John Lucking reviews the twelfth episode of Hannibal….
Being the penultimate episode of any season is a thankless task. Its goal is to build excitement for the next episode and hint at the idea of irreversible changes like deaths or character revelations. It is essentially the little brother to the finale’s big brother; receiving its hand-me-down themes and plot momentum but unable to escape its shadow. “Relevés” is certainly a busy episode, and while it’s somewhat light on character moments this is to be expected. Characters have been established by now, and all the pieces are in place ready for the writers to begin making decisions that will decide the course of season two. It does pick up towards the end in terms of sheer excitement, but the majority of the episode is concerned with justifying Will as a potential murderer in the eyes of everyone around him.
Lecter’s motivation for acting as a copycat killer throughout the season is revealed to be one of seemingly pure practicality – to aid in the framing of Will. His motivation for various other actions however are outright stated by Lecter as he reveals all to Abigail; why did he inform her father of the FBI’s approach? He wanted to see what would happen. Why did he kill Marissa? He was curious. Why did he engineer her murder of Nicholas Boyle? He wanted to see what would become of Abigail. Lecter’s disconnect from reality has in some way tied him to it, but only from the perspective of a disinterested and omniscient observer (he would perhaps find the term “God” distasteful, although surely believe himself to be on a par). The copycat murders would of course logically be tied to Will with the FBI believing him to have snapped and, perhaps through no fault of his own, have taken something more than a nightmare with him from every crime scene he visited. The devil is in the details of course, and if Lecter’s actions could be fully defined then what percentage is practicality, what percentage is curiosity, and is what remains the result of a twisted friendship?
The episode begins with one of Lecter’s loose ends being taken care of as he presents the previous week’s feral killer Georgia with a comb. Sometimes that’s all it takes and we see her create a spark of static electricity as plastic meets hair, which in a tank full of oxygen is nothing but a bad idea. Georgia is burnt alive and TV gets its first instance of inadvertent suicide by comb, but having recently spoken to her Will believes her death to be a murder. Talking to Lecter he finds himself with a new clarity and renewed sense of purpose; to find the person responsible for the deaths that seem to follow him around. Will’s uncapped empathy and intuition may have helped him into his current hole but after feeling the spectre of manipulation at his back he cannot and will not let go of the idea that the copycat is attempting to frame him – a fact that Lecter’s face wearily acknowledges. This later leads to Lecter ‘giving in’ and breaking doctor-patient confidentiality, expressing his concerns to Jack Crawford over Will’s mental health and his concern for the safety of others around him, going so far as to play an out-of-context recording of Will pondering his similarities to Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Will certainly has problems, and dissociative identity disorder is not one of them; it’s just unfortunate for him that it fits so well.
Jack visits Dr. Du Maurier trying to assess whether or not Lecter is covering for Will, and in doing so helps to reveal that Du Maurier is in fact covering for Lecter. It seems that her attacker swallowed his own tongue during the attack, but what Du Maurier negates to mention to Jack (and later reassures Lecter of) is that her attacker had some help in the swallowing of his own tongue. The details are scarce but it’s enough to cast the relationship between Lecter and Du Maurier in a whole new light. Following on from their previous conversations she cautions Lecter against getting too close to Will, verbosely but beautifully informing him that, “You cannot function as an agent of friendship for a man disconnected from the concept… as a man disconnected from the concept”. He wants Will as a friend but as we’ve seen before self-preservation will always override any curiosity he possess towards his very own human escape fantasy. Having manipulated everyone he’s come into contact with Lecter gets to play the role of reluctant but well-meaning psychiatrist. He doesn’t take much cajoling but he has expertly positioned himself as a man whose only crime is caring too much about a patient, with Du Maurier and Crawford both pressuring him to expose the man he has framed as being at the least a danger to himself.
Elsewhere within the show Lounds and Abigail continue working on their book but it’s cut short as Will takes custody of Abigail and returns with her to her house. Will’s attempt to bond over a parent-like activity and subsequent offer to visit Eagle mountain is the episode’s only humour outside of a scene featuring the lab technicians poking fun at Jack’s reliance on Will’s leaps of logic. Upon returning home Abigail admits to acting as her father’s bait but Will’s encephalitis returns in a flurry of heightened emotions and it’s unclear just what is and is not happening as we instantly cut to Will waking up on a plane, but it’s here that Abigail flees into the arms of Lecter who then admits his actions and states his reasons. The implication is that Lecter then kills Abigail, but anybody watching television knows better than to trust in an off-screen death. The board is set, the pieces are now in place and it’s up to the finale which ones keep moving and which ones are taken out of the game.
John Lucking
Originally published June 15, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
