Episode 4 of Hannibal really delves a lot deeper into the psyche of the characters and build on the relationships that have been set up. The cases during this episode focus on children that have run away or been kidnapped and then been participants in the murder of their own families. These cases really affect Will who opens up about his childhood during his sessions with Hannibal, and Will didn’t have the best childhood and these children did so even though he knows they didn’t feel accepted in their families, he doesn’t understand why they are killing them. Hannibal also shares brief snippets of his own childhood recounting that his parents died when he was young, and he doesn’t mention any siblings.
Now, for readers of the books we know that Hannibal’s parents died during World War 2, we also know that Hannibal had a younger sister, Mischa who was eaten by the solider which had killed their parents due to the harsh weather conditions in his home country of Lithuania. None of this has been mentioned yet but what we do see is Hannibal’s love for children which is shown in how he advises Jack and Will during the case and in his growing relationship with Abigail. This episode also shows the differing opinions that Hannibal and Alana have over Abigail’s treatment. Hannibal wants Abigail to move back out into the world even taken her from the facility she is living in to make her dinner and give her a drug commonly known as “Magic mushrooms” to help her process the trauma she has been through, while Alana feels therapy and group sessions are the correct way to treat Abigail.
This leads to a brief argument between the pair in which Hannibal never raises his voice or projects any form of violent tendencies showing his ability to hide who he truly is. When the three of them sit to dinner, Abigail is in a drug-induced haze that Hannibal explains is because he gave her Valium because she reacted badly to leaving the facility. In her haze Abigail, sees Hannibal and Alana morph into her parents and smiles in a very disturbing fashion which makes me believe that this Hannibal’s plan, to get Abigail to see him and Alana as parental figures so they have no choice to keep her close and he can also keep an eye on the normally suspicious Alana at all times. Meanwhile, the friendship between him and Will also deepens when Will asks him to watch his dogs while he is away, thus giving Hannibal the opportunity to get to know Will better through the way he lives. Hannibal is also manipulating Jack, using his own insecurities against him as Jack promised the next time they had dinner he would bring his wife which he hasn’t done. When jack returns home he and his wife discuss whether or not it is too late to have children and it is for his wife making me believe she might have gone through menopause and this seems to impact Jack, who seems to want children but has always put his career first.
This whole episode was Hannibal spinning webs of lies, deception, and manipulation like a chess player moving his pieces around the board before making his final move. I am not going to mention the music or camera angles in this episode review because they are spot on in every episode. However, the case hasn’t been solved even though the children and the one manipulating them has been caught as they know have to find out why the children left their families and killed them in the manners they did. The more I watch of this show the more I am finding myself enjoying it although it seems to differ greatly for the original source material.
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