It feels like we’ve been sitting at this dinner table for days, watching and wondering if Will Graham’s head is going to split open like a watermelon. Just before Hannibal can completely kill Will, Mason’s fake police team barge in and apprehend Will and Hannibal. The police hired to kill Jack are suddenly gunned down by Chiyo, who fires her sniper from a nearby building’s roof, sparing Jack’s life. They officially meet and he says, “Wrong floor,” because he recognizes her as the girl who was on the elevator with him. Jack’s getting better at his Hannibal deadpan, which everyone successfully wears on their faces at all times.
But now that Hannibal and Will are at Mason’s pig ranch, what will he do to them? It seems Margot and Alana are still hatching a plan of their own. They need something from Mason-one thing really-and it’s the only reason they choose to keep him alive.
Margot and Alana confront Mason, prodding for answers about Hannibal’s fate, Mason mumbling something about Margot’s uterus again. He later asks Margot how long she and Alana have been together and Margot acts coy about it-her expression a mere shrug. She wouldn’t give Mason the pleasure of knowing her love life. He asks her if she’s “checked under the hood” to see how Alana’s uterus fairs. Blech.
There’s still plenty of talk about how this world will do without a Verger heir. If Mason dies, Margot wouldn’t get any of his cold hard dough. It would apparently all go to the Southern Baptist Church-oh, boy! But then Mason does this funny thing and fesses up that he has a surrogate baby with Verger blood in its body already hidden away from Margot without her ever knowing it was produced in the first place. She’s mortified and intrigued. She and Alana take off on a hunt to find the baby.
Alana visits Will. She says she’s Mason Verger’s newly appointed psychiatrist and Will asks who is receiving the actual treatment. Alana puts on her best Alana Bloom face but it’s awkward as fuck considering their own history, the fact that she is still alive, the fact that Will is still alive, and that they’re having this conversation on Mason’s property (because he, in fact, is still alive.)
Finally, all these people who Hannibal has tried to kill are standing around in a barn, and the possibility that one of them might free Hannibal is oh so possible. Because this is a TV show and Hannibal can’t be killed off-not yet. Then again, neither can Will.
Alana and Margot visit Hannibal and Alana asks Hannibal to promise that he’ll save Will from Mason. One of the twisted layers to Hannibal and Will’s friendship is that Hannibal is comfortable torturing Will, but he’d never allow another person to do the job for him. Will is his-he feels a duty to Will. But is it fueled by love or hate? Something good and something evil combined?
Alana frees Hannibal’s hand and leaves him a knife to struggle out of his ropes. No longer a caged animal, he will be certain he has the last laugh-and the first fork bite. Mason’s crazy assistant is telling Will about how he’s going to cut his face off and give it to Mason. He’s drawing the tiny markings along his jaw line as he instructs Will to let him know if it hurts-which it’s going to, because there’s no anesthetic at the Verger Hospital, now, is there?
Meanwhile Margot and Alana walk into the barn and stumble upon what they believe is the surrogate baby. It’s laying in a bloody boar’s surgically spliced open belly. Margot lifts the lifeless body and cradles it to her chest while Alana looks on her at her and down at the baby in awe. It’s maybe one of the most fucked up “birth” scenes two queer women on TV have ever been a part of. But it’s hard to say if this is a “birth” or if this is a really just a death. They take this newly discovered information back to Mason to rub it in his face.
Speaking of Mason’s face, we can see that its covered now not by Will’s facial flesh, but by Mason’s assistant. We know that Hannibal has successfully spared Will, and the girls should know now too, that Hannibal stuck by his word. Alana makes some mention of how they can just extract his prostate and whip up a little magic and produce an heir like that-they don’t even need him to be alive anymore. Realizing he is alone and in danger, Mason reaches for a tiny pistol but the girls lunge at him and recover the gun before he can shoot it off.
At Will Graham’s little cabin in the woods, Hannibal watches Will wake up in his bed and Will instructs Hannibal to leave. He says he’ll miss his dogs, but he won’t miss Hannibal, and he doesn’t want to think about him for another moment. A nice thought, Will, but we all know this won’t be the last you’ve seen of your near and dear Dr. Lecter. Outside, Hannibal has a chat with Chiyo, who never puts down her gun. She doesn’t kill him then and there on that porch, because characters with opportunity never take their chances-even when the stars align, the air is quiet, no one is looking, and they can do it. She doesn’t kill Hannibal and he walks off into the forest.
What do you think Margot and Alana will do with that baby? Is Mason gone for good now? Does Margot really need to create a Verger heir? Does she really care about receiving this cold family money so much? Is Scully-excuse me-Dr. Bedelia gone for good? What’s next for Hannibal now?
Tune in Saturdays at 10/9 c for an all new episode of Hannibal on NBC and tweet me @the_hoff to discuss all things #MargotandAlana!
