Hannibal Season 1, Episode 8
"Fromage"
Original airdate: May 16, 2013
Writer: Jennifer Schuur, Bryan Fuller
Director: Tim Hunter
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Laurence Fishburne, Caroline Dhavernas, Gillian Anderson
Over the past couple of episodes, Hannibal Lecter has begun to take more chances. As the Chesapeake Ripper, he's back out in the world adding to his body count, and as the esteemed psychiatrist who's the toast of Baltimore, he's cozying up to his friends in the FBI like never before.
It should be clear by now that Lecter is running some great game, with each person in his life acting as some kind of pawn in that game. It should also be clear, though, that Hannibal's fixation on Will Graham is different, and that he views him as more than a piece of a larger puzzle known only to Hannibal himself. In "Fromage," we see those ideas merge in exciting new ways, and we also get yet another serial killer duel, this time in the flesh.
And the episode wastes no time in juxtaposing these story paths. Before the opening credits, we see Will at home, working on an outboard motor (Will does traditionally masculine so well, which works a treat on both Hannibal and Alana), when he hears what sounds like a dog crying from somewhere in the woods. While he's searching, we jump to a luthier's shop in Baltimore, where Tobias Budge (Demore Barnes) is giving a cello lesson. In the course of that lesson, we learn that Tobias's stringed instruments are strung not with catgut but with human intestine, carefully extracted, treated, and stretched by Tobias himself.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia, Will's asked Alana to come help him find this lost dog crying out from somewhere beyond his house, and he's also got something else on his mind. Will is, quite clearly, romantically interested in Alana, but it's hard to tell where the therapist ends and the person begins when she's around him. The more he talks about dating, the more she pushes back, leaving Will to ask if he's "too broken to date." Alana, perhaps to save Will's feelings, makes it about herself, and explains that she's always considered dating "something for somebody else." She might settle down one day, but not now. Just days after flirting with Hannibal, Alana is a bit more standoffish with Will, but the attraction is undeniable. Is the world's greatest throuple forming before our eyes?
If you recognize Tobias, that's because he turned up last week as the friend and opera guest of Hannibal's patient Franklyn (Dan Fogler), who confides in Lecter during their session this week that he thinks Tobias might be a psychopath. Franklyn's Googled this, you see, which distresses Hannibal in part because, being a psychopath himself, he's annoyed that his patient has missed some of the finer points.
"Psychopaths are not crazy," Hannibal tells Franklyn. "They're fully aware of what they do and the consequences of those actions."
Does it count as foreshadowing if we get to see that one character is ahead of the others the whole time?
Anyway, this is one of those episodes that never keeps us in suspense over who the killer is. We know it's Tobias, we just have to see what he does and how the FBI eventually catches him. Fortunately for us, Tobias is one of the most theatrical killers we've seen in a while, and his latest kill is a doozy. Jack, Will, and the gang head to a concert hall, where they find a body seated at center stage, a cello neck shoved down the throat, the vocal chords exposed to mimic cello strings. It's a human cello, and as he walks the room to try to get inside the killer's head, Will can hear the sound it makes. He can also, for the first time in a while, see the corpse of Garrett Jacob Hobbs in his head. It's distressing, and it's not helped by Jack, who prods Will and tries to point out that it seems to be easier for him to look at bodies these days.
"It's any easier, Jack," Will says. "Shake it off, keep on looking."
Will is also, it should be noted, popping pills like Tic Tacs, turning into the powder keg he never wanted to be. Something's gotta give. But in the meantime, there's a killer to catch, and Will consults with Hannibal on what he's found, unaware that Hannibal's already got his eye on Tobias as a possible kindred spirit. When Will explains how far Tobias has gone – the vocal chords were even chemically treated to make them more like real cello strings – to achieve his tableau, Hannibal dubs him a "a poet and a psychopath" as the pair discuss how the killer isn't just hoping for a compelling visual, but a singular sound that only he gets to hear. For Hannibal, it's intoxicating enough that after Will leaves, he visits Tobias's shop.
There is a real sense of Game Recognize Game happening here, as each man senses something about the other, and their language is referential enough, to suggest that each knows the other's hobby without ever having to say it out loud. Under the guise of getting new strings for his harpsichord, Hannibal makes a connection.
Meanwhile, Will's mental state frays further. At home, again doing a very manly thing like working on his fly fishing lures, he hears scratching in his chimney. By the time Alana comes over to check on him – this time he didn't call her, she's just…there – he's ripped holes in the plaster and the stonework around his fireplace, but nothing turns up. By the time Alana's in the house, Will's drawn the awful conclusion that this is all happening in his head. Perhaps in response, he turns to something more concrete, more certain: Alana herself. After weeks of tension, these two crazy kids finally share a kiss! Predictably, Alana, despite a clear attraction to Will, tries to talk them both out of going further, using as many smart words as she can muster to suggest that they just aren't compatible. Will, trying to go for something that makes him happy just once, tells her to "stop thinking so much," but it doesn't work.
So, where does Will go? To Hannibal's, of course. Unbeknownst to him, he's just interrupted a dinner between Hannibal and Tobias, where Tobias revealed that he'd tailed Hannibal on one of his kills weeks earlier. Each killer knows what the other is for certain now, and while they're not quite at a standoff – Hannibal quips that he didn't poison Tobias because he "wouldn't do that to the food." – there is palpable tension, which Will breaks as Hannibal answers the door and Tobias slips out the back.
This time, Will doesn't want to talk about serial killers. He wants to talk about Alana. It's not just that he likes her and she's not sure about him, it's that he likes her and he thinks she has a point. He is unstable, their relationship would be volatile, but he's "wanted to kiss her since I met her," and he wants her to see a way through to feeling the way he feels. Hannibal, who's already engaging in his own flirtation with Alana, pivots away by revealing that he has a patient who might have spilled some info on Will's latest case.
It's remarkable how quickly various concentric circles form around Hannibal and Will in this show, and after "Fromage" reminds us of the budding love triangle and the presence of another serial killer in Hannibal's stomping grounds, we move to Hannibal's own therapist, Bedelia. Earlier in the episode, we learned, while Hannibal was talking about his concerns regarding Franklyn, that Bedelia stopped practicing psychiatry because she was once attacked by a patient. Hannibal is her only patient because she finds him interesting, yes, but also because he simply refused to stop seeing her, out of some sense of protectiveness and, perhaps, attraction.
Now that Will's proven comfortable enough to stop by his house just to tell him he kissed a girl, Hannibal is comfortable opening up to Bedelia about the possibility of being Will's friend, even though they share certain professional entanglements. "Fromage" is not one of my favorite episodes, despite the incredible crime scene earlier, but it is an example of how well even episodes that are mostly about connecting the dots can work in establishing connections. We know that Hannibal is playing some kind of long game with basically everyone in his life, but we also know that he is sincere in the warmth he feels for Will, at least on some level.
But there's not a lot of time to think about that right now, because Will has to go do some honest-to-God police work. He takes two police officers and heads to Tobias's office, where yet another hallucination of an animal who needs help distracts him just enough for Tobias to kill both cops and get out of dodge. Meanwhile, Will descends, gun drawn, into Tobias's basement, and finds a den lined with jars of human intestine, just waiting to become beautifully made cello strings. Will is once again in a killer's lair with his weapon out, once again stalked by the beast that is Garrett Jacob Hobbs, the reminder of what Will could be if he just goes a little too far one too many times.
The real action, though, is back at Hannibal's office, where Franklyn's in a session with Dr. Lecter just as Tobias shows up, bleeding and furious. Franklyn tries to talk his friend down, reach some kind of de-escalation point, but before he can get there Hannibal snaps his neck with one quick twist. It's not just a method of distraction, but a way to needle Tobias, who wanted to kill Franklyn himself. The fight is on.
This episode is called "Fromage" because that's a classic post-entree course in French cuisine, and we're following a natural progression of courses through a French menu. For me, though, it's also carrying that name because it's, well, just a bit cheesy, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Hannibal is a show which constantly rides the line between the pulpy fun of an airport thriller and the sophistication of a literary work, and it proves time and time again that you can do both. In "Fromage," with Tobias and Hannibal alone, we get a serial killer fight scene for the ages, which only ends when Hannibal finally incapacitates Tobias long enough to deliver a killing blow.
Inside the room, Hannibal has just eliminated a rival, but outside the room, he's a heroic psychiatrist who fought to save his patient and failed, so had to fight for his own life and win. When Will comes to check on him, he looks appropriately shaken, but he knows that it's a victory. He is once again the psychiatrist who helped the FBI bring a killer to justice, and it's only deepened his bond with Will. Meanwhile, back in therapy, Hannibal gets to deepen his bond with Bedelia too, because while he wasn't quite attacked by a patient, he was attacked in his office. They share a certain victimhood now, which means Hannibal has grown closer to virtually everyone important in his life all at once, and gotten rid of problematic elements of his life (Franklyn and Tobias) at the same time. It's a masterstroke made all the more powerful because it was partially improvised, but as we turn the corner into the final five episodes of the season, we're left to wonder: What's the endgame?
All will be revealed soon enough.
Next Time: "Trou Normand"
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