Hannibal is in a massive trouble spot ratings wise. It is unclear the if the show will be continuing into a season two at all. This is a damn shame as once again there was an incredible level of quality of this week. Hannibal is starting to wind towards the end of the season, and the way it is going to be structured will be interesting. The reason for this being that the show has had some procedural elements of week to week killers. Only the mystery of Garett Jacob Hobbs has plagued the minds of everyone throughout this season. Not counting the ramifications of the one and only Dr. Lector, and the sanity of Graham. Season finales are often a difficult part of the season to perfect because audience expectations are much higher. Eventually the show has to shed the week to week killers, and give the characters some more time to breath. Still getting this far into the show and only having one meager complaint is quite impressive. This show has entertained against all odds including the network in which it airs. Despite the drama surrounding the background of the show, this episode was still great!

Graham took a vacation to Grafton in West Virginia with some of his best friends. When he got there a totem pole began to alter the course of his life. All season long the build up of Will shedding his sanity has been a prominent plot point. The mystery of how exactly his mental health is related to the moose and Hobbs, has still not been shown. Whenever the favored FBI consultant has profiled someone the results have been visually stimulating. The surprise profile toward the end of the episode was a great twist. It had also been justified earlier on in the hour by the clues of the mental health beginning to break. One would wonder if this is how Graham would poke the holes inside of the titular serial killer. During the course of this episode new and old lies were crafted, shattered, and broken. Will is not doing himself any favors by keeping secrets from Jack. The character does not lie very well either. This week’s killer had an interesting mantra as he wanted to be seen. The characters of the show started to poke through his lies, and at the end the killer was as vulnerable as his victims. Still his subtle sense of calm upon being revealed was a sense of clarity that only a true sociopath would have. Seeing someone so raw with pure evil was visceral.

This was all spun around the plot point with Abigail and the good doctor which had been absent for a few weeks. Lector seemed bloodthirsty in some of his earlier meetings with Abigail this episode. However revealing himself to Will towards the end was the route he decided to take. This was an incredibly risky move that shows how he is smarter than the other serial killers on this show, who would have simply killed her. The company he keeps shows the complete confidence that is kept with the physician. It was interesting how Jack figured out there was something wrong with the youngest Hobbs daughter so rapidly. He also knew who was and was not hiding something from him. The question needs to be asked, How much longer can this charade possibly go on? The audience of the show should should have no doubts that the answer will be satisfactory. While this was not the greatest episode of the show, it moved the pieces along in all the right ways. Most importantly even though this was a setup episode, it still managed to be entertaining.

5/5