Hannibal Season 1, Episode 4
"Ouef"
Original airdate: Digital release only*
Writer: Jennifer Schuur
Director: Peter Medak
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Laurence Fishburne, Caroline Dhavernas, Kacey Rohl, Molly Shannon
Hannibal has this intriguing, oxymoronic quality of being one of the most and least subtle shows on television at the same time.
Its design, its visual metaphors, and its emphasis on gory detail make a decidedly un-subtle effort, and yet all of these elements contribute to an environment in which everything is rich with meaning. Sometimes the show's points hit home like a hammer, other times like a chisel, but even the least subtle Hannibal episode is packed with detail. And Episode 4, "Ouef," is definitely among the show's least subtle episodes.
Because so much of "Potage" was devoted to character work and meditation, "Ouef" is able to hit the ground running with immediate cuts to crime scenes. Will and Jack are investigating a family annihilation, with a twist: One member of the family, a young boy, was missing for months before the rest of the family was killed.
It's not the first crime scene of its kind, and it won't be the last. Will's mind starts working on a pretty straightforward theory: The missing child, the middle child, felt adrift in his own family, like he didn't fit in. So a part of him welcomed the chance to be lured into another family, one where they really did belong. In his latest session with Hannibal, Will laments this, compares his own lonely childhood to what these boys might be going through, his perfect empathy kicking into overdrive. Will calls family "an ill-fitting suit," and explains that he was "always the stranger" because his family moved around a lot. The case haunts him in a particularly difficult way, he explains, because no matter what else he can do, he cannot ever give these boys back what they've lost.
But perhaps Will can still get back what he lost, and perhaps Abigail Hobbs will be a part of that.
Meanwhile, Abigail's growing restless in her care home, tired of group therapy sessions and slow days. She wants to leave, and while Alana hates the idea, Hannibal's not just receptive, but enthusiastic. Ducking Alana, he signs Abigail out of the hospital and into his care. Is this kind of like stealing Will's daughter? Maybe! Would Will find it hot if he knew? Also maybe!
(Would Will also find it hot if he knew that Hannibal was creeping around his house playing with his, um, fishing equipment? I just mention this because it might be important to remember that happened.)
Amid all of this, "Ouef" does something interesting for a procedural show, or at least the kind of procedural show a lot of people thought they'd get when they tuned into Hannibal for the first time. Unlike the previous serial killer investigations, which reveal the killer only during the climax, this episode lets us as an audience have a peek at our culprits well before they're caught. We meet a woman (Molly Shannon) who has essentially built herself a little culty family, setting herself up as mother to a group of wayward boys. To bond them all together as a family, she convinces each boy to kill his own family, and then they all participate so none of them can turn on each other. It's like the Manson Family meets Leave It To Beaver. It's Alana who helps Will figure out that the leader of this group of child killers is not an older boy, but a mother figure, which helps them narrow down the search.
While all of this is happening, Hannibal has talked Abigail into taking magic mushrooms! Will mentioned teaching Abigail how to fish, but Hannibal has decided to teach her how to edit her own brain, replacing bad associations with good ones through hallucinogenics. It does not take much convincing, because Hannibal ingratiates himself to Abigail instantly, calling her "a survivor" and revealing that he's making breakfast for dinner. This was the last meal Abigail's father was cooking for his family before he tried to kill them. Now, Daddy Hannibal is going to make a better version. See? Not a subtle episode.
And it gets even less subtle when you know that "Ouef" is French for Egg. Eggs recur at several points in the episode, including the breakfast for dinner scene, emphasizing both embryonic character states and, well, sexual reproduction. Hell, even Hannibal's claim that he's feeding Jack Crawford "rabbit" at dinner calls out fertility metaphors. This is the episode in which everyone must consider their family, whether it's blood relations or chosen family, and wonder if they're truly happy. The more we get to know the boys driven around by this dangerous mother, the more we see how they're struggling. Will is obviously struggling, while Jack is a bit aloof about his own family life, and Hannibal is, well, doing drugs with his new daughter. The only one we don't really get to know on that level is Alana.
And yet, we do see that when Alana tries to confront Hannibal over signing Abigail out of the hospital, she's more than happy to sit down to dinner when invited, unintentionally filling the seat where Abigail's mother would have been. She respects and admires Hannibal, but we're also getting hints that she, at the very least, finds him immensely charming. He doesn't have to twist her arm to get her to play family for an hour, and it works like a charm on Abigail.
Because we already know the killers in this episode, and we know what's been done to counter them, the big climax of "Ouef" isn't really the arrest scene. It all feels a bit boilerplate by the end compared to the mushroom scenes, but it still works because, by the end of it, we finally get our insight into Jack's family life. Talking to one of the arrested kids, Jack's paternal side, which he's sported more than once in dealing with Will and Alana, comes out warm and easy, like it was something he's meant to do. Jack wants more from his family, and weirdly, his job is helping him realize that.
So, Abigail has a spiritual awakening that bonds Hannibal and Alana closer, the killers are caught, and Jack has an epiphany about what he wants out of life. At home we finally meet his wife (Gina Torres), who flatly rejects the idea of having kids at this point in her life, then rolls over and goes to bed. The Crawford house is unquiet, and that troubles Jack, but the quiet back at Will's might be more troubling. After not just discussing family with Hannibal, but being confronted with a case that laid bare all of his insecurities about the life he could have had, Will falls asleep alone. He has never felt more haunted and small in the show up to this point, but he's not alone, and he might eventually realize it.
Next Time: "Coquilles"
* Due to its mass shooting-based subject matter, creator Bryan Fuller asked that this episode be pulled from its broadcast date. The episode was later made available through a series of webisodes and on iTunes, and has been included in every physical and streaming release.
