So, Hannibal is the best show on TV, can we just agree on that? There’s no other show right now – not Game of Thrones, not Mad Men, not even Fargo – that is as daring or confident. In a just world, Hannibal would air on Sundays at 9, and enjoy the same rabid following as something like Breaking Bad or True Detective. It’s amazing to me that this show is on NBC, not just because NBC is a notoriously stodgy and old-fashioned network, but because the violent and philosophical content that makes up Hannibal would be so much more at home on FX or HBO. Honestly, NBC giving Hannibal a third season almost makes up for them cancelling Community. Almost.
“Tome-Wan” opens on a therapy session between Will and Hannibal. As always, their conversation is loaded and fraught with tension, the way any conversation will go when the two participants tried to have each other killed. Hannibal asks Will why he told Mason Verger that Hannibal wanted to kill him, and Will confesses he did it because he was curious to see what Mason would do. This is a mirror image of Hannibal’s motive for telling Garrett Jacob Hobbs that the FBI was on to him, or him telling Mason Verger that his sister Margot planned on getting pregnant. Curiosity plays a big part in this episode. Will, in turn, asks Hannibal if he plans on killing Mason during their next session. Hannibal seems to concede the point, saying that Mason is rude. “Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me,” he says, echoing, almost verbatim, the sentiments of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter after Miggs threw his semen on Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal tells Will to close his eyes and picture how he would kill Hannibal. Will’s fantasy involves Hannibal, jarringly helpless but also serene, being fed to Mason Verger’s hogs. Will slits Hannibal’s throat, and the blood washes over him like an obscene baptism. We the viewers know that Will is playing Hannibal, entrapping him, but it’s still hard to tell how much of this is Will playing a role.
Next, Hannibal is visited by Mason Verger, and to say that Mason is on to him is an understatement. Mason brandishes the knife that his father used to measure the fat of pigs, and stabs into a chair, not once but twice. Hannibal visibly recoils at the rudeness. I’ve said it before, but Michael Pitt is pitch-perfect as Mason. He’s quickly losing his grasp on reality, and it says a lot about his cackling, gleeful performance that a show with a cannibalistic serial killer at its center now has a villain.
Meanwhile, Will meets with Jack’s ace in the whole: Bedelia du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), Hannibal’s former therapist. In measured, almost musical tones, Bedelia assures Will and Jack that they are not in control – if they think they are, it’s only because Hannibal wants them to. She also admits to killing the patient who attacked her, and goes so far to grant that it may have been murder. The deadliest thing about Hannibal, she says, is his influence.
Jack and Hannibal have another of this show’s patented loaded discussions, which almost exclusively take place over an exquisite meal. Jack refers to the preparation of the meal as “the eternal chase,” and Hannibal rejoinders with “Whomever is chasing whom in this very moment, I intend to eat them.” PRO-TIP: if your host says something like that during dinner, RUN.
Will is coerced into a limo by Mason’s goons, and Hannibal is abducted through considerably more forceful measures. Hannibal is strung up, much like he was in Will’s fantasy, and Mason gives Will a knife, instructing him to cut Hannibal’s throat before he’s fed to the hogs. Instead, Will cuts Hannibal’s restraints. I think he did so because he’d rather see Hannibal arrested than killed.
Hannibal escapes and feeds one of Mason’s henchmen to the hogs. We’re not shown how, but in the next scene Hannibal is forcing Mason to inhale a psychedelic compound. This makes him very susceptible to suggestion, as is evidence in the last twenty minutes of “Tome-Wan,” which is what pushed this from a four and a half star review to a five star review.
Will returns to his home to find Mason – and Hannibal – waiting for him. Mason is still on what must be the worst trip ever, as he cuts slices off of his face and feeds them to Will’s dogs. When he says he’s hungry, Hannibal suggests that he eat his own nose, which Mason happily does. “I’m full of myself,” he quips. In this scene, Mason is shot like the monster in a horror film – it’s all shadows and glistening blood. Veteran Hannibal director Michael Rymer stages it perfectly; he knows that anything he shows us will never be as bad as what we imagine. Ultimately Hannibal snaps Mason’s neck, and we’re to believe that he’s dead.
Except he’s not! He’s still alive, sounding more and more like Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the character in the film Hannibal. When Jack visits him, he blames his disfiguration on falling into the hogs’ pit, and he denies ever meeting Will. Needless to say, he’s also wearing a creepy full-face mask during this interview. I’m very glad that Hannibal is keeping Mason around; he makes a great boogeyman, not only for Hannibal, but also for Will.
At the episode’s end, Hannibal and Will confirm their uneasy alliance. Hannibal references the story of Achilles and Patroclus, but Will cautions him, “This can’t last.” But on behalf of all the viewers, I sincerely hope it does. “Tome-Wan” was an amazing, remarkably self-assured episode of a brilliant show.
A Few Thoughts
– I loved the way Mason’s trip was directed. Watch any other show on the air right now, and I guarantee you won’t see the titular character wearing a hog’s head as he tells someone to eat their own nose
– Will’s final Hail Mary play: tell Hannibal to reveal himself to Jack as the Chesapeake Ripper. I’m not 100% sure he’ll do it, but that alone would lead to the brawl that the second season started with
– Even though Michael Pitt is reputedly hard to work with, I applaud Hannibal for casting him. He’s doing an amazing job, and his presence invigorates the show
– I loved this line, delivered by Bedelia about Hanniba: “Whimsy: that’s how he will get caught.” The word whimsy cascaded out of Gillian Anderon’s mouth in such an operatic fashion
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