(S P O I L E R S)
In
which he got inside my head. I remember
a dream about drowning. And then being
awake. And not awake. Being myself, and not myself.
One of the great pleasures of
rewatching Hannibal in its entirety
has been being able to dissect the hazy nightmare world that Bryan Fuller and
his collaborators create, to savor the lush art direction and helter skelter
soundwork without the primary plot-driven concerns of an initial viewing (even
though the show’s labyrinthine plotting is still a part of this
experience.) Giving myself over to some
of the more outre moments, while also clinically studying all of the complex
psychological undertones and power dynamics has revealed so many levels of
richness in what on paper is a 43 minute per week, network remake of a cannibal
film. And to revel once again in the
darkest of dark humor in which the series trades? That’s almost a bonus.
But for all the discussion of how
deliriously warped and decadent Hannibal
is, the real human drama on display can sometimes be forgotten. I mentioned this in my essay about the death
of Beverly Katz, and the profound emotional scars it leaves on Jack, Will, and
the others. Watching “Yakimono” again, I
was deeply struck by how very real and disturbing an episode it is. For beyond the plot’s acceleration of the
hunt for Hannibal lies a raw examination of the horrifying aftermath of trauma.
In my essay for “Kaiseki”, I
mentioned how Will’s flashback to Hannibal inserting Abigail’s ear into his
stomach via feeding tube carried with it the queasy air of rape, especially in
the often homoerotic context layered over the two men’s relationship. “Yakimono” picks up this implication and runs
with it, reframing Hannibal as something more than just a empathy-free
sociopath. What first summoned up such
associations for me was the opening scene, in which the newly discovered Miriam
Lass is medically evaluated by Zeller and Price. We’ve seen the standard medium shot of this
process before, the featured character looking directly into the lens as their
possessions and physical characteristics are read over the soundtrack. It’s always featured the same mugshot blank
look on that character’s face. It’s not until
Miriam is subjected to this process that it becomes truly uncomfortable.
Credit Anna Chlumsky with selling
Miriam’s pain through the subtleties of her vacant stare. During her first conversation with Jack,
James Hawkinson frames both characters in tight side profile, a choice he hasn’t
often used in this series. It’s
reminiscent of Tak Fujimoto’s extensive usage of first person POV close ups in The Silence of the Lambs, which
simultaneously created a sense of intimacy and danger. Similarly here, the audience is forced to
stare at long, unbroken takes of Miriam recounting the trauma of her
imprisonment. Remove the fantastical
serial killer aspects, and her words (part of which form the quote at the
beginning of this essay) strikingly resemble those of a rape victim, or of
someone finally exiting an abusive relationship. We know that the strobe-like flashbacks of
her shadowy captor are Hannibal’s doing, but they also approximate the
suppressed memories of an attacker often associated with this type of
victimization. Granted, there’s no
explicit implication that Hannibal’s imprisonment of her contained sexual
assault. But when he attacks her in his
office in the Season 1 flashback, the way his dominant physicality takes her
from behind can’t be completely scrubbed of any latent sexuality.
And in this context, Will’s acquittal
and subsequent return to the real world in “Yakimono” also hammers home his
victim status. The clincher is his
conversation with Miriam, as the two survivors of Hannibal’s schemes share
their pain. Even though Will can now
remember those nefarious machinations, he still bears the same emotional wounds
that his youthful counterpart does.
Framed this way, his time in the BSPH dungeon is doubly upsetting; it’s
like the girl who’s been raped by the popular guy who no one would ever
blame. As Abel Gideon muses to Alana
before his death: “All the things that make us who we are. What has to happen to make those things
change?” Will Graham doesn’t start out
as a rock of stability, but when his breakdown is seen through the rape/assault
lens that Fuller uses in this episode, the depths to which he sinks to deal
with it are truly horrifying and heart-rending.
Even beyond Miriam and Will,
there’s the trauma of victimhood to be had with Frederick Chilton, everyone’s
favorite prick of a doctor. I’ve lauded
Raul Esparza before for the delight he takes in hamming it up as Chilton. What’s remarkable in these last few episodes
is how, much like Eddie Izzard did as Abel Gideon, he’s given the chance to
reveal the sympathetic, human side of what could easily become a
caricature. His very real fear of being
the next course on Hannibal’s plate becomes distinctly palpable as the plot
unfolds, especially when he awakens in his house after being drugged by his
nemesis, covered in blood he didn’t shed, the ingenious frame job
complete. Again, in the rape/assault
context presented here, he’s another one of Hannibal’s victims who’s been
drugged and left to awake to the aftermath of an unseen crime. When he eventually ends up in the
interrogation room with Alana (whose wine, it’s implied, was drugged in the
previous episode to make her complicit in Hannibal’s pursuit of Gideon…although
that too takes on some unsavory implications as well), he’s a clearly broken
man, the mask of smarm that he so expertly wears removed to show a despairing
blank stare, the same one that’s featured in that recurring medical intake shot
in which we saw Miriam earlier in the episode.
So when driven by the implanted false memory of him as her captor, she
shoots him in the face, it’s a disturbing conclusion to a cycle of trauma and
violence in which the perpetrator’s final joke is to make his victims
figuratively cannibalize each other.
None of this is to imply that
Bryan Fuller’s grand narrative gambit is to cast Hannibal Lecter as a
pseudo-rapist. That would profoundly
alter the fabric of the show, and skew the moral and ethical complexity of his
character towards something far more direct.
But viewing the brutal impact of his actions through this lens, even if
briefly, lends a devastating sense of gravitas and power to the series.
A few leftovers before we go:
*This episode marks the final
Season 2 appearance of Raul Esparza as Chilton.
Between having his kidney stolen and being shot in the face by Miriam,
he became the punching bag of the show.
And he’s returning in some role in Season 3, a survivor to the end!
*”I have to deal with you and my
feelings about you” says Will to Hannibal at the end of the episode. In the show’s latent homoerotic context, it’s
a humorous line. It also begins Will’s undercover
descent into Hannibal’s psyche, and the deeper entrenchment of the
ambiguity-laced romance between them.
*“I sowed the seeds and watched
them grow.” (Will, deep in his empathic vision, at the Ripper’s
hideaway/workshop.)
*“I would like to remain not dead
for the forseeable future.” (Universal insight and humor from Chilton.)
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