Hannibal: “Primavera”

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After last week’s Hannibal premiere honed in solely on Hannibal’s European shenanigans, this week’s entry switches sides to focus on his co-star, the ever volatile Will Graham. It’s interesting to note that while “Antipasto” never features a single frame of Will, “Primavera” literally bleeds with Hannibal imagery—appropriate, given that Hannibal is attempting to run away and forget the two’s relationship, whereas Will, with his predilection for obsessive quests, pursues his former friend feverishly. Unfortunately, the episode’s restricted point-of-view also means that, for the second week in a row, we are again left in the dark as to the fates of Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom.

The episode commences with a (frankly, too long) retelling of the concluding events of last season, picking up just as Hannibal guts Will and slits Abigail Hobbs’ throat. Before making his escape, Hannibal admonishes Will for his betrayal, yet claims to have “forgiven him.” Will’s close encounter with death yields another unsettling visual as he envisions the series’ de facto mascot, the Black Stag, lying wounded before him when, suddenly, a stream of blood emerges from its hide and engulfs our hero. The next thing Will knows, he is waking up in a hospital room where he is greeted by a bandaged Abigail Hobbs. “We don’t have an ending,” she claims, explaining their continued existence. “[Hannibal] didn’t give us one yet.” Cut to eight months later, and the two are visiting Italian churches in search of their old companion.

Given Will’s predilection for dreams and visions, I immediately suspected that something was amiss and that Abigail’s insistence that Hannibal used “surgical” precision to make sure he didn’t kill her felt like some brand of fan fiction retcon that a talented writer like Fuller would not oblige. Add in the fact that The Sixth Sense has instructed us to be wary of a character that does not engage with the world around them and it came as no real surprise when, halfway through the episode, Will’s partner is revealed to be a mere figment of his guilty conscience.

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That being said, I don’t bring this up to highlight how clever I am (indeed, I’m very dumb in a lot of ways), but rather to point out the advantages of including such a bait-and-switch. Actress Kacey Rohl developed into a memorable presence as Abigail in the show’s first season, making her death in Season Two all the more tragic and heartbreaking. By incorporating her into Will’s ever-expanding mental Rolodex of victims he couldn’t save, Fuller and his writers have opened the door for Rohl to return should they ever want her to. Her contribution to the show becomes all the more apparent during the scenes in the church where the two dissect why Hannibal would be so attracted to religion. According to Will, the idea of becoming God would be an absolute bore to Hannibal but “defying God, that’s his idea of a good time.” Though the scene boasts the sort of weighty, philosophy-rich exchanges that often make the show appear like a pretentious art film (Fuller even confirms that’s kind of what they’re doing), it’s the charming chemistry between Hugh Dancy and Rohl that really makes this brand of heady dialogue sing and not sound like freshman-dorm-era navel-gazing.

The two’s search eventually leads to them discovering the heart-shaped blob of human flesh that Hannibal left behind in the previous episode (Will dubs it, “his broken heart”). Behind this investigation is none other than Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi, a familiar name/face to anyone who has read the exceptionally awful Hannibal novel or its equally atrocious film adaptation. Pazzi immediately recognizes Will from the days when he was framed as the Chesapeake Ripper. Sensing a fellow soul, Pazzi reveals that the heart display brings back memories of an old case wherein he discovered dead bodies arranged together to recreate Botticelli’s tempera panel, “Primavera.” Pazzi dubbed the killer, Il Mostro or “The Monster of Florence” and a quick snapshot of his prime suspect, a twentysomething Dr. Lecter, confirms that the two are searching for the same man.

Throughout the series’ run, Fuller and his writers have delighted in injecting Will and Hannibal’s unorthodox relationship with a healthy does of Tumblr-friendly homoeroticism, with the Red Dinner marking the brutal dissolution of their toxic bromance. In this way, when Will stumbles upon Pazzi, a detective who became equally obsessed with Hannibal in his early days, the two’s connection feels slightly akin to the natural bonding that tends to occur when two men (or women) who once shared the same traumatizing lover get to exchanging war stories.

Will’s recognition of Hannibal’s artwork subsequently triggers one of the most disturbing images in the history of the show (and that’s saying A LOT). As he takes a closer look at the heart, the pulpy mass suddenly starts beating like the actual human organ. To his horror, the body starts to unfurl and the form of the Black Stag begins pushing its way out of the torso’s bloodied orifices. And…I officially will not sleep for quite a while.

Will is brought out of his nightmare via the interference of Abigail. It’s here that our hero finally comes to terms, in the episode’s most devastating moment, with the fact that Hannibal never intended to let Abigail live to fight another day. “Like Lucy and the football, he keeps pulling you away,” Will says, in what has to be the saddest invocation of Peanuts ever. If that weren’t enough, Fuller and Co. dig the proverbial knife further into their audience’s abdomen by offering up a beautifully crafted montage depicting how the two beings were cared for in the wake of the Red Dinner. Whereas Will was placed on a white sheet, operated on and stitched together, Abigail is placed on a dark slab and prepped for burial. Soundtracking this is a gorgeous rendition of “Pie Jesu” by Gabriel Faure. Opera—it makes everything sadder.

The episode ends with Will descending into the Italian catacombs where he suspects (correctly) that Hannibal is residing. While the two do not meet face-to-face, Will senses the presence of his old friend. “I forgive you,” he proclaims, calling back to the opening scene. Thus, as the episode cuts to black, we are left uncertain as to where Will’s loyalties stand. Can he bring Hannibal to justice or is he doomed to once again fall back into old habits?

“Primavera” offers up the kind of cinematic grandeur demonstrated in “Antipasto” while upping the gore factor tremendously. As a result, the hour comes across as much more like a glorified Hannibal episode than the premiere, which felt like somewhat of a different beast entirely. “Everything that can happen happens,” Will tells Abigail at one point near the beginning. It’s not hard to image that phrase being plastered somewhere around the Hannibal writers’ room, a reminder that anything and everything is possible on this brilliant program.

Hannibal: “Primavera”

(Episode 3.02)