Review: Hannibal ‘Relevés’ – I Was Curious

Hannibal is a very intelligent man. And like most people of super high intelligence (nearly every character on this show), Hannibal is a victim of his own curiosities. All season, he’s trailed Will and his investigations silently, the dark stag of death waiting in the shadows of every murder to give them his own little twist. He’s turned Baltimore (and the surrounding area) into his little greenhouse in the process – but when the he sees the faintest of writing on the wall, he executes a daftly organized plan with two murders that bookend the episode.

Hannibal’s two biggest curiosities of course, are Hannibal and Abigail – two people he’s deemed it his duty to protect, whether it’s from Jack, the public, or from sniffing around his activities and deep-seeded interests in them. Hannibal’s got various reasons to be interested in them, obviously – but at the end, he views the two of them as friends, which Dr. du Maurier reveals to us is a pretty small group of people. This principle applies to her as well – their scene together suggests that Hannibal played a hand in saving Dr. du Maurier’s life, what with the victim having “accidentally” swallowed his tongue and all.

But even though he’s a man with friends, Hannibal’s more sociopathic tendencies override much of this morality. Since the beginning of the season, he’s reveled in playing mind games with Will, keeping his sickness from him and watching intently as Will chips away at his own sanity running in circles chasing killers – and with Abigail, he’s studied her as a subject of interest, like some kind of genetics study to see if daughter was like father in any way. And when his realm of power is threatened, the first person to go under the bus is Will, planting the seed in Jack’s mind that all the coincidences surrounding the copycat murders come from Will experiencing a dissociative personality disorder.

This is Hannibal’s magnum opus: he hasn’t ripped out anyone’s vocal cords lately, but he’s playing the FBI and Will like he’s the conductor of the string section, dictating every bit of rhythm and tempo as he sends Jack and the FBI walking right past the answer and into the direction of Will, just as he’s finally broke his fever and starting to put the pieces together. He tells Hannibal his mind is “clear”, and he’s finally starting to see the pattern – which only feeds into the theory that Will is going nuts in Jack’s mind, and runs to Hannibal, who quickly affirms these thoughts.

But Jack is still curious – and we finally get to see his powers of deduction in play this week when he realizes Abigail Hobbs was involved in her father’s murders, and that she probably killed Nick Boyle. Jack’s a hard headed fuck, and even though he pursues it to the wrong ends (using her as the connective piece between Will and the murders), this comes more out of his need to find any answer for what’s going on with Will, even if it’s the wrong one (opposed to him just being wrong, which the show’s done to allow us to believe in Will’s intelligence and intuitive abilities). What’s great is how Hannibal puts the blame on Jack for Will’s alleged mental state as well – at the end of the day, Jack Crawford is Hannibal’s opponent in this violent game of chess (and boy does Hannibal like to tease the shit out of him – remember the arm he left hanging out for him to find?)

There are moments where ‘Releves’ really picks up the pace compared to previous episodes of the season – and there’s a lot of time spent with Freddie and her silly ‘killer’s intuition’, a series of scenes with Abigail that help to plant the seed of doubt in Jack’s brain about her story, but doesn’t quite supply us with much on her as a character. What’s her investment in all this beyond the book deal? Why would she point that out to Jack when she’s trying to make money of Abigail’s stories? If there’s one character that’s been a bit short changed, it’s her – but with a season two looming, I’m willing to give Fuller the benefit of the doubt – with the shrinking of the ancillary cast in this episode, there’s always hope for some definitive Lounds material in 2014.

Although ‘Releves’ is probably the most straightforward episode of Hannibal so far (both in its narrative and visual construction), the tension embedded in each scene (with little touches like Will slowly backing away from a body as he pieces together the images in his mind, the camera slowly following him) and final ten minutes set the stage beautifully for what I expect to be a terrific finale.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– after his conversation with Dr. du Maurier, Hannibal moves from the left chair (the patient) to the right (the doctor), and after a pause there’s a jump cut to him in the right chair, with Will in the left. If there’s any visual that stood out to me tonight, it was that (and that nasty looking soup Hannibal brought Will).

– man, that is a shitty way to die (for both Georgia and Abigail).

– any predictions on who eats Abigail with Hannibal next week?

– Alana’s absence didn’t really stick out until the episode ended, and then I was like “holy shit, there was no Alana in that episode.” Don’t deny us our Caroline Dhavernas, Fuller!

– Hannibal tells Dr. Maurier that Will “has flaws in his intuitive beliefs about what makes him who he is.” To me, this sounds like some Hannibal arrogance: Will thinks he is a genius, and Hannibal wants to knock him back a peg or two (even if they are buddies).