Hannibal Season 3, Episode 4
"Aperitivo"
Original airdate: June 25, 2015
Writers: Nick Antosca, Bryan Fuller, Steve Lightfoot
Director: Marc Jobst
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne, Caroline Dhavernas, Raul Esparza
For the first time this season, we're moving away from Hannibal Lecter and back entirely to the people left in his bloody wake. Hannibal as a character is best remembered as a serial killer, but Hannibal the series, particularly in the second and third seasons, is much more focused on Hannibal's place as an agent of transformation, adept at reprogramming those closest to him like a dark Messiah, converting them to his personal path.
"Aperitivo" takes us back, once again, to the immediate aftermath of Hannibal's bloody escape from Baltimore, and reveals that, apart from poor Abigail Hobbs, everyone survived that night, and then some. We've already seen Jack and Will, healthy and over in Europe. Now we get to focus on Alana, as well as the events that drove Jack and Will to leave the country and seek their old friend.
Alana's body was broken by her fall from Hannibal's window, but her mind was affected too, and not just in the usual, trauma-informed ways. The extent of her injuries meant that she not only had to spend a big chunk of time flat on her back, her pelvis held together by rods, but she also has to deal with the personality changes brought on by bone marrow seeping into her bloodstream. It's then that we discover that we haven't met all the survivors yet. Dr. Frederick Chilton (Raul Esparza) somehow survived being shot in the face, was acquitted of his supposed crimes, and is back in the world, scheming as always. Alana's new state of mind, complete with fresh hatred for Hannibal, means that Chilton has a new presumptive ally. He wants to form a kind of Hannibal Avengers, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Chilton also pays a visit to our old friend Mason Verger (Joe Anderson, replacing Michael Pitt from last season), who's still wheelchair bound and mostly faceless after Hannibal sent him into a drug-induced self-harm spree. He's meant to be Mason's new therapist, but when the meat-packing heir pushes him away, Chilton finds that Alana might make the perfect replacement, while Alana finds that Margot Verger (Katharine Isabelle) is something perhaps more intriguing than an ally.
Frankly, I find this episode to be one of the weakest in the series from a narrative perspective, simply because it's so fragmented. It uses Chilton as a vehicle to check in on each character, from Alana to Mason to Will and Jack, but of course we already know quite a bit about Will and Jack's state of mind. The episode's attempts to reverse-engineer those things don't entirely land. But a weak Hannibal episode is still rich with meaning, and it starts with the ways in which each of these characters licks their particular wounds.
Things have changed amid our motley crew of Hannibal survivors, but not anyone's attitude to Chilton. He's still untrustworthy and slippery as an eel, even if his offer to facilitate Hannibal's capture and death is an attractive one, particularly to Alana and Mason. Will plays things closer to the vest, because we know he's after more than simple revenge, while Jack does his best to push Hannibal's memory away, retiring from the FBI so he can spend time at Bella's (Gina Torres) bedside in the final weeks and days of her life. However they react, though, it's clear that each of these five people has been dramatically transformed by Hannibal Lecter, because in one way or another, they are all bloodthirsty. Maybe even hungry.
Everyone's state of mind is perhaps best summed-up by a conversation Alana and Will have at Hannibal's now-empty house. Will just wants to be alone, to sit with his delusion that Abigail is still beside him, but before he drives Alana away, she observes that "friendship with Hannibal is blackmail elevated to the level of love." Hannibal's primary emotional goal is, and always has been, to find understanding with another person. And in his twisted mind, the best way to do that is to bring out the darkest, most frightening parts of that other person, hold them up to the light, and place them in a situation in which they're forced to acknowledge they might be just as monstrous as he is.
It's a trick that worked on Will, who admits to Jack that he's still not sure what he'll do when he finds Hannibal, because he genuinely did want to run away with his friend at the end of last season. Jack tries to let it all go, but Chilton in particular pushes him, noting, correctly, that Will is going to search for Hannibal no matter what, and if he goes alone he'll walk into his own death. After Bella dies, and Hannibal receives a sympathy card from Hannibal himself, Jack takes Chilton's advice to heart, but finds that Will's already left the country.
As for Alana, her relationship with Hannibal wasn't built on that level of blackmail, or it had at least not risen to that level by the time he was forced to shatter it. For her, and for Mason, this isn't about understanding, but about revenge. Watching Caroline Dhavernas, complete with gorgeous suits and an ebony cane, shift into Villain Mode with Alana Bloom is truly thrilling, especially when it seems she and Mason are on the same wavelength. Mason would still very much like to feed Hannibal to his pigs, and Alana knows that, through Will, Jack, and Chilton, she can help make that happen. So, with Will off to Italy and Jack in pursuit, Alana and Mason make plans for "Old Testament revenge."
Again, this is a fragmented episode. It spends too much doubling back on ideas we've already explored, particularly where Will and Jack are concerned, but what it does with Alana in particular is gripping stuff, and points the way to a much more complex story ahead. If Hannibal's goal was to create wounded monsters devoted to him, he succeeded, but perhaps not in the way he thought. His monsters are now turning their darkness on him, and while they're not united, he may finally have bitten off more than he can chew.
Next Time: "Contorno"
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