out a test for someone. I have really come to believe that, in " Apéritif," he took a moment before letting Jack into The Best Office Ever so that he could lay the Wound Man sketch out to see, scalpel in hand, if Jack would react to it the way Miriam did. But it turned out Jack was there for a totally different, Ripper-unrelated reason and didn't notice it at all. So now, Hannibal's testing Beverly to see if she's smart enough, and suspicious enough, to need... managing.
@cleolindajones: NOT FOR EATING GDI
Back at the dungeons, Will's strapped into an elevated torture chair while a nurse wheels in an IV stand, because obviously this is going to end well. "Before I start asking you questions," smarms Chilton, "I need some confidence that you will be telling the truth when you answer." Also, please sign this consent form: "You're agreeing to a narcoanalytic interview. You. Me. And our old friend, sodium amytal." Will: "A little something to loosen my tongue?" (Why does this whole conversation look really flirty in text form?) Excuse you, that's "something lawfully used in the evaluation of psychotic patients," and I am sure Chilton uses it lawfully as fuck. And then Will has a thought: "What would you use to induce memory loss in a patient, psychotic or otherwise?" "The protein synthesis that moves memories from short-term to long-term can be interrupted, but that requires tools and skills. And a certain level of unorthodoxy--" "Does Hannibal Lecter possess those tools and skills?" asks Will, but I'm pretty sure he already knows the answer. "Dr. Lecter has indicated to me that he is open to the unorthodox when it comes to treating patients. And then he threatened me with grapes," says Chilton. Will, pointedly: "Oh, I wonder how that subject came up... sharing stories of the unorthodox." Chilton being a dumbass, that's how.
(Side note: Will signs his name kind of the way I sign my real name, which is to say, "Big capital letter GAH WHATEVER SWOOSH.")
(Oh my God--idontfindyouthatinteresting points out that he signs his name with an unusual backwards flourish... "like casting a line back into what was done to him, seeing if he can get a bite.")
The drug enters the IV tube, and you know it's strong because the jarring music starts up before we even get to the closeup of his blood cells. Will's pupil contracts, and... the panel lighting above begins to flash on and off? Ah, here's why we got an epilepsy warning at the beginning of the show. And Will looks up into the flashing lights with an almost beatific expression--and finds himself back in episode 10? Here's what the "draw me a clock" scene looked like in " Buffet Froid":
Here's what it looks like now:
Will's slumped down, twitching and damp, and Hannibal's just chillaxing there in his chair across the way, practically whistling to himself while he runs Will's brain through the wringer. Like, no big deal, I'm just gonna park you beside a strobe metronome for an hour while I shoot you up with barbiturates,
BECAUSE I'M SATAN
(OH MY GOD, THAT'S WHERE THE GOOD CLOCK CAME FROM
WILL REALLY DID DRAW A GOOD CLOCK
AND THEN HANNIBAL TOOK IT UPON HIMSELF TO BE A HEINOUS MOTHERFUCKING CLOCK RUINER)
@cleolindajones: OKAY HOLD UP WE SAW THIS SCENE AND THAT'S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED
@beamish_girl: That's not how Will perceived this scene, which suggests all of S1 is now told by an unreliable narrator.
I'M SO PISSED OFF RIGHT NOW
LIKE IN A GOOD WAY?
" Sakizuke": "I've lost the plot. I am the unreliable narrator of my own story."
THIS FUCKING SHOW
@manatee73: BTS #Hannibal fact: syncing multiple strobe lights to multiple cameras is a technical nightmare.
Hannibal, helpfully explaining his murder therapy in Will's echoing memories: "The strobe causes neurons to fire en masse, like striking many piano keys at once..."
@aMoTPodcast: Score here has a real Trent Reznor, cats left alone in a room full of industrial xylophones vibe. I dig it.
@beamish_girl: Dire calliope?
@DireRavenstag: Do you enjoy the song of my people? *goes back to maiming accordions*
"The dissonance might foster a change in your mind," and then Hannibal's FACE STARTS REARRANGING ITSELF and Will goes into a seizure, which is really only to be expected once you're faced with THIS. "Is something wrong?" asks Picasso Hannibal in a deep nightmare voice. YES, EVERYTHING.
Back in reality, an uneasy Chilton realizes that a treatment of his has actually worked, which means he has no idea what to do next: "Will...?"
"He was inducing seizures," Will manages to whisper. "He was encouraging them--the blackouts--the lost time--it was strategic, it was planned." "You would only see a seizure response in a brain afflicted with photosensitive epilepsy," says Chilton says--dismissively, but with surprisingly little smarm. "Or afflicted by something just as damaging," says Will, patiently coaxing Chilton towards the obvious. "Like encephalitis?"
@cleolindajones: #dumbass RT @aMoTPodcast: "Like encephalitis" WELCOME TO HALF A SEASON AGO, CHILTON
"That would suggest a radically unorthodox form of therapy," Chilton says, in a very, very low voice.
"YES IT WOULD," says Will.
Oh, look, here's Hannibal to visit his favorite patient. "Dr. Lecter, I am so embarrassed," says Chilton, meeting him down an endless set of staircases through an endless set of gates. Like, seriously, I think I just saw Jareth walk past on the ceiling. "You didn't get my message? I canceled your appointment with Will Graham." And he can totally, totally explain, he says, leading Hannibal away from Will's dungeon block (Hannibal casts a longing look towards the guard room leading to it) (no, he does), and up further into the building. "Will is at a delicate point in this therapy. I--don't want to confuse him more than he already is." "Confuse him? Isn't it your opinion he's an intelligent psychopath?" "It was--but my opinion is evolving. After administering a narcoanalytic interview--therapeutically vital information has come to light." Son, Fancy Cannibal will rip that automated gate off its hinges and beat you down with it to get to Will. I don't think you realize the game you're playing here. Dumbass. "What Will Graham suffers from," Chilton continues, "may not be a single condition, but a continuum of illnesses, all with different neurological mechanisms--some naturally occurring, others appear" (*DRAMATIC SIDE-EYE*) "TO HAVE BEEN INDUCED." So you're just gonna flat-out play the I Know What You Did Last Season card? I don't know what you think you're doing, Chilton, but you are way not smart enough to enter this game.
"Induced? Induced by whom?" asks Hannibal, just the picture of innocent concern. Chilton: "Did you ever use any kind of light stimulation in your treatment?" "Light stimulation is a standard tool for neurotherapy," Hannibal says, completely "perplexed" as to why this would be "bad" and he should "feel bad." Well, "evidently, it was overloading his visual cortex. Creating seizures, time loss, gaps in his memory... almost strategically, it seems." (How does Chilton manage to sound like he's whispering dirty secrets?) "You're suggesting it was intentional?" Hannibal asks blandly. "All our conversations about psychic driving," says Chilton ( how many where there?), "you were so curious and eager to hear what I had to say while saying very little yourself." "I had very little to say," because we were talking about what a fuckup you were at the time, Chilton. Who replies: "I have been thinking about the possibility that you may have been psychic driving Will Graham all along." And Hannibal gives him just the best--subtle, but best--look of Oh, so we're doing this now: "A bold accusation, Frederick."
AND THEN CHILTON SAYS, " You are not the only psychiatrist accused of making a patient kill... we have to stick together."
One of these days, Frederick, he is gonna eat you, and I am gonna laaaaaugh.
@manatee73: @RaulEEsparza is so good at being a massive tool. But a total gent on set.
@BryanFuller: GENTLEMEN CONSPIRATORS [set pic]
@MrAaronAbrams: True Detective Season 2.
@DennisPerkins5: Gina Torres and Gillian Anderson for #TrueDetectiveSeason2. There--I've locked it. That is the only thing that should happen.
I'd watch it.
(I'm guessing this is also the set they danced around between takes.)
Meanwhile, at the Crawfords', Bella is grinding up marijuana and packing it into a-- what is that, a vaporizer?
@HettiennePark: Yassss #burndown #HANNIBAL #Crawfords #KatzandMouse
"Last time I did this, this isn't how I did this," she tells Jack. "The young man at the dispensary calls this 'purple kush.' He says that all his cancer patients love its deep body stone." Oh my God, Gina Torres is the best. Also, Jack would appreciate her passing the vaporizer on the lefthand side. "Do you still get drug tested?" she asks. "OH COME ON, GIMME THAT THING. I'm supporting my wife" (this over a mouthful of smoke). "I filled out my advance directive today. I added a DNR," she tells him, patting his shoulder like she didn't just totally bring the room down. "Ohhhh, you are harshing my buzz right now," sighs Jack, adding, "I read an article the other day about magnetic hyperthermia. It's looking promising as a treatment for lung cancer," as they get in bed, and Bella just looks soul-tired. "I know what to expect from lung cancer," she says quietly. "I am my mother's daughter, and I watched her go through exactly what I am going through now. I remember sitting by her bed when she woke up in so much pain that all she could do was scream my name. I didn't know how to help her. So I did nothing."
@ScottNimerfro: Bella's story about her mother is loosely based on my own experience with my father's death. Life and art intertwined.
"There was nothing you could do." "And there will be a time when there is nothing you can do. And I don't want you to remember me pleading with you to make the pain go away." "Oh, I'm not going to remember you that way," says Jack. "First of all, I'm going to remember you walking along the quays of Italy in the sunshine with a trail of signori behind you shouting bella, bella, bella. And I'm going to remember that your hands... that they smelled of thyme when you came in from the garden. And garlic and onions every time you left the kitchen," and she laughs as he holds her hands to his nose. More seriously: "I'm going to remember you as beautiful as you are right now."
"Well, good," she says, struggling to sound cheerful. "Good." And then she curls up against his shoulder and this is gonna be so, so rough.
At the lab, the victim turns out to be one "Duncan Halloran, fifty-two, divorced, bankrupt. Reported missing six months ago," says Brian. Unlike most of the cadavers at the BAU, this one's still clothed and, indeed, frozen in position, because they're still pulling honeycomb off him. "Considering any post-mortem morphological changes, this guy's white blood cell count was through the roof when he died." "You're telling me his killer was a fever and/or a massive infection?" demands Jack. Brian: "Lock 'em both up." (Heh.) "No family. No money. No reason to live," Jack presses-- "Alive, dead, or dying, who put him under the tree?" "It's possible we're dealing with a highly motivated religious individual here," says Jimmy, always the team's font of socio-historical trivia. "In Hinduism, honey is one of the five elixirs of immortality. In Christianity, the bee is considered to be an emblem of Christ--his mildness and mercy on one side, his Old Testament justice on the other."
My first thought, when we originally heard that there'd be a bee-themed episode, was the mellified man (partly thanks to the SCP Foundation). Except this isn't "a human cadaver steeped in honey"--it's the other way around, honey inside a cadaver. (Which in turn makes me think of a different quote from the Hannibal book.) But there's an interesting element of free will involved with mellification: "[it] differed from a simple body donation because of the aspect of self-sacrifice; the mellification process would ideally start before death. The donor would stop eating any food other than honey, going as far as to bathe in the substance.... When this diet finally proved fatal, the donor's body would be placed in a stone coffin filled with honey. After a century or so, the contents would have turned into a sort of confection reputedly capable of healing broken limbs and other ailments." So someone would be sacrificing themselves to heal others--whereas (you'll see) the Honey Is People process involves having their own "healing" forced on them. I suspect this storyline didn't come from the mellified man idea-- that it was inspired by something else--but it's interesting that honey has all these historical connotations of healing, mercy, and sacrifice, all of them subverted in this episode.
Because yeah... it ain't merciful: "The orbital bone, his sphenoid behind where the eyeballs would usually be, there's tiny punctures," Brian points out as Jack pulls over a lamp. "Something long and sharp was pushed in his brain. Jack, this guy was lobotomized."
@MrAaronAbrams: To catch this honeybee killer may I suggest a sting operation omg what is happening to me I didn't used to be like this I swear.
Speaking of which LET'S NOT SPEAK OF WHICH NO I DON'T LIKE THIS Amanda Plummer is acupuncturing a cranky old man who is not feeling well today, or perhaps ever: "My arthritis is killin' me. I can't take much more of it." "A course of bee venom therapy would soothe the inflammation," she tells him sweetly (I'm sorry), and it is perhaps worth noting that her therapy room has a big lovely window filled with shelves of potted plants and JARS OF HONEY. "I can barely afford this treatment," he grumps. Ah, but "that's a problem for another day," because you are about to have much, much bigger problems right now. "Now, you just quiet your mind. Just live in the present." And she starts putting acupuncture needles in his forehead, which seems harmless enough: "You feel that?" No." "Good. You feel that?" "No." "Good." Now, one somewhat below his ear: "Feel that?" "I can't... feel anything." "Good. Then you won't feel this..."
@cleolindajones: AHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO
@cleolindajones: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE #Hannibal #EYESQUICK #NOTLOOKING #WHY
@DireRavenstag: One opens the door to the mind any way one must.
Show? You broke me. I've made myself watch every single bit of this series, even if I had to do it through my fingers or work myself up to it on a rewatch, because that's the bullet you take when you recap. Even when it was eye-gouging in "Entrée," my personal particular squick. Even when it was Roland Umber ripping himself out of the mural. Even when it was Dr. Pez Head. Even when it was Meat Wings (MEAT WINGS!!). But I can't watch this. You broke me. I can't do it. So all I know about this scene is what I saw on Twitter about it:
@MrNickCharles: But you could still hear the TAPPING!
@DeLaurentiisCo: 3 taps and a twist.
@E_VanEvery: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
@aMoTPodcast: ....adding that to the list of "Horrors #Hannibal is responsible for me enduring on network television"
@aMoTPodcast: It... it's not a short, list, you guys
@BryanFuller: LOCATION BOARD FOR KITTY PIMM'S "HEALING" CENTER [floor plans]
@BryanFuller: AMANDA PLUMMER HAS A POINT TO MAKE WITH YOU [set pic of acupuncture couch]
@BryanFuller: ACCUPUNCTURIST'S TOOL TRAY [set pic]
@BryanFuller: BANG BANG KITTY'S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWN UPON HIS HEAD [NO]
@MrAaronAbrams: Amanda Plummer is amazing in this creepy re-imagining of her role as "Honey Bunny". #Hannibal #PulpFiction
@mstherestofme: Any of you fucking pricks move and I'll lobotomize every last one of ya!
Sometime later, a young girl runs up to a man just standing there in a park, staring into the distance (you know where this is going): "Hey, mister! You're not supposed to stare at the sun. It'll hurt your eyes." But of course it's Kitty's patient, milling around mindlessly (literally), and when he turns around, there's just black emptiness behind his open eyelids, and everything is, in fact, terrible.
@ScottNimerfro: The scene in the park was the initial inspiration for the episode. #heymister!
Later, Brian's examining him at the OH MY SWEET LORD JESUS I MISSED THE EXTREME SPELUNKING CLOSEUP OF THE EYE SOCKETS THE FIRST TIME AROUND, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU with a flashlight: "Multiple holes on this guy. Over a dozen. Both eye sockets--the lesions have severed most of the nerve tract to the frontal lobe." The guy's still alive, by the way. Yeah. Just sitting on the lab table in a hospital gown. Aaron Abrams referred to this as "the living autopsy," if that tells you anything. "He's covered in bee stings like he got swarmed," Jimmy observes. "Must be floating in apitoxin--he doesn't feel a thing." "Yeah, the not feeling anything has got nothing to do with bee stings," says Brian. "Welcome to the world of the living dead." But! "There's a pattern," Jimmy says, surprised, looking up with Beverly walks in: "Hey! Look what the Katz dragged in."
@aMoTPodcast: "Look what the Katz dragged in" Ian! It's you, but, like, in the show!
"What are you looking at?" she asks. "A pattern," the Investigators Dude answer together (bless). "See, some of the bee stings triggered an allergic reaction, others didn't," Jimmy explains--and then Brian realizes: "The inflamed bee stings were all in line with the body's meridian, on acupuncture points. The bee stings are hiding the needle marks."
Beverly, startled: "What did you say?"
"Uh... the bee stings are hiding the needle marks...?"
Beverly stares at Brian for a moment. And then she goes back to the morgue to look at the Muralist's body again, and that's when she figures it out: "Stitches are hiding stitches." Hannibal's voice in her head: Only by going deep beneath the skin will you understand the nature of this killer's pathology. She snips open the stitches and feels around inside the body: "He took his kidney," she says aloud.
@aMoTPodcast: "He took his kidney" Don't judge, Bev, he needed *something* for the quiche.
@DeLaurentiisCo: Wait, did she say kidney? Remember that.
Don't worry. You won't be able to forget.
CONTINUE: PART TWO.