Review: Hannibal ‘Trou Normand’ – Jigsaws Without Corners

There’s almost too much good material in ‘Trou Normand’, with the return of Jack’s attention on Abigail Hobbs, the human totem pole creator, and Will’s rapid mental decline. If anybody suffers, it’s this week’s killer (relegated to a single, terrific Lance Henriksen scene) – but it’s only because there’s so much interesting stuff going on around it, we don’t have a lot of time to dig into the retiring serial killer.

Although Abigail and Will are the main focal points, Jack Crawford continues to be a really interesting presence on the show. A lot of ‘Trou Normand’ is about control – whether Will over his mind, Abigail over her nightmares, or Hannibal over everyone – but the most overt of these is Crawford’s insistence on pursuing his interests, even if it’s putting Will’s mind through a meat grinder on a regular basis. Like Hannibal, Jack’s got no problem manipulating people to do what he wants, a fascinating juxtaposition with Hannibal, who does the same, but in such a subtle manner that nobody notices around him.

But Jack’s persistent ways – which have proved quite dickish and dangerous in the past – reinforce his instincts in ‘Trou Normand’ after Abigail tells Hannibal how her father forced her into helping him find women to kill (that looked just like her, irony in its sickest form). He’s right – but he’s got no way of knowing, because Hannibal’s standing in the shadows, having the puppets dance as he chooses. He’s so confident that he doesn’t even mind telling Will that she killed Nick Boyle, proving his newfound friendship to Will (notice how there’s a lot of ‘Will and I’ and ‘Will is my friend’ being said… slash fiction ‘shippers, rejoice!) by being honest, but also keeping him under his thumb (and most importantly, allied against Jack) in keeping Abigail’s secret.

However, there are threats to that secret getting out – both from an unstable Will (who is losing entire sections of his waking hours, traveling three and a half hours essentially in a trance) and Freddie, who sees a nice paycheck behind Abigail’s damaged reputation and mental state. Freddie’s another intriguging character to watch in this episode, even though she’s mostly found in the margins: she enjoys this game between her and Hannibal/Will, and she thinks using Abigail as a pawn is a way to stir up Will – unknowing to the fact that Hannibal might just serve her up one day like the salad he places in front of her (she’s a vegetarian in a world full of meat eaters). Does that mean she’s immune to his charm?

There’s a lot of interesting ‘fat’ to be chewed on (as Lance Henrikson’s character says, a nice allusion to Hannibal’s tastes) in ‘Trou Normand’, which spends a little too much time on the serialized material to give the killer of the week any major impact (as compared to killers in previous episodes; his ‘design’ is still interesting, it’s just rushed to conclusion with some expository material). But as Hannibal gets closer and closer to Will (and Will gets farther and farther from itself), it’s only natural that the non-procedural material prove to be a lot more tantalizing.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– Will to Lawrence: “you just killed your legacy.” Ouch.

– we see Abigail’s dreams in this episode: she sees Nicholas a lot, and has a nice therapy session with the girls she recruited to be killed.

– Bloom admits her attraction to Will, but is only willing “to be a friend, while you’re this unstable.” Little does she know that she’s what Will is clinging onto for his sanity, for some kind of human connection to keep from losing it.

– the conclusion of the Totem Poler is a bit convoluted: he ended up killing his son, thinking that he was killing the bastard child of an affair his wife had (the alleged man she slept with was his first murder, 40 years ago).

– Abigail is a survivor, alright.

– Hannibal: “I know what monsters are.”

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